I Feel Like a Loser.

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I have just been thinking about my life leading up to now, and there are some things that are really getting to me mentally. For one, I am 20 years old and do not know how to drive a car. I don't have a license.

I do not have a job, nor do I know how to look for one. When I do I have such bad interviews that I am almost never called back.

I only had 1 boyfriend, and he has moved on. Well, I still think what if and wonder if I was too strange for him.

Everyone thinks my younger sister is older than me. Everyone says she is more mature, and outgoing. They are right.

I have done badly in school. I have not even completed freshman year, and I probably won't be back in school for awhile due to financial aid issues.

I decline all invitations to go out, simply because I know that I will look stupid trying to dance, and will have nothing to talk about that they will like. It will be all politics or science.

I am embarrassed when my family gets together, because I have no achievements.

I know that I am being annoying on this post. I don't really know why I am posting this. I am confused about everything about being an adult. My little sister has to remind me about what to say or what not to say, paying bills on time, credit cards, and everyone laughs and says she will be teaching me to drive. I believe that she will be married and have children before me.

I am so inadequate. In almost every situation, I have failed.

You're obviously highly intelligent. Your posts are clear and concise. It sounds to me that you're having difficulties because the rest of the world isn't geared for the way you're wired. There are many here that can relate. Sadly, I think half of us are more disabled by poor self image than condition.

I have suffered from low self esteem and depression throughout my life, largely because of my social, educational, and economic shortcomings. There are guys half my age doing the work i do, and they've got more to show for it too. But I now know I'm not your everyday person, and I never will be. And that's okay with me. I have accepted that I'm different, and may have some non standard limitations, where before i was in denial of them and tried to pretend they werent there. Once i accepted that, i was able to do something like find this site and learn what they are, what I can compensate for, and what I can't.

You know, there are plenty of people who finish school and college, and get great jobs, but that does not make them great people. I'd rather be a kind janitor then a heartless manager. And just because you're having problems at school doesn't mean school is not for you. For me, it might have been better if the resources that are now available had been around back then, but they weren't, and it didn't go so well, and although i think i might do better now, i'm at the age where i feel its more beneficial to spend what little i make wisely then to go into debt to get an education that cant even guarantee better paying work. So i have a simple job, live a simple life, and now that I'm not so obsessed with "normal", I think I'll actually do better.

I don't know what kind of jobs you're shooting for, but it is a hard time, even for NT's, to be looking for a job. Ultimately, anything you can get that you can do is good, and like Dave Ramsey says, it's not about what you make, it's about what you save. Seriously, read his stuff, or just do online budget research. A person can bag groceries and still save money, so don't let the illusion of "you've got to do all this stuff to be a success" keep you from being a success from where you are right now, today.

It won't be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. Just pick yourself up and move on, and know you will stumble and fall a lot! Success is obtained through persisting through failure after failure. Really, there's no true thing as success or failure. No winners, no losers. Only people who don't give up and people who do. Don't give up.

Not everybody drives. I know a lot of people who have never learnt to drive a car or don't know how.


Ah, I have this same problem. I've been on job-seekers for 3 and a half years, and I've been on courses and work experiences and done voluntary work and have had lots of help with finding work but I still haven't got anywhere. At the end of 2010 I thought, ''right this time next year I'm definately going to be in a job, since they are pushing me now'', but now it's the last day of 2011 and I'm still in the same position as I was last year. It does make me feel worthless, because other people who I know who have been in job-seekers for a long time seem to have found something by now.


I don't have any boyfriend at the moment, in which I did have. But I have this same problem with the boyfriend I did have. Also I've got chatting to a man I fancy, and he seems a very chatty, sociable person, and I keep worrying that something about me was a bit ''off'' and that he might not want to talk to me any more or something.


I feel like this about my younger cousins who are still in their teens. It's probably because I don't seem to have the enthusiasm and the courage to change my hairstyle, so I have a standard hairstyle, which makes me look younger when I'm standing with girls younger than me who have faces caked with make-up and have fancy hairstyles. It does make me feel like a little kid sometimes.


I did badly in school too. I had trouble with my final exams because of difficulties studying for them, because of my lack of concentration, so I had to be took out of lessons in school to have a teacher assistant sit with me and help me study. I did find it easier to study at school than at home, since my home is my only place I could be alone and forget about school for a few hours. Although I'm an Aspie, I am not very bright, and I can't focus on anything that involves studying.


Same! I want to go out to parties, I complain that I'm the only one out of my cousins who don't go out to these parties, but on the other hand I hang back when I get asked to go out because I know that parties are my idea of a nightmare and I'm scared that people will see that I look nervous and quiet, and might judge me against it or something. If I could wave a magic wand to break this vicious circle, I would ask for better social skills. Then I would feel happier going out.


Um, I'm sort of like you here. When I see my cousins on my dad's side (which are another lot who all into clubbing too, aswell the cousins on my mum's side), all they do is sit and talk about their social lives, and I don't go to these parties so I feel like I'm not a part of my family, and I just find myself sitting with my parents and my cousin's parents, since I have more in common with them.


You're not being annoying. I know how it feels being upset, because I feel like this a lot, and writing about it on WP sometimes helps me. And I don't see why she should get onto you for driving, because I know a lot of people who don't drive. My mum doesn't drive. She did take driving lessons but she's become too nervous of the roads so she quit. I will tell you a story, it might not make you feel better but it might get you thinking that anything is possible. It's about a family who my dad knows, who has 3 boys. The oldest 2 are are 24 and 26 and are NTs and the youngest is 22 and has AS. But the NTs are still living at home, one has chronic depression and the other has took to drugs and has gone with the wrong crowd. But the Aspie has already moved out (got help getting a flat from social services), and he has a girlfriend who is NT but is very studious, she doesn't like parties and she is placid and intelligent. So here it looks like the Aspie is the only one who has landed on his feet in this family. So, you don't know what's round the corner.


I feel like this too a lot of the time.

(Thread moved from Autism discussion to the Haven)

Joe, look at how coherent, eloquent, sensible and caring you are in this post? And that is not "bright"? Of course it is.

There are different types of intelligence, not just being academic at school. Your low self-esteem is fed by you relentlessly beating yourself, like the OP.

Neither of you are losers. Its not real. Life is only a competition for fuckwits. You are not fuckwits, you are nice people. Please try and love yourselves for your strengths and your individuality. Get cocky.

I have failed as well.

I have 22 years old and i'm just like you. No job, no friends, everybody is judging me.
But i'm not ashamed of myself. I'm very angry when people judge me.

I understand. I am 22 years old. I can't drive, I am on income support, housing benefit and disability payments. I live in supported housing becaue I cannot run a flat or a house independently. I have never had a paid job and have been deemed "unable to work" (hence income support).

I am in university though, part-time.

I hope things will get easier for you soon. It feels horrible when one feels that the whole world is better than themselves, but as said above, you do sound intelligent and articulate.

I had a thought, but I couldn´t put it into writing since a didn´t find the right words, and now it´s gone because my attention span is only a few seconds. It always make feel so stupid and worthless.
I wasn´t diagnosed until recently. As a kid I was considered to be a "dreamer". Learning was hard for me and when I failed it was because I was "lazy" and "unambitious". Still I managed to get average grades, but after a complete screw-up I was given a 2 (out of 5, according to the swedish grade system. Don´t know if that would be the same as a D) and my mom told me that she had given up on me. She said I was "doomed to be a garbage man or something". Even today that memory hurts. And there´s just so many other memories of failure/being judged. Every time I fail all the failures of the past wash over me. It makes me want to die.

Hmm... This wasn´t what I had intentioned to express. I wanted to write something positive, but it ended up very pessimistic. I wish I could tell everybody to "not give in to the darkness, because there is always hope in sight". I wouldn´t believe it myself though.
Gah... Now I´m getting tired of myself. I´d better get some sleep and see if it´ll clear my head.
Oh, and Happy New Year!

thank you to everyone for the replies. i guess i better seek out a psychiatrist soon. this is not how i envisioned my life 10 years ago. not where i thought i'd be. i am a complete loser and no positive thinking will change that. but its nice to know that others can relate.

Well I'm good at empathising, which is all I ever do. When somebody's talking about themselves, I just empathise, since I don't know what else to say. I can't give any advice because I don't know what the proper advice is. If somebody came upto me and said, ''oh I've got a big gas bill to pay, and we haven't even used hardly any gas'', if I answered, ''well there must have been a mistake'', they might say, ''no, no, it's not a mistake - the gas bill has gone up, didn't you hear about that last month?'' Or if I answered, ''it's a shame it's week-end, otherwise you could phone them up today and get it sorted'', they might say, ''the gas companies are open at week-ends'', so I'm always like, ''damn it, I got it wrong again!''

I seem to lack general knowledge. The only thing I seem to know is people and their intentions and feelings, etc. Nothing else. It may sound like it's good, but when that is all you independantly know, it makes you feel pretty useless.