who here battles low self-esteem?

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If you have no self than how can it be high or low. Self- is a nebulous concept, most people define with extrinsic factors. I am my Job. I am my possessions. I am my body. I am somebody Mother/father/son/daughter/wife/husband etc social relations. I am a Christian. I am a Muslim. etc etc. Which overlaps with a intrinsic factor of 'I am moral.' As Work, might be said to overlap with intrinsic factor of "I am skilled or talented at this, that particular thing, innate ability.

As far as "knowing of thy self," isn't that what Socrates said, or was it Plato. Yeah, Plato is technically the author of all of Socrates words. He's like a reporter. But I digress.

The self? I''ll get back to you on that one....

It's hard enough living, without pondering these things, stuff like that goes out the window, if you're starving, cold and dehydrated. That's your real self. The animal self. Has necessitates. Survival is more important than self-esteem. That's a 1st world problem. ( To put it cynically and bluntly.)

Distraction. Ignoring it. The passing of time. Revaluation. Many ways. These are chemical changes in the brain. Nothin is permanent. All is in flux. It's just as possible and easy for the brain to switch on happy chemicals, as it is to manufacture unhappy ones. Granted your synaptic pathways and wiring has not been too detrimentally configured. Which happens.

Yes, low self esteem has always been a defining part of me. I had the bullying and rejection that comes with ASD and an alcoholic father leading the family to dysfunction. My self esteem improved over time and has largely recovered. I can take criticism like a champ now, I think that is a good measure of self esteem.

I've also learned or tried to learn how to take criticism. This was thru my art, photography and can take it, okay. This is a reason for the art. The other big thing wrt to art is the fear, both in failure and success are processed frequently or rarely when I don't work it.

I have extreme self-hatred, which will create low self-esteem and self-concept. People often think I have a lot of self-esteem and confidence (I'm sure of myself if I know something is true and I will act decisively and bravely when needed), but nope, I hate myself, and have for a very, very long time. Just trauma stuff.

Nothing has really helped this one. Well, there's been things that have made me feel better (they're the things I remember), like nice words and acts of others, even if I feel like I don't deserve them.

I have always suffered from sub-zero self-confidence. It has been a terrible negative influence in my life.

It is all about self. Relation of self to other. All our relationships are of that sort. As more of my unconscious stuff becomes conscious, and my "self" expands to include it all (including the trauma), things do seem to slowly improve.
This is obviously not a linear thing and involves much movement in the opposite direction. Three steps forward, two steps back.

What if the bridge you built collapses?

at 70 I can finally understand why I was always inadequate. Diagnosis of autism at age 68 gave me the self understanding to forgive myself for not living up to expectations and gave me permission to forgive myself and stop beating myself up because I was never right, never good enough, always always always told to "do better" with no clue as to how or as to what was actually expected of me.

I tried so hard! Nothing but punishment all your life will give you low self esteem, make you angry and defensive, you bet!

Now I know and understand my neurology I can finally see how it all happened and with nobody knowing about autism back then, why they treated me as they did.

I am 70 now and 2 years from having been diagnosed, things are finally falling together, making sense and I am healing.

These are my best days ever because now I finally understand how autism worked in it all without anybody knowing or understanding.

I can do better than ever before with accommodations especially to help me live a better life.

Autism screening for older adults should be mandatory. Now all we need is to find enough competent screeners to make that happen. (looks at the clock and wonders how long)

Best wishes for a better tomorrow.

thank you all for your responses. there are some of you whose lives you've written about in these pages on WP, and i would like to say that you have accomplishments that i would be envious of. or as a youtube psychic said, "your lives are somebody else's fairy tale." they tend also to be fairy tales to us because we feel they are illusory.

I've always felt good about myself and took pride in being different. I observe other people with interest but never wanted to be someone else. OK in my next life I would like to be a blonde rich girl. I'm fine with being imperfect and not super high achieving this life. Unfortunately I know that achievements do not automatically create high self-esteem. Not sure how that works but I heard it's partially genetic. That might be why people are attracted to confidence?

i am sick and tired of the expectation of confidence.

I would say I have confidence, most of the time.
Sometimes I feel guilt over actions, If i think I may have caused other to feel bad, especially others i care about.
So that can be kinda uncomfortable. A dip in self esteem
But I like to keep a safe distance from most people psychologically, and i naturally do.
Because emotional contagion is a real thing.
If somebody is in bad mood, it has a domino effect.
Just as if they're in a positive mood, can affect you.
And vice versa. What you bring to a situation, in terms of mood.
Will impact others.

at my last aspie meetup, i brought my normal cheerful self, but it didn't last long because i was treated as a non-entity by all the fake-aspie beautiful people there who were all mutually humble-bragging about how good their lives were.

I have relatively low self-esteem. I am constantly working on trying to become more confident and take criticism better.

Did you go to a meeting specifically for people w/ Asperger's, instead of general ASD/HFA? I honestly wouldn't touch a meeting full of people who cling to the "Asperger's" label with a 10 ft pole. I've met too many self-absorbed, self-righteous people who cling to that label that I don't think I'd ever be accepted somewhere like that.

I have low self-esteem. I often take things personally and I think people are judging me and out to get me. For example, I avoid the self-service tills in the supermarket because I think that everyone is watching me and will laugh at me if I make a mistake. Rationally I know this isn't true but I still can't help thinking about it. I know that people, particularly those you don't know, can be very judgemental and their attention often gets drawn to those who are a little ''off''. I don't think I really give out weird vibes, but I do find it hard to relax in public because of the social anxiety.

Low self esteem, caused by severe verbal bullying while at British public school, punctuated by brief spells of false bravado. Very much a 'never was' rather than a 'has been'.