Has anyone ever thought you just have low self esteem?

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Looking through my medical records from 4th-6th grade, it says I had low self esteem and my psychologist said mine was damaged. It was as if they didn't believe I was really that different and it was just all in my head. If I had low self esteem, it was because I didn't accept myself and I wanted to be normal so I was trying real hard and the only reason why I was this way was because of the negative opinions kids had about me and being rejected and treated different and problems fitting in or otherwise being different wouldn't have been a problem if kids were more accepting and open minded of differences. I even felt different since my early childhood years but I didn't really think much about it then because I was happy and my family didn't treat me any different and they treated all their kids the same, there was no singling out and inconsistent rules but once I was placed in mainstream, the real troubles started because while I was too normal for special ed where I was accepted by special needs kids, I was not accepted by normal kids so I was picked on more and disliked more and I felt very different than other kids and by 4th grade I just wanted to be normal when before I didn't really give a darn so my obsession with being normal started and I started to study people and behavior to figure out how to act and the right way of acting to be more likable.


If this is what they call low self esteem, then I guess lot of us have low self esteem then if we are mimicking others and copying their social skills and gestures to fit in more and changing our behaviors. Even at age ten I had decided to only copy what kids my age do, do not copying younger age groups or else I will get into trouble and hear "How old are you?" from my mother and being told what age I am acting. But yet still acting like my age still got me into trouble at school so go figure. That is when I noticed the injustice and how I am treated different than others and discriminated all because I am different. Who wouldn't have low self esteem from this but to say this is my only issue is an understatement. It felt like even the professionals didn't believe me when I tried expressing it when I was 10 and 11 years old how different I am. But yet my deficits showed on the tests they would give me. I figure this was because I looked normal and seemed normal. I wasn't drooling or acting any different to a point where anyone could tell I wasn't normal just by looking at me and seeing my mannerisms so to other kids I just came off as weird and rude and mean or like I was showing off.


I am not sure what adults thought of me but in my records they thought I had poor impulse control and I was aware of social norms but my poor impulse control kept me from having good social skills so that was my reason for rejections and also I was labeled as having a behavior problem and my behavior was seen as attention seeking and my psychologist I used to see thought my behavior was due to damaged low self esteem so I act out. But I guess this is the curse of being high functioning and being close to normal, people just assume you're normal so of course that will bring you anxiety and low self esteem and depression because of the high demands and expectations. Then people say your problem is low self esteem, depression, and anxiety but they don't even look at what you are that way in the first place and what causes you to head there. If I were homeschooled I might have been happier but then I wouldn't have learned better social skills. If I didn't care about being different or what other kids thought of me and I didn't care to be liked or to have friends, I might have had a happier childhood but I don't think I would have been a better person so it's a double edge sword.

If I was kept in self contained classroom, I would have been happier and have normal self esteem because I would have had lot of friends and be liked and feel normal despite being different too but yet if they had kept me in that class, it would have regressed me and stunted me and who knows what other damage it might have done to me so also a double edge sword. I don't blame my parents because they did their best and wanted what's best for me so Murphy's Law. Either way would have ended up with bad results.

Has anyone ever thought you had low self esteem after you would express how different you are from lot of people and explain what your problems are? Did it ever feel like they didn't believe you? What about professionals? Did they ever think you just have low self esteem?

Super common for girls/young women/women to be misdiagnosed that way. Especially by practitioners or assessors who either have an antiquated understanding of autism, or don't realize boys/men and girls/women can show very different symptoms or behaviors. At one time some psychs truly believed there was no such thing as female Aspergers, too. The overly blunt "male brain theory" didn't help create more accurate assessments, either.

I think people thought I had way too much self esteem. But that's probably cultural; self esteem is considered highly suspicious where I come from

Btw, please start using paragraphs. I am actually very interested in what you have to say, but the above text wall is almost unreadable. I'm sure this is an issue for others as well.

Yes, I was always told I was shy, too sensitive, and insecure. Unfortunately, until about a year ago, this was the only context I had for my differences.

I was in speech therapy to learn word pronunciation and to say endings and beginnings of words, also to learn social skills like turn taking, staying on topic.

I was once diagnosed by a therapist as a kid "who doesn't like to lose."

A long time before I'd heard of AS, I did a personality profile questionnaire and everything was completely normal except moderate introversion and massively low self-esteem. And years later a counsellor said I showed a very curious mixture of high and low self-confidence, i.e. depending on exactly what we were discussing, I had either complete faith in myself or no faith at all. One or two people at work noticed that when I was attempting a task that was new to me, I was being ridiculously slow and careful about it. That was all pre-diagnosis. I can't remember anybody saying that my ASD wasn't autism but low self-esteem. It's pretty rare that anybody tells me what kind of a person they think I am.

I was told as a adult that I had low self esteem, or people telling me that I was less than other people. She grilled me when I requested an evaluation. It was really difficult.
I ended up having to go through another avenue for diagnosis.

Kraftiekortie: that describes me as a kid JUST a little bit.

LeagueGirl: I was i speech for years as well. Hazards of not pronouncing my 'R's correctly.

My profile has words 'Shy' and 'Wants to be a leader of a group' (had this fulfilled in both 'controlled' AND 'uncontrolled' environment).
I had this odd mixes of confidence level. No one's able to pin point how much self esteem I had. Not even myself.

Even though I'm female, being a social charmeleon IS never the first thing it comes to my mind in any social occasions. Even after diagnosis. Even after envying NTs. Even after several explicit statements that I 'have' to.

First and last time it ever came to my mind was only in High School, which is my lowest point of my life. But I was unwilling to begin with, so I gave that up fast.
Why external changes when I can change internally?

Even at this present, no one still can assess how much self esteem I have. All I know is that I have 'enough'.

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All my life I have been told this and until I was diagnosed it was mostly true.