breaking out of internalised shame

Shame, fear, confusion and guilt stopped me getting help for over 25 years. Therapy has been transformative, although I need more.

Shame comes from within. You control it. Other people mostly don't care. It traps you in your own prison.

If you can overcome the challenge once and find it's ok it makes a big difference.

190E(Taylor’s version) said:

it can be hard to have self empathy

Another contributing factor is that we often have low self esteem so don't feel we deserve even our own empathy - at a subliminal level though.

Almost a self perpetuating cycle.

Sorry to hear you can struggle so much UNO. That must be difficult to soldier on with sometimes. I was given the ASD level 1 diagnosis, these levels are subject to great debate. I think I struggle to even know when I am taking on too much or when I am heading downhill, it’s like I let it all pile up, as if I am numb then the avalanche hits out of no where. I am glad I have a diagnosis but it also comes with a new found identity and one that I am still learning about. 

I think as an autist I often find I have so much empathy for others it can be hard to have self empathy snd I guess when some autists show little self empathy maybe it’s the case they have the self empathy I lack?

Support needs can be classed into two main groups I think higher which is to say you need a care giver at all times and lower which means you may or may not need a care giver but that doesn’t mean you have lower needs it just means you can tend to them your self 

I realised my needs are different but I do still need a care giver most of the days but I am (mostly) verbal and I can do most things for my self on a good day snd on a bad day i csn barley function on an average dsy I need care from another to avoid it becoming a bad day 

I learned to embrace autism without it I’d be one of the sheeple but with autisim I feel no need to follow trends 

if a film is said ro be aweful but I love it so what

if my clothes aren’t trendy so what I like them

spend £100s on a smart tv that I won’t like or £10-£90 on a vintage led/plasma/crt tv that I will love so much?

also for so long I held on to the belief any chart music is rubbish and only old music is good once I let go of that snd embraced that I am me and I like what I like my eyes opened ip

i tried being everyone else but it turned out everyone else had filled that position so I decided to be myself and it worked out so much better 

as a kid I didn’t know I was autistic so I felt embarrassed when I hyper focused on something and when I knew the full story of a film even the deleted scenes or the novelisation 

as I got older I was like yeah im a geeky nerd etc thats just me then I realised geek and nerd are just negitive words that the media made trendy and what I am is an autistic man wirh so much autistic joy waiting to spill our 

and now that I allow it to spill out I am truly me snd I find my self going “oh oh oh wow wow wow it’s a class 66 pulling a class 508 oh wow wow” and smiling more than ever at these joys and my stims which I only ever did during negitive situations now have positive outputs too yay 

dont get me wrong i still mask but I find masking for some of the dsy or doe not the days can be healthy as it can allow me to regulate but then if I mask tok long I burnout so it’s a balance 

one thing I’ll never get used to is someone  going ok bye then but my brain goes before thy go tell them one last really important fact haha 

I am getting better at ignoring the inner shouts of judgement that I am an imposter. My support needs are not as high as others may be which does add to the occasional question of doubt and uncertainty. That’s not to say I do not still go through phases of shame or guilt that I have made this whole thing up and I don’t belong here on this forum. It’s been mentioned here before that imposter syndrome may be the result of getting a diagnosis later on in life. I was deeply obsessed with the diagnosis to begin with, I would read my report over and over again trying to pick it apart and understand it better. It’s nice to see you are learning to accept yourself also, it’s so difficult for some people and I wish they gained the strength to do so also. 

Hello aurelis, have you worked on your shame with a therapist at all? 

I worked though this with mine using techniques like accepting my failings without judgement and building self empathy. While it was not a magic cure-all it certainly was very effective in sending the shame scampering off into its corner.

Some things are incredibly hard to work on alone so I can recommend getting professional help.