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Low self-esteem and loneliness

violetdr3amer

Hi everyone, 

I am really struggling with low self-esteem and loneliness. I'm 32, I was diagnosed when I was 30.

I have always known that there was something 'wrong' with me, and have been trying to get a diagnosis since I was 18, but have been fobbed off by doctors and just given antidepressants (they work for a while but then stop working and I have to go up a dose, and when I reach the highest dose, it starts affecting my IBS). I have always struggled with holding down jobs; when I was younger, I was able to hold down a job for 6 months to a year, but as I got older, the time got less and less. I am now on benefits, I haven't worked for 2 years now and I'm studying at college online.

I also have a lot of social difficulties. I've moved around a fair bit, and have a long history of being ostracised by groups of people, to the point where they warn others to stay away from me because I am a "psychopath". I do have good friends somehow, but they are very few in number. I am scared of meeting new people in case they also ostracise me or reject me. I've also had pretty rotten luck with relationships and I've given up hope that I'll ever be in a serious relationship.

I don't have particularly good social skills - I have been criticised for "oversharing", my meltdowns don't go down so well and people generally find me weird and odd. I also have a pretty childish sense of humour, which people find annoying.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong and how to combat this... at this point of my life, I think it's safest if I just keep to myself (which is kinda boring and depressing). Years of failure and social rejection have chipped away quite a lot at my self-esteem.

Parents

  • Blimey, you could be describing my childhood. I was the wierd kid to whom it didn't occur to talk to anyone in primary school, was thought of as odd and bullied in Middle school - the kids enjoyed thrusting the objects of fears on me to provoke an emotional outburst. My fault, said the head teacher, for not being like the other children.

    It's a minor miracle that I don't have social anxieties now. Maybe I was just lucky. I insisted my mother send me to a secondary school those kids weren't going to and never lost faith that me being me, whatever my old head teacher had to say, wasn't a crime. It was the other kids who needed to grow up and be more tolerant. At my new school and through 6th form and university, they were more grown up and tolerant. I got lucky.

    In a way, I'm kind of glad now. I learned the value of difference and that the people who matter don't mind, whilst the people who mind don't matter.

    You sound like a very interesting guy. My step daughter is an illustrator and doing well with it. Maybe there are some more illustrators here too.

    You tell us you do have some good friends. Well then, clearly you do have good qualities to offer. You really don't have to do social the way the world thinks you have to do social, if you don't want to. Do it your way. Fewer in number perhaps for people without ASD, but there are people out there who will actively want to do social your way too, share your interest and appreciate what you have to offer. And the quality of their friendship will be deeper. 

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  • Blimey, you could be describing my childhood. I was the wierd kid to whom it didn't occur to talk to anyone in primary school, was thought of as odd and bullied in Middle school - the kids enjoyed thrusting the objects of fears on me to provoke an emotional outburst. My fault, said the head teacher, for not being like the other children.

    It's a minor miracle that I don't have social anxieties now. Maybe I was just lucky. I insisted my mother send me to a secondary school those kids weren't going to and never lost faith that me being me, whatever my old head teacher had to say, wasn't a crime. It was the other kids who needed to grow up and be more tolerant. At my new school and through 6th form and university, they were more grown up and tolerant. I got lucky.

    In a way, I'm kind of glad now. I learned the value of difference and that the people who matter don't mind, whilst the people who mind don't matter.

    You sound like a very interesting guy. My step daughter is an illustrator and doing well with it. Maybe there are some more illustrators here too.

    You tell us you do have some good friends. Well then, clearly you do have good qualities to offer. You really don't have to do social the way the world thinks you have to do social, if you don't want to. Do it your way. Fewer in number perhaps for people without ASD, but there are people out there who will actively want to do social your way too, share your interest and appreciate what you have to offer. And the quality of their friendship will be deeper. 

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