Comments on: Autism and Self-Worth

By: Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:22:10 +0000

Hi Kate,

Thanks for your comments! When you are ready, please send me an email so we can chat.

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:13:14 +0000

A lot of very thought provoking questions there. I love how deeply you think, and how similar your thoughts are to mine. I would base self esteem more on what kind of a person you are than what activities you do. That is much more permanent. You are thoughtful, insightful, wise, and you CARE about people. That’s big.

On another note I want to apologize. I have been very negligilent in not repying to an email, or several emails, you sent months ago. I felt overwhelmed by the request for reasons I will explain later and I had to simply not think about it. But I felt very guilty, and never stopped thinking about you. I know this is better said in an email but I have this mental block where I start to panic when I think about that subject too much so I thought this was better than nothing.

On a third note, I was thinking about you tonight, when I was writing a blog about self advocacy. No one I know advocates for herself better than you; you are an inspiration to me and so many. I mentioned you in my entry. If you’d like to see it, it’s at http://aspiefrommaine.blogspot.com/2010/04/self-advocacy-conundrum.html

Thanks
Kate

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:40:57 +0000

Thank you, Bluedancer. It means a lot to me.

By: bluedancer

bluedancer — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:17:14 +0000

you don’t know what effect you have on others just by being how you are, and honest about what you face each day. thank you for all of it.

By: Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:17:10 +0000

Thank you all for your love and wisdom. So much to meditate on! I’m very grateful.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:52:08 +0000

I think that Hillel’s formulation: don’t do to another, what you wouldn’t want done to yourself” is better than the love another as you love yourself. If there wasn’t any self esteem there, there couldn’t be the empathy that you have for others. You try to understand others and accept them. I really respect that. I’m sorry that you sometimes don’t get understood or embraced in return. That’s why you’re feeling down, perhaps.
I’m sorry if I didn’t give you enough understanding, when I knew that you are doing the best for yourself, and you have every right to love (the autistic) you, and give you the same contentment that everyone deserves.

By: e

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:25:40 +0000

“moderation and autism do not mix”

Thank you for saying this. It is huge.

I think it must be something in the air because I am feeling all this right now, too. I feel completely deflated and useless.

By: abq254

abq254 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:01:09 +0000

I agree with Liz and Bonnie.

You have had the experience of making sense of a world that did not make sense. You have had the experience of your world turned upside down, inside out. You have had the experience of having to reevaluate most of what you thought you knew about yourself and the world. Don’t you think that any of this can happen again in the future? So, if you can, it may be helpful to replace the nevers, evers, always with “todays” and “this week”. You’ll find out about tomorrow and next week soon enough.

Two other thoughts. First, it seems to be that you are trying to shape yourself to a new “Aspie Normal”. It seems that again you have standards (having self-worth) that you think you are failing. Do you know that you are allowed to not meet any of these standards? That you can allow yourself to not feel any self-worth for today? (Tomorrow will be a new day.) That you can allow yourself to not feel affected by someone’s praise for one’s work (today)?

The second thought was more like an impression: Your piece reminds me of someone who is surprised that months after a personal loss they still can not go on with their “life as usual”. So I am wondering which of the seven stages of grief you are at, whether you still allow yourself to grieve (e.g., for the loss of your old self-image) and stay within the realm of incredible sadness, and whether you have allowed yourself to let it go (by whatever ritual suits you).

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:49:32 +0000

I have been noticing a lot of nevers, always, permanentlys and nones in your recent writing.
I challenge those. Life itself is a state of flux: I disagree that you will *always* be this disabled, *always* find it this difficult to function. Brains and nervous systems CAN heal, albeit slowly. I don’t think you’ve allowed anywhere near enough time for your overworked nervous system to repair itself. I think you will see noticeable improvement in a year or two. Yes, year.

As for the missing self esteem, I’m really not surprised. You’ve gone through some major stressful changes…why wouldn’t your self esteem take a dive? In fact, I think it would be *abnormal* just to skate through all these extreme changes all devil-may-care.

I don’t think you’re as stuck as you think you are, really. I do think there’s hope for your future but you need to allow your body time to heal.

By: Bob Rottenberg

Bob Rottenberg — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:24:27 +0000

I see “self worth” in the same way that I see the concept of “soul.” Just as I believe each person has a pure soul that cannot be touched, I believe that each person is endowed with self-worth that also cannot be touched by outside forces. It is there — but whether we choose to recognize it is another concern entirely. This is why it’s “so easy” for those outside of ourselves to see all those wonderful things about us — while all we can see are the faults. And the danger, of course, is trying to compare one’s own “worth” to that of others. Always a big mistake! Trungpa has it right: it IS time to rejoice.