No wonder most Aspies have such low self-esteem!

Post Reply New Topic

Heres another thing that irks me, the "have confidence in yourself" statement. Well how do you have confidence in yourself if you get pushed down your entire life?

I agree with this topic so much. I had a similar situation with NT hypocrisy:
NT: You can tell me anything. I won't get mad. If it's something I've done to upset you please tell me. If you don't feel like talking, you can tell me about it later. I'm ready to talk anytime your are.
Me: *Writes them the truth about what they did that made me upset/sad.*
NT: *Explode into rage blaming me for being rude.*

Note: When I'm really upset I loose my speech. So I type out what I am feeling since I can't verbally tell them.

What I've learned: When someone wants you to be truthful with them, LIE.

Truthfully, I don't understand what they mean by self esteem

I currently meet with a social worker every few weeks as a condition of voc rehab paying for a little help with classes. She pushes me to be more social. Since I have never been officially diagnosed with anything on the spectrum (but over the last 30 years have been told I have many different things by the bozos I have seen) she tries to indicate that my lack of desire to have "friends", be more outgoing etc, is due to my low self esteem. I have told her more than once, I think rather highly of myself, it's other people I have the low opinion of. I have even shared a little with her about the weird situations I have been in, about abusive situations that started with me as a child, included first boyfriend, two husbands, quite a number female "friends" (included in this are the "friends" that back stab, cheat with your "man", steal from you, call you over the least little upset then never have any time, or blame me for any difficulties I have etc.

So, apparently, the concept of self esteem is something that "most people" don't actually possess, but need to have reflected back at them by the people in their lives, and that is why they have them. She tells me I need a support system, need to trust etc.
Not really impressed with her either, but she is not too bad as far as people go, just typical. Has her own issues, has made several snarky remarks about weight, exercise, even made a nasty comment when showing me a picture of her son. ("he's really put on weight" with a sneery tsk tsk look), so......

Followers are frightened by non followers, oh, hell, it might make them think, oh no, can't have that!

In 6th grade I told my mother other kids were allowed to misbehave and I wasn't. Mom went to my school and talked to my student teacher and aid and school principal. They decided to record me in class so they did just that. What my mother saw was kids goofing off in their seats and talking and throwing things while the student teacher was going bla bla bla on a math assignment. I was sitting at my desk reading and my teacher take the book away and tell me I need to pay attention. I would write and she would take that away too so I would fall asleep. Mom asked them "that's what you call disrespect?" and she always stood on my side.


I remember being in 4th and 5th grade and we watched a video they took of me in class in may 1996. Kids were doing goofy things like stacking books on his head and I was perfect. Then later in the film I start to make funny faces at my friend and hissing at her and sticking my tongue out and she was doing the same. But she had her hand over her mouth so you couldn't see in the camera. Teachers made a big deal out of it and ignored the silly things other kids did earlier in the video. I argued with them and was pissed they were picking on me. Even my mom was pissed too about it.

In high school kids do things but whenever I do things, kids tattle on me. One of them be one of them touch the fire extinguisher and the sound go off. A teach come out in the hallway and not one student would say who did it. I didn't know who did it so I couldn't say either. But when I do it, they say I did it. My shrink explained to me there was a social rule that you are not to tell on your friends but because I am not their friends, they told on me but if I were their friends, they wouldn't tell on me.

I'm addressing this issue with my daughters social skills teacher right now actually. I am dead set against teaching her a set of rules that do not apply evenly to everyone. If my daughter learns a rule she follows it - to the letter. The problem is the 'normal' kids rarely do. I'm trying to get the point across that they need to teach the all the shades of grey within a rule as well. Only teaching 'the rule' will only make kids even bigger targets in many ways.

I learned early on that you watch the way your friends treat other people - because you are next in line for that same treatment should things go south. I am fairly standoffish and keep to myself until I have enough time to observe someone and make a decision about them based on what I see. Casual meetings are one thing but potential friends can be dangerous if you don't look before you leap into a relationship.

wow....i never realized this....well im openly rude nowadays to NTs, i dont care anymore....

Ah yes the double standards, those are always fun....for the longest time I always tried to be the good kid, and I still got just as much hell for it so eventually I gave up on that.

I remember when I was six, our teacher would not allow us to say pee or poop or potty. We had to say bathroom. This was in special ed. As I got older I noticed how normal kids can say these things and teachers don't say a word about it but special ed teachers make their special needs students say "bathroom."

It does sound weird to me to see a grown up say they have to pee or use the potty. It sounds so childish. It was even weird hearing teens say that in my high school. "I have to pee."

Really if parents and teachers are not going to be teaching their normal kids and student to say bathroom, they should let their special needs kids and students say it too and not teach to them to say bathroom only.


To this day I still say bathroom or restroom. The other words sound so childish. But I have noticed the double standards too between normal kids and special needs kids. Luckily my mother treated my brothers and I the same. Rules I had, my brothers had the same rules too. She was even visual with them too so I wouldn't feel I had something wrong with me just because she was doing it with me only so she did it with my brothers too so it all look normal. I grew up believing that is how you teach kids so it baffled me how they were saying you had to be visual with autistic kids so what was the difference between normal kids needing things to be visual and autistic kids? It just didn't make any sense why it was such a big fuss over how you should be visual with autistic kids.

exactly

My sister is also an Aspie, but she's always worked on making herself appear more normal, etc. etc. She told me the other day, that if you appear 'normal', people are more willing to ignore/forget any social feaupa (sp?).

NT behavior may seem discernable but when trying to assimilate and anticipate thier behavior with written rules , we fail because humans are capricious and to them it's natural.

My suggestion is do what's natural for yourself , and if someone looks at you , thier is no need to live under rules that tell you not to look back when your not suppose to just because they make you feel unvarying, just look back , who cares.

No wonder I have such high self-esteem.