Autistic Confidence and Self Worth

[@Hopie_T]

Living with autism feels like going out into the world, being trampled by everything and everyone, struggling with everything, people telling you you're not really struggling, you're just being weak, lazy, haven't tried enough... And then being told "you should have more self esteem, have some faith in yourself". But when I'm on my own, doing my own things, I do pretty well. I like myself. I feel like I could do anything, I just need to find the right way to do it. And then I go out into the world again and have people get angry and laugh in my face for thinking I can break out of the norm at all. And it feels like they are dooming me into never being able to do anything, just because I can't follow their nonsensical protocols. I also hate fawning. I could be angry with a person for weeks, practice all the ways to confront them, share my thoughts and feelings and then the time comes and they are like "oh I'm terrible" and I'm like "eh, it's okay, it happens, right?". And then I get right back to being angry at them after they leave and angry at myself for letting them off the hook so easily. That happened with my therapist by the way. I dislike them, I want to stop seeing them, I feel hurt by them but I keep going back because I've fawned so hard, it would be out of character to go cold all of a sudden.

[@magnus6881]

Yes, exactly! You describe it very well.

[@Isaac-hm6ih]

Yes, I feel a lot of the same, if probably to a lesser degree by the sound of it. Something I've found which helps me is to try to care about others' needs less, so as to leave enough room for my own. To quote a musical* "ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves". Doing what's necessary for me rather than twisting myself and putting in vast amounts of effort to avoid being rude has been a huge relief, feeling that I'm able to let myself be me. I'm currently working on balancing it with still being nice, for both ethical and practical reasons. I swung too far into prioritising myself when I started doing it, and haven't found the right balance yet. But do consider how much harm jumping to do what people ask does to yourself, when they don't understand your context: refusing them might be a net mercy. * footnote: EPIC, an adaptation of the Odyssey being gradually released online. It should come up if you search this site for it. Highly recommended if you like rather dark musicals.

[@steveneardley7541]

My father was so ridiculously demeaning and abusive that from the 8th grade, I saw him as the enemy. More importantly, I didn't believe all his stuff about me being worthless. In 12th grade I won a concerto competition, and played the Schumann A minor piano concerto with an adult orchestra. I did well. My parents drove me there, and didn't give me ONE WORD of praise on the way home. I didn't expect it, because I never got any praise--ever. But this is what I mean. I didn't take them seriously. I knew I had accomplished something whether they thought so or not. I didn't really know why they seemed so intent on breaking down my sense of self-worth, but that's the reality I grew up with. Many other parents on my block weren't much better.

[@kubiiz4life]

I’m autistic too high functioning don’t really have any sensory issues but my ability to read social situations is a different story

[@bhutjolokia6990]

I'm going to share a poem and it was written by me. "YOU" Yourself Being introspective and exploring who you are Helps you to really know yourself Knowing your true self Gives you the ability to be yourself You are truly special and unique Now you can love yourself Now that you are finally true You can now be yourself This beautiful internal journey Was done by "YOU" Yourself!! Signed; Finally "ME"

[@willneilson]

I love it

[@bhutjolokia6990]

@@willneilson thank you, I appreciate you!!👻🌶♾️

[@Reed5016]

This was beautiful.

[@bhutjolokia6990]

@@Reed5016 thank you!!😊

[@cheesevenom376]

Hello. I just want to say that I'm being assessed for autism and your videos have been helping me with impostor syndrome. I often ask like what right do I have to get an official diagnosis when there's people out there with extreme autistic traits that require assistance and support whereas my issues could just be called anxiety and depression and all I need is therapy (Although it was my therapist who suggested I may have it). It's a long wait to get the official answer to whether I have it or not so my brain is constantly yapping and switching opinions on the matter. It's tiring but your perspective helps me a lot. Thank you.

[@magnus6881]

I hope you find therapy helpful for you. I'm also diagnosed with autism and I often have this impostor synonym feeling.

[@magnus6881]

I'm also autistic and I find out your videos very relatable. I have low self esteem mostly because I don't have job and I'm not fully independent person.

[@DJ_Black_Tourmaline]

my parents don't believe level 1 & 2 autism exist and they don't believe that i even am autistic; they just think i'm incompetent at life. of course the solution to this is lecturing me to "try harder" while simultaneously telling me i'm not capable of doing anything and undermining any confidence i do have. they compare me to my NT siblings and constantly praise them in comparison to me. they try to discourage me from practicing religion or making music and just want me to work 60 hours a week which is just not happening. all of life to them is serving the interests of Capital in order to attain a mate to have children that will become servants of Capital. i know we are living under Capitalist control and all must serve Capital on threat of execution or imprisonment but that doesn't mean it has to be the central meaning and focus of my life. i am allowed to decide that for myself. i hope that my legacy will be my kindness & my discography, not "he sure worked a lot to make money for our benevolent overlords".

[@kr1221E]

I can relate to what you say. Fawning. Self worth. You help me feel less alone. I watched your video twice as I got distracted by your cat Otis, what a beauty.

[@iankretschmer559]

As a high masking late diagnosed autistic I can project self-confidence. But confidence, self worth and self esteem are for me really different things. From how you talk you seem for me to have the same problem as me that your self worth is tied to your ability to achieve. Which it should not. You should value yourself just for you, but I also never learned that. I am quite confident, as long as I am fit, which I am not at the moment. But I have achieved quite a bit, so I can be. Building confidence is quite hard, and you should have had the support you. talked about. But confidence can grow, you just need to acknowledge your own abilities. Which brings me to self esteem, which for me is to value your own achievements Not against the achievements of others and compare, but for yourself. For me that is a big challeng, as I cannot compare my points with someone else and try to judge rational. It means acknowledging your own steps for yourself and giving them emotional weight to feed your self esteem. And here are some pointers for you... Your channel is a nice corner, just be proud of it and let that feeling settle in. Try not to evaluate it, just feel good about it. I will try to do the same about something for me. It is sometimes soo frustating to be able to logically explain and understand how to better oneself and be emotionally unable to do it.

[@benjohansen7997]

I don't know for a fact if I am autistic or not yet but I am going through the diagnostic process right now. I get what you're talking about and have experienced it myself, like, how I will be percieved but I think the most damaging thing to my self worth is the comparison of others capabilities to my own and my exhaustion threshold compared to others. I have developed a pretty bad inferiority complex due to this and fail to see my achievements when I do do something that others praise.

[@radishraven9]

Hmm you raise a great point about the liking yourself only becomes a problem when it relates to other people. I really relate. Also i am sorry that you almost never got positive feedback growing up 😞 i got positive feedback often regarding my work and school but often i would get such rough criticism about being too shy and nervous which, guess what? Made me even more shy and nervous! Yay! 😂 Anyway once again thanks for the video! I just got an autism diagnosis on friday and I want to thank you for helping me on my journey! 😊❤

[@smawrtygowty5269]

The way I giggled at you saying “I’ve got milk and cat food” you’re a joy. Made my day. You have no idea how much sounding wrong I have had in my daily life. I use it now to my advantage and crack jokes with it.

[@MorbinNecrim86]

I have no self worth, and I gave up caring a while ago, it's a shit way to live but you get used to it, just the norm. It's all good if you ramble, feel free to ramble on

[@laura.bseyoga]

Nah - we all know you meant the cat food is for Otis! I totally get what you mean about feeling ok about myself when I'm alone & not being perceived. It's so hard to be misunderstood & excluded & not knowing why. 💚

[@kalasimsy2966]

This really got me thinking! I can relate. I think I am awesome and smart and have great ideas, but all most people are intrested in is if you have a job, if you succeed at that job, if you've got a romantic partner, etc, etc.

[@simonmcglary]

I’ve always been happier blending in to the background and behind the scenes. I often get praised for what I am able to do, I have issues with that. I see it as doing what I should be doing but apparently I’m going over and above. I’m very self critical of myself, I get praise and it can lead to self destruct!

[@thethegreenmachine]

I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words today. Playing this video twice helped a little. I hope this makes sense and doesn't come off badly. Society's values are not what they should and could be. That's what comes to mind when you talk about how you feel when you're alone compared to when you're with others. It's also what came to mind when you talked about things you're good at in other videos. We have the technology to provide more than enough for everyone, but what you're good at doesn't pay the rent because it's not valued. There are things I'm good at that don't pay the rent because people who aren't as good at it are a lot faster and, therefore, cheaper.

[@helenaskew4851]

HI dana, I can relate to you with todays video as I have had those situations myself. Us autistic people dont have it easy. it can be hard. we are different to NT people. Otis is adorable !

[@TheCassierra908]

I understand what you're saying about self worth struggles. I deal with that so much. I have found i can build myself up sometimes on my own, only to not stand up for myself when I should. Recently though I actually did stand up for myself and cut off a family member who had not respected me for the past 2 years and probably longer. I think I only did that because they pushed me too far. I should have done something sooner probably but I am proud of myself for actually doing it. Its all a struggle though sometimes.

[@SensitiveOne]

Thank you for sharing. Relating to a lot of this. Self-diagnosed.I couldn't act either for the most part and sought to be validated by romantic partners. My self-worth is mostly built on my contrast to other people or the internal world I build.

[@choochoooliver]

I think it’s so hard for autistic people to have self-esteem and self-confidence because in order to fit in with the world we have to mask who we are all the time. so we’ve always had from when we were young a kind of unspoken rule of you’re not good enough imposed upon us by society in general I love acting and I haven’t done acting for about a decade and I’ve just got back into it, but the reason that I love acting Ive found is that it gives me the opportunity to not be me for awhile and I find that heartbreaking. It does boost self-esteem but it only boost my self-esteem when it goes well having just got back into acting I’ve just done my first audition and I haven’t got a part that I’d like and I’ve been grappling with that and I found it devastating, and even though logically I know that it could be for 1 billion different reasons I only see it as I’m not good enough. I’m trying super hard to try and boost my self-esteem and self-confidence but I find that unless I’m receiving almost constant praise that I don’t have any and even when I am receiving almost constant praise there will be a voice in my head saying people are doing that just to be nice or whatever

[@mmaarriioo13]

You're awesome your videos make me feel less alone ❤

[@nozo61]

Where oh where is the magic switch to turn these wonderful things on? Your point about micro validations was a light bulb moment for me, yes it does seem to come from external sources. But I get so uncomfortable with any positive feedback, resentful even as I hate having attention put on me. I want to do well at something but if it is noticed I go into self sabotage mode. Once I said something funny and everyone laughed, I literally repeated the same thing a few moments later, no one laughed, oh cringe! It stays with me, I didn’t “laugh about it later”, it was years ago and I still feel the embarrassment when I think about it. Keep meaning to say, I love the artwork at the end of your videos. They make me feel so good, I just want to drink in the colours and the vibrancy and I pause the screen every time to do just that! ❤

[@rookkun8205]

Thank you so much for making this!

[@chaoticneutralsheep]

It's been comforting hearing you regularly talk about your experiences and how you perceive the world through autism. I was wondering if you deal with ocd and if so how you manage it since it commonly overlaps.

[@UnvisibleGirl]

I'm the same, no real selfworth and anytime I manage to build some it gets smashed down, I also have the same issue with people crossing boundaries with "banter", roomie constantly does it and when I push back or try and maintain boundaries I just get verbally dominated

[@marchfast8291]

Way to go, Dana Andersen!

[@achilleus9918]

oh man, my perspective on the self worth thing is so... unpopular. basically, I personally feel like I have a relatively high self worth, but everyone else thinks I don't, because I don't act the way they think a confident person should act. like, I'm realistic about the things I'm not good at - so, for example, I know I can sing pretty damn well, but I can't read music very well at all, so there are opportunities I don't audition for or engage with because they require reading music - so people assume that I think less of my singing ability than I actually do. Or, there are singing opportunities that I would take if I could figure out the social aspects, if I could work out how to speak up without interrupting someone or if I know make sense of the social rules involved. Add to that the social anxiety that comes from years and years of negative feedback on my social skills or lack thereof, which to me feels less like "I'm bad because my social skills are bad" and more like "I don't fit in and I don't trust other people to be consistent in their opinions of me" (or like "I don't know the rules of this situation and no one will tell me but they do look at me like I'm insane if I get it wrong"), and suddenly I have therapists etc telling me I need to work on my "self worth"... it's so frustrating!! Anyway, I do also get you on the lack of validation from others. For years the only "nice" things people tended to say about me were about my abilities, my intelligence, my grades... but no one at school liked my actual personality. I got opportunities like the spelling bee, but I never got main parts in school plays and I was constantly put down for my singing voice (I know I can sing now, I've sung in several choirs and done services in more cathedrals than I can count) as a kid/teenager, so I had this weird situation where other kids saw me as the person who got all the opportunities and had everything because I was clever, but I never got to do the things that mattered to me, like singing and acting, and I was very close to the bottom of the social ladder because I was autistic (and undiagnosed).

[@ThePsychoticUnicorn]

I understand why you apoligise for rambling but I for one enjoy it, your videos on here feel more like listening to a friend talk things through over a scripted rehearsed video. Not to say that you don't put alot of thought into your videos as I'm sure you do both before and after. I personally find your videos very relateable and I like how open you are with your experiences. It almost makes me confident enough to do my own videos until I start over thinking way to much and tire myself out. I've watched a few of your videos now but I never comment as I normally overthink what I'm going to say or how people will take it and I also have a habit of rambling and oversharing 🤏😂 but this video remined me of my own experience of drama class in high school which I won't share as I feel like I've already wrote too much but figured it was worth leaving a comment all the same.

[@thethegreenmachine]

There's nothing wrong with a good ramble :)

[@izzyonyoutuba]

I have been struggling with this very feeling of late, I have oodles of self esteem when im left to my own devices.. Then if i show people anything i make or do.. my confidence is destroyed when I slam into that wall of social, communication and perception differences... I just enjoy making things, writing art n stuff.. add another person and all of a suden im meant to be hustling, networking, doing 'something'... And all my confidence falls apart as my goals or ideas are misaligned from orhers or they didn't get what id done.

[@izzyonyoutuba]

I've actually lost confidence in the world the more authenticlt myself I've and expressive I've become... I love myself.. but can't handle others

[@Designer_Amnesiac]

Some self esteem would be nice. Maybe one day lol

[@creased4life]

Totally different to this video but i was watching the one about jobs and seeing how happy your cat is, maybe catsitting would be your bag?

[@mrmarten9385]

It is impossible to have self-worth and self-respect f you can't be yourself, your own soul.

[@hankdauley1209]

I Agree with you

[@blouburkette]

Are other people paying your bills? Are other people controlling any part of your life? Then don't be arsed. It's not so easy. But every time I have similar thoughts and anxieties I remind myself: They ain't Jesus or the cops and they ain't paying my bills or signing my check. Eat it. It's a slow process but it does help.

[@spudmadethis]

Every time I get told I lack these things I ask where they come from, what do they feel like, how can you get them and foster them and I never get a straight forward actionable answer and it’s so frustrating 😵‍💫 how do I improve something I’ve never had and cannot conceptualise?

[@MarkusSsZ]

cute cat 😍