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muntanmion
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15 Oct 2012, 9:08 pm

I'm curious about something. I'm recently confirmed as having mild Asperger's at the age of 58, so I'm on the older side of the "age specturm" here. In the mix with my lifelong autistic traits, gayness and interpersonal difficulties was a particularly nasty and tenacious vein of self-hatred, which has mostly faded away as I've grown to accept myself and become pretty functional over the long-term.

I'm wondering if others here have grappled with self-hatred or having a very poor self-image? Is this common in people who on the autistic spectrum, or is this more related to co-morbidities, crappy families, social rejection, feelings of frustration or disability, etc.?


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Morningstar
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16 Oct 2012, 12:01 am

I don't think I started out with self-hatred, but everyone else seems to hate me now, so it's started to grow on me. Again, I guess. I have experienced this "fading away as I've grown to accept myself" feeling too, but um...let's just say I haven't had a great past few months.

When I was a little kid, though, I was afraid to look in the mirror or say my own name for some reason. I wonder if that had to do with the same feelings. I also wanted to die when I was 2 or 3, but didn't understand the complexity or severity of such emotions at the time. I just tried falling off the swings when my mom said I couldn't play with the girl next door, when I was sure nobody was watching. Hm, I don't know, maybe I have always hated myself subconsciously.

I'm 27 and not officially diagnosed, but I did have the crappy family, social rejection, etc. So I'm not really sure which it could be. I suppose somebody with Asperger's who grew up in an accepting environment wouldn't feel any self-hatred.



muntanmion
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16 Oct 2012, 1:35 am

Morningstar, although empathy is not my most developed quality, I do feel your pain.


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emimeni
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16 Oct 2012, 11:08 pm

I used to really hate myself as a tween/teenager. No longer. I do have really tough moments, usually during a meltdown, but I am doing better at loving myself every day.


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muntanmion
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17 Oct 2012, 12:42 am

emimeni wrote:
I used to really hate myself as a tween/teenager. No longer. I do have really tough moments, usually during a meltdown, but I am doing better at loving myself every day.


Good to hear that. :-)


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maroptmax
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17 Oct 2012, 7:11 am

muntanmion wrote:
I'm curious about something. I'm recently confirmed as having mild Asperger's at the age of 58, so I'm on the older side of the "age specturm" here. In the mix with my lifelong autistic traits, gayness and interpersonal difficulties was a particularly nasty and tenacious vein of self-hatred, which has mostly faded away as I've grown to accept myself and become pretty functional over the long-term.

I'm wondering if others here have grappled with self-hatred or having a very poor self-image? Is this common in people who on the autistic spectrum, or is this more related to co-morbidities, crappy families, social rejection, feelings of frustration or disability, etc.?


I think that you're trying to pick fly poop out of finely ground pepper.

I have yet to meet anyone - especially not among those who can lay the best claims to being "normal" - who is not (get to know him/her) a MESS. It's true - the prettier the wrapping, the uglier the contents. To me it seems that - if nothing else - the obvious human wreck is at least honest.

We're all battered, shocked, frightened, lost, desperate; it's just that many possess skills that allow them to pretend that they are otherwise. Don't be fooled! - and don't look down on people: have compassion for your fellow sufferers.

The World is a used car lot, and everyone is a salesman (especially those who say they are not). Remember: walls are there so that people can turn the worst dents in their direction.



Bartolome
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17 Oct 2012, 11:11 am

The school system had no idea how to deal with me in the late eighties/early nineties before there was any awareness about Asperger's. I just got off the phone with my Mom. I was telling her about how specific decisions made in regards to my education (for example, being made to repeat kindergarten and being denied participation in my school's gifted program despite my obvious gifts) basically led to a life of humiliation and shame. Now, I work in mental health, with kids on the Spectrum, and a lot of them remind me very closely of the way I used to be. And I am very good at my job. I have measurably improved my client's lives by treating them with the same respect and dignity that I missed out on. But the pain doesn't go away. If anything, it's gotten worse, and has made me quite depressed, knowing that the past cannot be changed. Doesn't matter what I do now. Doesn't matter. I still feel that humiliation and shame that I did when I was 7 years old.



muntanmion
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17 Oct 2012, 3:16 pm

maroptmax wrote:
I think that you're trying to pick fly poop out of finely ground pepper.

I have yet to meet anyone - especially not among those who can lay the best claims to being "normal" - who is not (get to know him/her) a MESS. It's true - the prettier the wrapping, the uglier the contents. To me it seems that - if nothing else - the obvious human wreck is at least honest.

We're all battered, shocked, frightened, lost, desperate; it's just that many possess skills that allow them to pretend that they are otherwise. Don't be fooled! - and don't look down on people: have compassion for your fellow sufferers.

The World is a used car lot, and everyone is a salesman (especially those who say they are not). Remember: walls are there so that people can turn the worst dents in their direction.


I'm not really sure if everyone is a mess or truly battered, shocked, frightened, lost, & desperate. You could argue that there are spectrums for all of those things; the ways and degrees in which humans suffer or can get damaged, traumatized or screwed are staggering in their variety.

I do know that many people pass for "normal" who are inwardly wretched and crazy. It might just be a bit of good luck that I was never very successful in doing that.


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identity
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19 Oct 2012, 7:41 am

I seem to have very deep rooted feelings of self loathing. It's there all the time even though sometimes it's not foremost in my mind, then other times it gets chronic. Not quite sure exactly what the root of it is though, but I suspect it's a combination of lots of things.



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19 Oct 2012, 8:04 am

ATM, I'm not sure if I have self-hatred but many times I wish I wasn't born at all.


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MindBlind
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19 Oct 2012, 5:08 pm

I have a pretty low self esteem. I can't be certain if it is totally related to aspergers. I know that perfectionism is often related to aspergers and I am very much like this. I'm an all or nothing thinker. It's totally irrational and very detrimental to my mental wellbeing, my productivity and my interpersonal relationships. Never quite got over it. Don't think I ever can. Not very cheery, but there you go.



muntanmion
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19 Oct 2012, 5:20 pm

I think with me it originated with getting reminded over and over again as I was growing up about how different I seemed to be from other kids, and thinking, "what's wrong with me?", "why can they do those things and I can't?", "why am I here by myself and they are all over here having fun, playing, etc.?". Then I hit puberty, began to realize in a very inarticulate way I was not heterosexual, and got zapped by a bad case of zits on top of it all, way back in the late 1960s.

Amazingly, I was never suicidal.


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20 Oct 2012, 1:24 pm

I have an extremely low self-esteem. I know exactly why, because for four years at school I was viciously bullied, my name was changed to 'the ret*d', I was attacked outside of home, I was told I was rubbish by teachers (unrecognised LD) and generally felt rubbish. Life is better now, but I can't get out of this constant self-loathing. I am hopefully getting CBT in the near future which should help.


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muntanmion
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20 Oct 2012, 11:46 pm

Jellybean, what happened to you is awful. I do hope CBT helps you become victorious over the mean and stupid people who made you suffer.


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Cuckooflower
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25 Oct 2012, 7:02 pm

It's hard to know exactly the origins of self hate and self harm if you have Autism and various other comorbidities as I, and obviously you and others on here do.

I also had a very abusive family experience, and spent my adolescence in institutional care that was highly abusive and gave me severe PTSD. It's taken me about eight years to process some of the memories. It was hell. And I've had a lot of repeated bad experiences since then, and years and years of addiction and suicidal depression as a result of all these experiences combined.
I can see this is a result of what other people did to me, and that too causes crippling sadness and anger because it wasn't my fault, THEY are the reason I have scars on my body, and worn down teeth and so on.
Except......it's so hard to know where one begins and another ends. I was scapegoated in my family, and I can see it was because I was basically the most sensitive and vulnerable. My other two siblings are not ASC.

I have also been bullied in pretty much every situation I've ever been in, although I've scratched back some shreds of self esteem in the last year just through very, very hard work and being around people who treated me with a modicum of respect for a change.

I used to apologise all the time, about everything, because I felt I had no right to exist. I couldn't stand up for myself, and had no self esteem whatsoever. I am actually able to be assertive now, which is an incredible achievement. However I have to stay right away from three members of my immediate family otherwise all that hard works just goes to nothing from one look or word from them, and I've found myself attracting more abusive experiences since being an adult, and it's taken me years and years to learn to pick up the signs of someone who is bad for me and to set appropriate boundaries.
It's such a f*****g long haul!! ! :(
As people with ASCs and particularly those of us who have already experienced abuse and bullying, it's really important to learn how we are playing into people bullying us. It only makes us shy away from the world, hating it and ourselves.
Much of this bullying starts by osmosis, which is so horrible. I am convinced people pick up our difference below the verbal level. Which is why it is even more important to become less open and more guarded and assertive. It's harder for people to bully you if you keep them guessing.

So, yeah, I definitely think my tendency to self harm and self hate in the past has been due to my upbringing and experiences, however there is something about having this Autism that has given me certain personality traits that make me prone to deep depression and self destruction as well I think.
I too remember thoughts of dying when very young; putting my head under the water and trying not to come up when I was about ten or something.
That was about the time various eating disorders started for me as well, and to be honest I can see that was partly my own personality.


But yeah, being told you're a horrible, disgusting, evil, worthless, BAD person all your life certainly doesn't help.
It took me being around two groups of people over the last year who reflected something totally different back at me to help me realise how completely untrue those things are, and that they were all projections of my parents own f****d up pathologies and my siblings just taking out their anger on me at not having been loved by these two disturbed people..........

But it will take a lifetime of work, you just have to be committed. I know now that I am very nice, kind, sensitive, thoroughly GOOD person with perfectly normal HUMAN short-comings, but getting all these things people have said out of my head is another matter........................It cuts you to the CORE of your being.

I'm still suicidal most of the time, but I'm still only 25 so whilst I am angry and sad that I never got the chance to enjoy being young and have to use my adult life to recover from what's happened to me, I still pray and hope I have a fighting chance at a real life somehow.

I think self hate is basically never justified unless you really are an unfeeling person to the extreme, like someone with psychopathy or someone who has ordered a war or stolen land and resources at the expense of other human beings. Those are harder things to forgive. But otherwise we must all try hard to dispel the feeling.....


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Cuckooflower
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25 Oct 2012, 7:28 pm

By the way, I just realised I wrote a lot more than anyone esle.

Part of my Aspieness is to go into great detail; I find it hard to be succinct when I write about something, otherwise I feel like I can't express it, for some reason............
Just to explain.





I'm not really sure if everyone is a mess or truly battered, shocked, frightened, lost, & desperate. You could argue that there are spectrums for all of those things; the ways and degrees in which humans suffer or can get damaged, traumatized or screwed are staggering in their variety.


I very much agree with this. Whilst human beings are a f****d up bunch in general (and just being physically alive in a highly confusing world is sure hard enough for everyone), and even people who have easy and trauma-free lives (and they do exist) still have plenty of idiosyncrasies, one of the most cruel and unjust paradoxes of our shared existence is that some people suffer much, much more than others, and can do in so many different ways, that it just....makes no sense, and has no reason to it.
It's kind of indiscriminately horrifying.

It has taken me years to understand that only the people that were in the institutions with me will ever know what happened to us in those places. I used to find it really hard to know that other people I met could never understand what it was like. And then I randomly bumped into a girl who I grew up with in there after years of being out of touch, and I suddenly realised that only she, and the others, could truly understand.

It was the deep and complete understanding that she had of what I felt and had been through, that I cannot get from anyone who wasn't there as well. It staggered me. I had walled myself off from all the people I met there for years, so this realisation was more marked as a result.
I guess I had just forgotten that I could even get that kind of empathy. It just broke my heart to see she was still very traumatised and paralysed in her life as well.

And I knew then that I just had to stand alone with it otherwise. The same way anyone who has ANY rarefied traumatic experience has to. That's just how it is.
It has taken me a long time to accept and intellectually process that.

And I'm sure this is true of so many different experiences that many people go through and cannot share.


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