I feel like a loser.

[Markness]

I know it’s not a healthy way to think but I really do feel like a loser. It doesn’t help that is what I was often called by other people in my teens. I know people at work who are much younger than me, one who is also on the spectrum, who already have graduated college/university, are in long term relationships, and aren’t bullied by their family members. I have lived for almost four decades but I don’t have my life in order at all.

Just coming up with a paragraph feels like a challenge to me. A lot of it is due to not getting enough sleep so my mental faculties aren’t at their best and I am having flashbacks to when I first became clinically depressed in 2005. That was twenty years ago and I wouldn’t wish the intense feelings of despair I’ve had to deal with on even my worst enemy.

 

[Aspychata]

You are gainfully employed, and have been for sometime. That's success. l wish l had your employment history. You have provided a very valuable service keeping your library alive and a valuable part of society. You have a good relationship with your mother, and you on occasion , leave for interesting concerts, etc. If you only judge yourself on relationships, l don't believe that's a true parameter to judge yourself on. To me, successful employment is a true factor of success. Sadly, a lot of America is homeless, and living in their cars. I hope this doesn't sound too harsh.

 

[Fredan]

You're more successful than I am, and I don't think I am a loser, so you are definitely not.

Losers are not those who struggle due to a condition/disability, but rather those that put people down because of it.

 

[if6wasnin9]

I'm the loser, really. I've done lots in 60 years and failed at everything. I've been criticized in every job and school. And the healthcare system looks down on me.
Can you enjoy yourself? That doesn't come easy to me.

 

[velociraptor]

I know it’s not a healthy way to think but I really do feel like a loser. It doesn’t help that is what I was often called by other people in my teens. I know people at work who are much younger than me, one who is also on the spectrum, who already have graduated college/university, are in long term relationships, and aren’t bullied by their family members. I have lived for almost four decades but I don’t have my life in order at all.

Just coming up with a paragraph feels like a challenge to me. A lot of it is due to not getting enough sleep so my mental faculties aren’t at their best and I am having flashbacks to when I first became clinically depressed in 2005. That was twenty years ago and I wouldn’t wish the intense feelings of despair I’ve had to deal with on even my worst enemy.

You're NOT a loser. You have dealt with so much adversity and you're still here. That's winning. A lot of what is beating you up is defining yourself by what others see as success. You need to find your own version. I made myself miserable for a lot of years because my art didn't look like the art of a lot of other photographers. I had to find something that was authentic to me. Once I did, I felt so much better about myself. You need to find what is authentic for you.

In the meantime, just keep buggering on with the faith that you're succeeding where a lot of others have not. That's something.

 

[grommet]

When I was 23 I lived in a group home, my room was six feet by six feet and I ran out of money for food one day and had to wait a day for more money again.

But I do not live in the group home any more. I am 58 and I have my own apartment. I live alone and have lots of things and I have lived here for years. I could have been homeless, I was close. I made it. I was so close to nothing. I do not know how to say that right but I was desperate, almost no money and no place to live. Now I have a home I have been in for more than 20 years.

I learned lots of skills and I have tools. I made friends and did lots of outside things, I went places. I became a person and I never thought I would.

The deepest pain was wanting a girlfriend. When things were so bad I did not know if I would have the same place to live the next day, I did not think about how much I wanted a girlfriend. I was too terrified of not having a place to live.

When I made things get better and I had a place to live and instead of nothing I got help and disability money every month I knew I would have to live, I started making my own home. I wanted a drawer that had things in it you can not get all at once. It is the kind of drawer you can only have if you have a real home. It would have clear tape in it, can openers, screwdrivers, tacks. All the little things you have a drawer like that for. When someone has that, they have a home, they do not have to worry about leaving any more.

Then I could think about a girlfriend again and it was the worst pain in my life. But I got a girlfriend when I was 42 and we were together for eight years. I found out what it was like to be in love and have someone love me and sex. What is was like to have holidays together. We had a perfect Thanksgiving once. I used to live in that group home but then I was having Thanksgiving dinner with any girlfriend in my own apartment. I had done a lot.

I think about it a lot. I look around my home and think about how I had nothing and no help and I did not know how to do anything. I could hardly speak, I was miserable trying to ride a bus, never knowing if I would get on one and go miles the wrong way, then how would I get home?

I will not stop thinking about the group home because I could have been like that for the rest of my life, not homeless but not a person, I would be nothing. No girlfriend, no friends, no adventures but I did all those things and I sit in my home and think about how I have been lost since I was a little boy because I was autistic and did not understand anything and cold not make friends.

I am old but I made it and think the odds are that I should not. I am not in that group home in that alley any more. I found out what it was like to have a real girlfriend. I learned to sail and rock climb and do lots of other things. I got a home, lived my life and became a person.

I did not go to college or get married or have kids. I could not work so I did not have a job like regular people and never had much money but I live independently. I did that. That is maybe the thing I am most proud of and makes me good.

So when I think about other people I think I am a failure. Real people do lots of great things but I made it. Maybe I could have died because I did not understand danger or how to take care of myself and have to live in dangerous places and people all my life have played tricks on me, sometimes to get me to do things. But somehow I stayed safe enough I never got into trouble or tricked bad and I have my own home. I have said that a lot, I am sorry for repeating but when I was a kid not knowing how I would ever take care of myself when I had to leave home, I never had any idea how I could, no idea in my mind at a ll. I did not even know about bank accounts and utilities. Nothing. I was like a child.

So I have been a success for someone like me. I did a lot of good things and I am not in a group home. I think that is the difference. Being like me I think that where I would have to live forever. But I have my own home and I look out the window and know I am alone in my own home, no counselors to check up on me or bad roommates, or smells or really loud sounds. The group home was hard.

I did not do that successful things people are supposed to do but I did take care of myself and I never should have been able to do that so I am successful for someone like me.

 

[Rodafina]

@Markness
It's okay to feel like a loser.

Just remember that feelings are not facts.

You are tying the idea of being someone who has struggled and not achieved what they want with being a loser and that's not necessarily true. Other people could look at the same picture and think of themselves as someone who keeps trying no matter how long it takes. Some people may define themselves as a "fighter" in your shoes.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

I'm the biggest loser of all here. Everyone hates me here and IRL.

Just read my post history. I am tired of typing it out.

 

[Metalhead]

Markness, you keep telling me I am not a loser when I talk like that.

Time to tell yourself you're not a loser.

It's easier to tell that to others, I know. But be kind to yourself. You are worth it.

 

[Poppy98]

You are gainfully employed, and have been for sometime. That's success. l wish l had your employment history. You have provided a very valuable service keeping your library alive and a valuable part of society. You have a good relationship with your mother, and you on occasion , leave for interesting concerts, etc. If you only judge yourself on relationships, l don't believe that's a true parameter to judge yourself on. To me, successful employment is a true factor of success. Sadly, a lot of America is homeless, and living in their cars. I hope this doesn't sound too harsh.

What aspychata said. ^ employment alone is a big win.

 

[grommet]

What aspychata said. ^ employment alone is a big win.

I wanted a job more than anything. It would have felt like wining the lottery.

 

[Markness]

My parents beat me over the head with their ideals but they aren’t happy people themselves. My father leaves me alone these days, though. I just wish my mother would do the same. She’s the one most responsible for making me feel like a lesser person. I don’t let her guilt trip me anymore, though.

 

[Aspychata]

I see at this site so many adults bullied by their mom or dad or both. It sets the tone of the rest of our life. My parents excelled at this. You really have to step out of that mindset. It's difficult. Some of it is their insecurities, their disappointments, their assumptions of who you Should Be, and all of it is abuse.

 

[Dagan]

Perspectives, standards and boundaries are all things that have infinite variances in each and every one of us. I'll echo what has been stated above: You can feel like you've failed your own goals and/or you can feel like you've failed the goals set upon you by others. Those are still just feelings. Uncover the facts and focus on those alone to run stats for what actually matters. Even then, when you have your results jotted down in front of you, just think of it all as those specific attempts and trials. That doesn't have to be the end of it all. It can simply be the beginning stage(s) before trying again and eventually meeting expectations. More than anything, though, you should focus on meeting your personal (best) expectations rather than those of others (especially if said others don't support you, don't ever help you and/or you don't even like those folks so much or even want to be like them).

 

[RemyZee]

Like you I'm prone to giving myself bad words, absorbing them then insisting mentally that those words are the clothes I have to put on for the time (metaphor): ugly, scumbag, ridiculous, loser, my favorite El Stupido, dog, I mean, I have a vocabulary. They go through my mind sometimes when I come up against an obstacle I can't fix or there is something, especially something social, that confuses me. My mind has been trained to go back to those words as a default, and it doesn't help much that I heard those kinds of words all through my growing up. It's almost like we autistic people have to retrain ourselves to realize, really, how ridiculous those types of words are, how they don't apply at all, and how easy it is to revert to them because they are simple and comfortable, but it is our choice to let them have any power on us--it is just as simple to reframe ourselves by embracing what's good about us. It may sound trite but it is a big step to being human to embrace our value, name it and own it. That is our way of fighting off the jerks who tell us we are less than. Our way of rebelling.

 

[Wolfiedog]

Yeah, i failed at a LOT of things, usually losing interest on a grand scale, unable to even think of returning to it without disgust.
The things i succeed at come so easy and natural i don’t see it as a big deal expecting much, more from myself.
i’m my worst enemy and harshest critic.