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Feeling like a failure

Kate Kestrel

I’ve had a difficult few months and recently I’ve felt like such a failure. I’ve been thinking about my life and all the struggles I’ve had just to cope with normal life - stuff that so many other people seem to breeze through and cope really well with - and I’ve just had this awful overwhelming feeling today of feeling like such a failure. I know now that much of my struggle with day to day life is due to me being autistic (and also my childhood with parents who were very flawed and emotionally distant) and most of the time I try to be positive. But these last couple of weeks I’ve found myself experiencing a lot of self hatred and feeling like such a failure.

I realise this sounds like self pity - and maybe it is! I don’t want to be thinking like this and I know it’s self destructive. 
But how do other autistic people come to terms with the fact that they’ve spent their lives struggling so much with day to day life, and living with a lot of anxiety etc? When I was younger I think I felt better about myself - I enjoyed being different and unique. But now I find myself looking at other people who have had more conventionally ‘successful’ lives and friendships and feeling like a failure in comparison. I think being autistic has made life very difficult for me. 

How do other people come to terms with being accepting of these sorts of thoughts and feelings? And how do you keep positive about the way being autistic has impacted on your ability to really engage with life and achieve things? 

I want to be more positive but am struggling today. Does anyone else sometimes feel this way? And how do you deal with it? 

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  • Hi Kate, I can relate to so much of what you say- I feel like a huge failure myself at the moment and I am currently not really dealing so well with these feelings. It's a vicious cycle for me- I feel like a failure, I loose confidence in myself, which sets me up for 'more failure' and it also puts me in a negative mindset where everything looks like a failure, mistakes/glitches seem magnified and little successes are ignored. When I was a child, I was proud of being different, but this passed quite soon as I grew older and as the differences between me and my peers became more and more apparent. I have long suffered from low self-esteem but I used to have this firm belief that I could do anything if only I tried hard enough and I think this actually helped me a lot at the time: I had confidence in myself and I was confident that I could do things and achieve things if I worked for it- it was a positive feedback cycle back then where I would achieve something (usually academically), which made me more confident so that I could do even better for the next goal etc. Unfortunately I lost the belief that I can do anything if only I try hard enough... thanks to a therapist that tried very hard to convince me otherwise... I think she was worried this belief was stopping me from accepting help/ recognising my limitations, but I really regret that I lost this inner confidence. Of course it is true that it is important to recognise our limits (I mean even in my best times I could not have flown to Pluto even if I had tried super hard.... I probably also could not have made friends at my school... ), but I think having confidence in yourself can be so powerful... I just have no idea how to get that confidence back again... but I think it probably helps to try and see the little successes and to break down tasks into tiny pieces to make it easier to see progress and be successful- I worked with todo lists for a while where I even put very simple tasks like 'do laundry', ' take out bins' , ' shower' etc. so that no matter what happened I could always tick off something and feel like at least I achieved something. 

    Also what drags me down I think is comparing myself to my previous self and then getting frustrated and feeling like a failure when I have the impression that I am so much less functional and efficient than previously... this is very unhelpful as circumstances change and we change... also I think with time we might actually forget some of the more negative and difficult aspects of the past, so that we also see our past selves in a more positive light. I also compare myself to others sometimes which also usually results in me feeling like an even worse failure... but I try to tell myself that these comparisons are not useful and also not really possible as there are so many variables and factors that are different for other people... so really it is not possible to compare things at all. But unfortunately I also haven't really found the way yet to remedy my own feelings of failure. 

    I think you are successful in so many ways- You are an extremely kind and caring person. You've raised 2 children and are providing them with a lot of support. You are doing a lot of walking at the moment and you have created a lot of beautiful art. And all this despite the added difficulties of the past year.  And you are also providing so much support and help to other people on this forum. 

  • in reply to Ann :)

    Thank you Ann - your very kind words mean so much to me - truly. 
    I can relate to what you say here. 
    I think many autistic people have a particular ability - such as being strong academically (for me it was drawing and painting) - and they can build their self esteem by being really really good at something - which makes their other struggles due to being autistic less troubling. At school I was always know as the girl who was really ‘good at art’ and I built my self esteem on that one ability, But I’m not great at so many aspects of normal life - and that seems to bother me more and more as I get older. When I was young I was more content to be different, and a bit ‘weird’ - I think I was proud of it really. Now I just feel a bit useless much of the time! And very tired! 
    Inagree with you that confidence is powerful - I think it can get people a very long way - and people are attracted to confident people. To be honest I have always liked shy people! 
    I think your idea about ticking off even small achievements on a list is a great idea. I’m going to try that. 

    I really appreciate your friendship and support Ann - it really does help. I know you’re going through so much yourself at the moment so it’s so lovely of you to to be so thoughtful and kind -  to me and to others on here too.

    It makes such a difference to come on here and realise that we are not alone, and that others are experiencing similar challenges. It’s wonderful and such a comfort. x 

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  • in reply to Ann :)

    Thank you Ann - your very kind words mean so much to me - truly. 
    I can relate to what you say here. 
    I think many autistic people have a particular ability - such as being strong academically (for me it was drawing and painting) - and they can build their self esteem by being really really good at something - which makes their other struggles due to being autistic less troubling. At school I was always know as the girl who was really ‘good at art’ and I built my self esteem on that one ability, But I’m not great at so many aspects of normal life - and that seems to bother me more and more as I get older. When I was young I was more content to be different, and a bit ‘weird’ - I think I was proud of it really. Now I just feel a bit useless much of the time! And very tired! 
    Inagree with you that confidence is powerful - I think it can get people a very long way - and people are attracted to confident people. To be honest I have always liked shy people! 
    I think your idea about ticking off even small achievements on a list is a great idea. I’m going to try that. 

    I really appreciate your friendship and support Ann - it really does help. I know you’re going through so much yourself at the moment so it’s so lovely of you to to be so thoughtful and kind -  to me and to others on here too.

    It makes such a difference to come on here and realise that we are not alone, and that others are experiencing similar challenges. It’s wonderful and such a comfort. x 

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