Why is Asperger's alright in other people, but not in me?

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So having Asperger's makes me feel like a loser.

But four of my ex-boyfriends also have the syndrome, and I don't see them as losers.

What gives?

How do they see themselves?

Well, I don't want to claim I know, but:

Boyfriend 1: had a low opinion of himself, but that was mostly because of academic failure, not because of Asperger's. Does not currently identify with the label.
Boyfriend 2: seemed to switch back and forth a lot, so I never really knew how he saw himself. (bipolar)
Boyfriend 3: had a very, very high opinion of himself, to the point where he believed his life was objectively more valuable than other people's. He thought Asperger's gave him special abilities and never mentioned its downsides.
Boyfriend 4: I think he doesn't think highly of himself but we didn't know each other very well, we only "dated" for two weeks.

I guess you are probably having trouble seeing yourself as valuable.

You are, though. Every human being is.

What helps with this kind of thing is to find something useful to do--a purpose. I don't mean some big grand thing; just small ones, whatever you can find. Volunteering for something. Learning a new subject. Connecting with a person or an animal. Making something. Heck, even cleaning a room and looking at it and thinking "I did this. This room is clean because of me." You know, stuff like that. Stuff that helps you figure out what you like to do, what you're good at, how you fit into the world.

I know there's been a big drive with the "self-esteem", and how you're supposed to tell yourself all the time how wonderful you are; but to me that's just a bunch of crap. Why would you believe it if you don't have any proof? So the better approach isn't to try to brainwash yourself into it; it's to prove it to yourself by doing stuff that shows what you're like and who you are.

[quote="ChrisVulcan]It's refreshing to find such perky people on WrongPlanet. Tell me, have you ever read Ecclesiastes?[/quote]

Yes, humans are small and there are many of them, and the universe is large.

Size and number have nothing to do with value. Complexity, however, has a lot to do with it. You're a human being. The human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe. You contain more order and information in that little brain of yours than is in the entire Sun. Sure, there might be intelligent aliens out there; but if there were, that still wouldn't make you unimportant. It would just make you one of a very interesting class of phenomenon--creatures complex enough to understand the fact of their own existence, to think about the past and the future, and to hold the concept of the entire universe within their own minds.

You might forget that sometimes, because you meet human beings every day, and the amazing has become commonplace for you. But look at the universe. In our solar system, there's nothing like us. In all that space between the stars and between the galaxies, there's nothing like us. On the vast majority of planets--maybe all the planets, depending on just how common intelligent life is--there's nothing like us. Life is a miracle. Just because it is commonplace on Earth doesn't make it any less miraculous.

If there's anything at all important, ever, it's sentient creatures like human beings. And since we in our generation are unlikely to reach anyone outside our solar system, in a very real sense, humans are the most important things in our world.