How do you accept yourself?

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I have been diagnosed with Aspergers during a time in my life in which I was struggling heavily. During that time when I had help I was convinced I was okay and lived a pretty fruitful life. Nowadays having gone through depression, social anxiety and all sorts, I am starting to think more and more I genuinely have Aspergers. I find it hard to accept this, as I can only see the negative aspects. I can make friends, but I struggle to maintain the relationships and bring it on to the next level; boy or girl. Weirdly enough I have always wanted to improve my social life, which I think is really lacking, because I genuinely enjoy friendship,etc. just struggle maintaining it.

All in all, I can't help but be frustrated and cannot forgive myself for who I am. It is destroying my self image and confidence, but I feel I have no other choice. Am I looking in a negative light? What advice and hope can be brought upon me to give me a more healthy and substantial life.



Ed

The difference between accepting yourself and not accepting yourself is about the belief that change can happen. When you don't accept yourself or don't forgive yourself you are saying "This is who I am and nothing can change."

When you do accept yourself you say "This is not who I am, this is what I DID and I can change what I do."

When talking about relationships and moving them to deeper friendships there are things you can DO to improve. The difficulty here is figuring out where to learn them and how to practice them. The people who are good at relationships do everything so quickly they're really acting by instinct and not by conscious thought. So, even though these people are good at relationships, they are unaware of what's actually happening and can't explain it.

And it's important to focus on the word PRACTICE. No one plays the violin without practice. No one runs a marathon without practice. No one designs a space shuttle without practice. So even though you do something and fail, you practiced and that is improvement.

I find it very difficult to accept myself especially when I throw an umbrella across the room and break a picture on the wall because of an argument with my moms stupid boyfriend.

He probably shouldn't have tossed it at me, not that it makes it any better. Basically he gave me a broken umbrella that wouldn't work and I was trying to convince him to give me one of the good ones for a walk...and he was really intent on not so I expressed I was kind of pissed about it but decided to just leave without one. So I came back up from my room to leave and he started bitching and tossed it to me while my back was turned...so I picked it up and threw it back before I had any time to think about it.

I don't.

Off-topic: Wow, you look really good in your pic.

one must accept oneself, because there are no trade-ins available.

I have posted this elsewhere, but I write my unforgivable defects down on my skin in sharpie. Then while I wash the words away, I figure out ways to change.

I also think of an "ideal" version of me. Some years of my life I'm proud of & try to recreate the surrounding circumstances so that I can be that person again.

I believe that acceptance is about finding peace with yourself. My mother always told me, long before I was suspected to be on the spectrum, that every single person has their own set of limitations, and their own strenghts. Once you know what yours are, you can celebrate your strenghts and work out tools and strategies to mitigate or work around your weaknesses. Acceptance is not about defeat or change, in my mind. It's about letting go of the self-incriminations and realize that some things can never be changed, while other things can be changed.

I am not the least bit religious, but you know that serenity prayr that they use in AA?

I skip the god-part, make it into a request to myself; I neet to find the serenity within myself to accept, find my strenght and courage to change, and develop my wisdom to know the difference. To me, the concept holds true.

As for finding or developing a relationship... My firm belief is that you have to be somehow friends with yourself before being able to have a healthy and successful one with someone else. I believe that when you get to a point where you are genuinly content with being the individual that you are, you will be able to see the world in a different light, and the world will be able to see you in a different light. It may sound like bull$hit, but there is something infinitely attractive about people who are comfortable being themselves.

I accept things as they are. Which isn't to say I'm going to do nothing about them. Quite the opposite. I can't do anything unless I recognize what's in front of me. I can't improve or change myself for the better if I don't accept me as I am now. I see acceptance as what evert it is, what it currently is. What I do with what I accept is something else.

This goes along the idea that the first step to addiction recovery is recognizing you have a problem. If you don't accept that the problem is there, you will never do anything about it. For me as examples, I accept that I'm overweight. I am thus working to lose the unneccessary weight and be healthy. I accept that I have poor eyesight. I make choices accordingly such as wearing my glasses, and not being a dick back to people who are dicks about me being colorblind(which happens quite often). I accept that I am transgender, and thus I work myself to transition.

To me it seems refusing to accept things as they are is kind of crazy. I abhor it when something exists or some action is taken and people act stupid and blatantly say, That can't happen, or that's not possible. I scratch my head and go, but it did, just now, right in front of you. Are you an idiot... were you dropped on your head as a child and are stupid. But I finally realized that some people can't handle what they deem as an imperfections or a black swan events in their lives.

So I accept everything. I see it that it's not like creation is getting uncreated... or the "laws" of physics are being broken, so anything that happens or exists, is fair game to be qualified and quantified and well, accepted that it is as it is. Even if you take after the idea that nothing is real and it's all an illusion, then you still quantified whatever it is as something illusory. So it's all illusions, then accept it as all being fake and act accordingly.

I have a few things I've figured out

No matter how strange things get, it still is reality.

Nothing happens instantaneously. Everything takes time from seconds to billions of years depending on what it is.

For every cause and or effect that affects your life, there is probably one right behind it, and another waiting in line after it.

Acceptance doesn't mean stasis.

I stood back one day and thought OK, this is what you have.
Now make it work. And enjoy what you can.

I don't think I can express it better than EmberEyes.

Self-acceptance is crucial, it is not easy and can take time.

Remember you have only one life, and this is it, so make the best of it.

I was about to say it is not easy being an aspie, but then I realised that I don't have a choice and don't know what it is like not to be one. It is what I am and I think I have make quite a good go of it.

Thanks for the replies guys, some very nice tips and considerate posts.

I have noticed I was having a bad day and going through a difficult time filled with frustration. All I can say right now is I'm going out of my way to resolve myself of that frustration. So I can be happier in myself. I should try to lower my standards, as you very well know, life, in general is not easy.

I'm going to embrace what everyone has said so far and just see what it's like to not shy away from who I am, what I am. Nothing glares out, it's all in the inside.