Self esteem and autism

Feb 4, 2015

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I’ve been struggling with self esteem lately. And by lately, I mean pretty much my whole life.

I’ve measured my value in various ways. By the jobs I’ve got. The pay rises and promotions I achieved. There was one notable year, when I was working in IT for a large financial institution, that I got the highest personal performance factor in the entire department. I was destined for good things.

And then I had another baby, and they refused to consider my proposal for flexible working and gave me voluntary redundancy instead.

Parenting is different to programming. There’s no rulebook, no guidelines, no chart to measure your accomplishments by. It makes me uneasy, and it gives me no easy way to measure my value, and my self-esteem plummets.

Society feeds back into this with the constant refrain that if you’re not working, and by that they mean employed, you are to be looked down on. And yet anyone who has raised a child will tell you that it’s definitely work. In fact, I can’t have been the only parent in employment to view a trip to the office as a break. (Yes, I’ve done part and full time working with children too.)

The autism diagnosis hasn’t exactly helped boost my self esteem. Disabled. Less than able. It’s a hard tag to get your head around, particularly when you’ve been a high flier in the past. It’s such a contract, to be looked at as someone potentially in need of support and assistance. The misconceptions around autism don’t help. I spoke to a GP the other day, and se asked whether not feeling emotions caused any problems.

Not feeling emotion? There have been times when that would have been a real boon. It would have been great to sail through three miscarriages without a blink. To lose my sister without any pain. Sadly, it’s not the case.

We autistic people do feel emotions. We do have empathy. We might not read your state of mind off your face, and I may have no clue from your body language whether I’m supposed to hug or shake hands, but we can and do feel for you. (Some of us are probably better at it than others. I haven’t met all autistic people, and I certainly don’t assume I can speak for them.)

What I don’t understand, what I’ll never understand, is why the people with the social impairments are the ones supposed to make the changes. Try a little harder. Go to a social group. Smile more. Chat.

It’s tiring. More than that. It’s exhausting. I can do it, and I suspect I look mainly normal. (I do sometimes get rather over enthusiastic, and a bit hyper.) I have the additional disability of being half deaf (I should wear a hearing aid but increased background noise is really difficult to deal with) and I supplement my hearing with lip reading, which means a large group, all talking at once is really difficult for me to follow. Throw in low lights and some background noise and I don’t stand a chance.

What is the point of this post? It’s simply to reiterate, that right now, I’m struggling. I’m struggling to put together a self image including self esteem and self worth that doesn’t base my value on external judgements according to work and profitability. I think that’s hard for everyone to be honest, but the autism diagnosis is adding to my difficulties. I have to realign myself.

Bear with me. I’ll get there.

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Comments

11 responses to “Self esteem and autism”

TBird Anni
4 February 2015
This is something that is being struggled with in our house just now. Pol is consistantly confused why people like her, how she can tell if people like her, how to know if actually they don’t and, increasingly these days, how to tell if a lad is being nice or hitting on her.
Difference can be very difficult to deal with, I think perhaps our children are better equipped to deal on the whole as they are growing up with those “labels” in place, basing their identity around them as much as around everything else. We have had them attached as adults and often it does feel that they have knocked down our whole identity without giving any resources to build it back up again. It’s hard. Even when those labels explain why we were always different and should help us make sense of ourselves more.
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1. Jax Blunt
  4 February 2015
  I think it’s the being left to decipher it alone that’s the really confusing thing. I always knew I was different. Quantifying it should help.
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Midlife Singlemum
4 February 2015
I’m bearing with you. If it helps at all, you write an awesome blog. And of course home educating four children while running our own business is no small feat. This feeling will pass. I’m sure some of it a February thing – February is just depressing for everyone. xxx
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1. Jax Blunt
  4 February 2015
  Yeah, that never helps. Cold and dark and wet and did I mention cold?
  Reply
Myra
4 February 2015
Jax,
You are incredibly brave to leave yourself so vulnerable to others’ opinions. I applaud you. I hope you get a sense of accomplishment from it. You should. My hat is off to you. I cannot imagine how difficult your life is.
Myra, from Winnipeg, Canada, where we have frosty winter temps of minus mid 20sC or lower, with windchill making it feel like nearly minus 40C. Brrr!
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Natalie Ray
4 February 2015
What a wonderfully candid post. I hope that things get a little easier for you soon. I know what you mean about going to the office for a rest too, that’s the one thing I miss a bit about not going out to work!x
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Mary
4 February 2015
Great post – I certainly relate to the “society looking down on you if your not in employment” situation! I cannot stand that attitude. Yes there are a handful of people that aren’t good parents that take advantage of the system but does that mean every parent that chooses not to work for a period of time is to be looked down upon for trying to raise good kids?
I can totally see why you feel the way you do, any unexpected situation thats a “curve ball” in life knocks us, makes us question who we are, what the deal is with life, it stumps us and makes us ask questions we thought we’d already figured out. Life can be really rubbish sometimes, things come a long that are like a big slap across the face and cause us pain and self doubt, I admire your courage and by sharing this you are raising awareness and showing society that it doesn’t matter what you have you are you not your diagnosis, you have so much to contribute as your life has already demonstrated! Keep going – or eat a load of chocolate and then keep going 🙂
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Nic
4 February 2015
Jax I wish I spent more time in your real life company. Because the Jax I know IRL is not awkward or unsure or disengaged. I know all of the bits of you that never make it onto the blog because maybe you don’t even recognise them in yourself. I know your sense of fun, the times you have made me laugh, shared bits of our life stories and not just the facts – the feelings too. I’ve been with you when you have just acted, with confidence and made decisions and taken control and not even thought to examine those choices or question them.
I’d like to challenge you to try and blog that version of you – no excuses, or dwelling on stuff you could have done differently, just you, being you and doing it well.
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Tech
5 February 2015
Horrified that a GP asked that question! It’s no wonder that people with learning disabilities are treated so badly if the prevailing takeaway from an ASD diagnosis is ’emotionless’ : subhuman ergo unworthy of care. Which turns the question of who lacks empathy directly on its head. Fumes.
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Susan Mann
5 February 2015
I feel for you I really do and I hope writing this down helps you understand what a wonderful person you are. I am here if you ever want to talk x
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Mrs TeePot
15 February 2015
Sending big hugs to you, you will get there, absolutely, because you are amazing
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