No self-esteem whatsoever

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I have severe social phobia, anxiety disorder, panic disorder and shyness. I have moderate depression and strange OCD-like traits, and mild Agoraphobia. All that doesn't make life any easier, not to mention the Asperger's that just about ruins everything.

I feel like my self-esteem cannot get any lower. My self-esteem is so poor that I feel like my own worst enemy. When people at work intend to have a conversation with me, I go all shaky and nervous inside - but at the same time I want to engage in social interaction with other people. But sometimes when people at work are talking to me, I sometimes think to myself ''oh my God, are they actually speaking to me???'' Like I'm surprised that someone is interested in me. It's like I believe that I'm such a bad person that I get confused when people want to talk to me. Nobody knows this because I don't tell them (who wants to hear someone hating oneself?)

I have no idea where to begin liking myself. I'm starting to do good deeds, like helping others and making others feel good, and it kind of helps me feel good about myself too at the time, but then I soon sink back into my old, depressed self again.

I'm going to the doctors next week to see if I can get on anti-depressants. Is there anyone else here on meds and does it help stop feeling so bad about oneself? Because I'm fed up with feeling this way about myself, but at the same time I'm struggling to snap out of it. I'm extremely shy and have social phobia as well, which probably doesn't help.

: *HUG* if you like them.

I can empathize. I've been through severe depression and I have low self esteem. The meds did help me. They didn't make me start loving myself. I still have low self esteem but the meds and therapy and time allowed me to be interested in things in the world again and helped me stop obsessing constantly over how I'm useless and will amount to nothing.

Hi Joe.

I have extreme shyness too. It can be absolutely crippling. I literally go as red as a beetroot if anyone so much as pays me any kind of attention, and that makes matters even worse. It's like a vicious circle.

I do take an anti depressant, but I use it to help me sleep. I do think it does help a little with the anxiety though, but I am on a really low dosage. I've been using them for years.

Anyway, apart from all that I think you are doing really well from everything you have said. You are much more braver than I was at your age.

I'm proud of you. You should be proud of yourself.

Hey Joe

It sounds like you and I are wrestling with a lot of the same issues.

I've been on psychopharmaceuticals, and found them of little use, leading to a major distrust of antidepressants. Before using them, I suggest you read this on their efficacy: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/inf ... ed.0020392

On the other hand, are you worthless, or are the NTs making you feel worthless because you don't fit in with them? If it's the latter, the problem lies with them being self-centred and unempathic (I think NT affective empathy is often grossly overstated). Helping other people is a good thing regardless, although being nice to feel better about yourself might not be the best reason for it. Mind you, many Aspies (including you from the sound of things) have direct experience of being marginalised, and then often have high affective empathy.

The thing is, once you can see that the problem is them and not you, in theory (and I am really wrestling with this - there is the theory and how I still feel) you can stop hating yourself.

The risk is that you will end up hating them, which isn't fair on all of them (just some of them), and it doesn't make the NTs any easier to live with. What's happened to me is that I still hate myself, but there is a lot of misanthropy to deal with, along with the depression and anxiety, both of which are debilitating.

It might work for you, though. I don't think there are any simple answers, and that would include their blasted drugs!

low self-esteem can be a symptom of depression, so meds may help. what helped me, though, was a book called, "the self-esteem companion" by fanning, McKay et al. I had to learn that all people have worth just because they're human and that all are equal in that worth. I had more self-esteem while unemployed than I did when I was a working physician, because I had learned to accept myself and innate human worth.

I love hugs. That's one thing that helps me feel emotionally connected to people.

I believe I hate myself, not others. I get extremely distressed if somebody points out a social faux pas to me without me expecting it. I feel awfully humiliated, but I only feel a little teeny bit angry at them, and very angry at myself. I am always beating myself up inside about being lonely, and I'm always like ''why would anyone want to hang out with me?''

It's like I'm afraid of people. It's not that I don't like people. It's just that I feel a bit afraid, because of having to be precise on certain social rules, and how a lot of people can see if there's something odd about you. I hate being odd.

Call me weak but I feel like anti-depressants or other ''brain meds'' are the only way out. It's either that or suicide. I've tried everything else; counseling, social groups, volunteering, keeping a paid job, etc etc etc, but I still don't feel any happier about myself. I just hope meds will help take the edge off of all these crippling emotions. But half of people who are on them or have been on them say that they have helped, and the other half say that they are no good or have made them worse or physically ill. That's what makes me worried about taking them. I just don't know what else to do.

I have low self esteem, too. I also have AvPD. I don't know if the med I'm on, Risperdal, is helping. I suspect it isn't because I still feel depressed and worthless. I'm trying to enjoy life but it's hard. I'm thinking maybe a therapist might help so I'm currently looking into that.

Another hug.


Yeah, the NTs make their problem with us into our problem. They are good at that.

Then they wonder why I'm misanthropic.

A suggestion: are there aspie/autie groups around? In such environments others are less likely to be bothered about a social faux pas. The main problem with this is that any social practice you get can't be extrapolated to interactions with NTs - this is something that sent me into a downward, anxious, self-hating spin over the past few days after I had a successful interaction with another male aspie (go me!! !) and then realised I still couldn't interact with the fracking NTs.


I am right there Joe, surviving day to day, with very little good in my life. I don't have many constructive suggestions, but you are absolutely not alone (if East UK means Fife or East Lothian or something, feel free to PM me: well feel free to PM me anyway, but we wouldn't be able to do coffee some time if you're in Kent - but I promise to respect your oddness: most of my friends are odd!).

Another hug.

I have tried anti-depressants and they made me feel worse. On the other hand, I recently began to take baths in Epsom salt and have noticed an immediate improvement in my feelings.

Since beginning to take three baths a week, each mixed with one measuring cup of Epsom salt, lasting 20 minutes, I have not felt extremely sad or overwhelmingly tired. Epsom Salt helps you to flush out toxins in your body and provides you with magnesium, one of the healthiest minerals your body needs (and one that many researchers believe people with Asperger's syndrome have difficulty absorbing).

The Epsom Salt hasn't fixed everything for me but it has made me feel less unhappy - so I would recommend it instead of anti-depressants. Click the link below for more info:

http://genxaspiemomma.blogspot.co.uk/2005/04/epsom-salt-and-aspies.html

I do wish people wouldn't post woo. It's not helpful.

There is an untested theoretical link between magnesium deficiency and depression (and various other things) but, if it were to have any clinical effect you would have to be consuming it either as part of your diet or as a supplement, not bathing in it.

Now, by all means post a link to some peer-reviewed research, but all I see on the link above is pseudoscience. Apparently, "Magnesium is a staple in homeopathic treatment of Autistic spectrum symptoms." This just proves not all aspies are highly intelligent.

On the other hand, the serotonin-depression link has also been falsified by peer-reviewed research, and there are serious questions about what has been published about SSRIs (see the link I posted above).

I agree that all people are inherently valuable, and this is what helps me to feel okay about myself.

I read a book on self-esteem years ago (maybe the same one?) and one point that helped me was that you shouldn't worry so much what other people think of you, and what matters is what you think of yourself. So if you know you're trying your best to be a good person, and do the best you can with the life you've been given, you deserve to be proud of yourself!

There are a lot of untested theoretical links. Life is about trying new things. If you only ever want to do things that have been peer-reviewed by scientists, you will never push the boat.

What is considered scientifically correct today was not 50 years ago. 50 years earlier science was even more different. In another 50 we will say almost everything we know now is wrong. The point I am making is taking Epsom Salt baths has not caused me any noticeable harm and has made me feel better. That's why I'm recommending it to Joe50. I am only trying to help her.

Joe50, you decide for yourself. I hope you feel better soon.

How is it that people can be so ignorant of the scientific method having been through any sort of decent education system?

By getting into a bath and declaring that you feel better you are neither pushing boats out nor testing anything.

Let's say you found 200 stressed, suicidal or parasuicidal Aspies (shouldn't be too hard around here). Test the moods of each using a standardised measure. Randomly assign each of them to 4 conditions. Fifty get 3 hot baths a week with added magnesium sulphate (Epsom salts); fifty get 3 hot baths a week with added sodium chloride (common table salt); fifty get three hot baths a week without any additions; fifty are told to stick to the shower (these are your controls, to see if getting a hot bath makes you feel better, which is always possible).

It's not a perfect trial, because the only thing you can double blind is the salts, but this is the real world.

Then test their moods again using the same standardised measure after a few weeks.

At a rough guess you might find a small effect from taking a relaxing bath every couple of days. There is one unpublished, uncontrolled, industry-sponsored trial suggesting that a saturated epsom salt solution (600g to a bath, not a handful) may elevate magnesium levels in the body, but whether or not this was clinically significant isn't clear. What it would do for mood is even less clear: there is simply no research on the subject. http://www.epsomsaltcouncil.org/article ... ulfate.pdf

Now, I doubt this would do any harm (unlike, say, one of the SSRIs, which might). I just see no reason to more than suspect it might do any good.

I will not take anything that will noticeably do anything to my digestive system, like give me diarrhoea for example. I have always had an obsessive fear of diarrhoea, and I think I'll rather be depressed than have diarrhoea. I have always had a healthy digestive system.

Not saying I heard anything about diarrhoea mentioned, but the words ''flush out the toxins'' gives me the jitters.

You could try and see for yourself how they work? The thing is that different people react differently to antidepressants, so someone can report negative results from trying some type of antidepressant that would work great on someone else. So there is a bit of trial and error in the process, which becomes frustrating because you have to take one med for quite some time before you can evaluate and tell if it is working for you. I have tried 5-6, or so, different kinds, over quite a few years.

I think they should take the edge of your emotions, and perhaps make you feel less of the agoraphobia and a couple of the other things you have difficulties with.

I'm sure it is of no comfort to you, but I do feel a lot like you, i believe. I really do.

Don't think too much about suicide. It is just the wrong way to go. I know that's lame and all that, and I went like this just a few hours ago when I was talking to the doctor: "I have nothing to live for! I'm looking at this all objectively and stuff, and I have no reason to live. Nobody likes me, I try and try and try and all i do is fail miserably. I make absolutely no progress in my life, just setbacks, and I try so hard, and some day I'll just not be able to cope and I'll have to kill myself. That is like inevitable." You have loads of options to try before you start thinking about suicide.