Always Feeling Inferior

[KevinMao133]

regardless of what I do, I will always feel inferior

Perception is very different from reality

In my mind, I’m always short, fat and lazy when in reality it’s not the case, not even close

How do I shake the idea I’m never going to be good enough?

 

[Misery]

Well, I can at least say that you're not alone. I think plenty of us suffer from similar feelings.

In my case it's usually related to my appearance (related to my gender issues), or a feeling that I'm "too weird" for people in general. Intellectually/logically, I know that these things arent truly the case (well, the first one anyway), but from a point of emotion or "feeling", well... that part aint logical. What I know as fact doesnt factor in there. The part of me that is all about emotion doesnt care about such things.

I wish I could say that I at some point found a good solution, some way of dispelling feelings like that and reasserting knowledge, facts, and experience, but... nope.

I will give you a useful and important phrase though: We're all our own worst critics. In other words, it's very easy to judge ourselves unfairly where others would not.

Just something to keep in mind. Also dont forget, you're not alone in feeling like this.

 

[Slime_Punk]

I think that's just part of the human condition, and it proves that you're not an NPC. We all feel it, too.

I think it's best to try and live with those feelings rather than to try and purge them (for me, anyway). It's not easy, and there's no real way to be 'successful' at all, since you'll ultimately feel genuinely inadequate sometimes and nobody likes that, but I find that the more I embrace the darkness, the more I find others who feel the same as me, which makes me feel like I'm not so alone. Even your post just made me go, "Oh hey, another person like me!".

I kind of aspire to be confidently inferior and imperfect as a way of life. It's a work in progress and my ego won't get out of the way enough for it to work, but I'll let you know if I ever get there.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

The "simple" answer to this is to challenge yourself to literally be better at something than others. Whatever your niche is,...bust your butt and simply be better. That takes some level of insecurity, some level of competitiveness, some level of perseverance. None of that can be achieved though passiveness.

Academically and physically, I never, ever let anyone be better than me. If they beat me, it was fair-and-square but I wasn't going to go down without a fight. Academically, it was common practice for professors to post grades outside his/her office door, and if you knew your student number, you could see your grades as compared to others,...I had to be at the top of the class,...and did what was needed to do it. It didn't matter if the other person was a world famous cardiac surgeon that I gained his respect and friendship for teaching him how to help his patients recover quicker,...or I tutored him in calculus so he could pass his entrance exam,...so he could qualify for a professorship at Harvard. It didn't matter if it was competitive powerlifting,...I put everything into it,...and competed at the national level and set 11 US national records. The constant pain, injuries, the hours in the gym, the diet, the learning,...paid off.

Even at my age,...I understand the limitations of my body,...but if someone challenged me,...my pupils would get big and I would get a huge dopamine and adrenalin hit. Bring it on.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Earlier in life, and especially when I felt isolated, I felt the way you do. These were lies that I used as an explanation for my feelings of social and sexual isolation. It took me a while to transcend that. I first decided to enjoy myself for me, recognizing that I was a good person. I really took advantage of my interests, especially paleontology and made friends with some preparators at the Royal Ontario Museum. I then joined earth science, hiking and canoeing clubs and would practice being social there. Having successes in my research also helped as I was given some difficult questions to answer. I agree with Neonatal RRT. Challenging yourself to excell is one way to gain confidence. I took up whitewater open canoe paddling and got pretty good at it, something I previously thought was beyond me. That helped a lot!

It took time and work to overcome my feelings of inadequacy. It can be done. In my case, though, those negative thoughts were buried only to resurface much later.

 

[Darkkin]

A huge part of the struggle is based in the litany we would hear growing up. For any ND kid that is more than 20,000 negative corrections by the age of 10. On average between 50 - 100 corrections per day from parents, teachers, you name it.

Thinking one's worth is less than dirt is par for the course for NDs. From a personal standpoint, I know dirt actually has a more useful function than I do. So my exact worth is right around three days less than dirt. As insignificant as a decaying particle of marine snow.

From an unhealthy coping mechanism standpoint, I just always assume anything I do, deliberately done to the best of my ability, is going to be a complete failure, even though this assumption has never proven to be true. If it works out, it gets attributed to being a fluke in a flawed human system.

I do work to the best of my ability because I was taught to expect nothing less. Do I expect other people to understand this or to work to this standard? No. Why? Because I have to atone for existing and potentially creating an inconvenience for others because I exist. Is it logical? No. Is it reasonable? Again, no. The only upside, you can't be disappointed by an unreasonable expectation and no one can be any harder on you than you already are.

This is the paradox at work. Doing something to the best of one's ability, even if it includes completely undermining one's own worth because who knows you better than you? Right?

Legitimately, how many of us can comfortably accept or acknowledge positive feedback?

Conundrums and paradoxes aside, a doable workaround, don't compare yourself with other people. They are not you. Do you to the best of your ability simply to prove to your self that you can at least meet your baseline expectations of you. And when others compare your baseline to the whole you will probably be surprised at how far up the stack you are placed by others.

A lot of it, is finding a workable context with yourself and not being dependent on the opinions of others to establish one's self worth.

There is a big difference between having a bargain basement setting of personal worth and the crippled self esteem that powers things like narcissism. The prior, is something you make peace with, it is an unchanging constant, the latter, is a motivating factor in even the smallest actions and a constant wound that is being deliberately targeted.

How we accept or acknowledge failure is as important, may actually be more important, than success.

Failing with grace is a skill few even acknowledge is a skill, but it is in itself, a very powerful tool because it allows one to challenge one's self for the sake of challenge, and isn't dependent on the outcome.

 

[Suzanne]

Around tall women, I feel even smaller than I am and terribly inferior.

 

[Jordy]

We are inferior

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

A huge part of the struggle is based in the litany we would hear growing up. For any ND kid that is more than 20,000 negative corrections by the age of 10. On average between 50 - 100 corrections per day from parents, teachers, you name it.

Thinking one's worth is less than dirt is par for the course for NDs. From a personal standpoint, I know dirt actually has a more useful function than I do. So my exact worth is right around three days less than dirt. As insignificant as a decaying particle of marine snow.

From an unhealthy coping mechanism standpoint, I just always assume anything I do, deliberately done to the best of my ability, is going to be a complete failure, even though this assumption has never proven to be true. If it works out, it gets attributed to being a fluke in a flawed human system.

I do work to the best of my ability because I was taught to expect nothing less. Do I expect other people to understand this or to work to this standard? No. Why? Because I have to atone for existing and potentially creating an inconvenience for others because I exist. Is it logical? No. Is it reasonable? Again, no. The only upside, you can't be disappointed by an unreasonable expectation and no one can be any harder on you than you already are.

This is the paradox at work. Doing something to the best of one's ability, even if it includes completely undermining one's own worth because who knows you better than you? Right?

Legitimately, how many of us can comfortably accept or acknowledge positive feedback?

Conundrums and paradoxes aside, a doable workaround, don't compare yourself with other people. They are not you. Do you to the best of your ability simply to prove to your self that you can at least meet your baseline expectations of you. And when others compare your baseline to the whole you will probably be surprised at how far up the stack you are placed by others.

A lot of it, is finding a workable context with yourself and not being dependent on the opinions of others to establish one's self worth.
,
There is a big difference between having a bargain basement setting of personal worth and the crippled self esteem that powers things like narcissism. The prior, is something you make peace with, it is an unchanging constant, the latter, is a motivating factor in even the smallest actions and a constant wound that is being deliberately targeted.

How we accept or acknowledge failure is as important, may actually be more important, than success.

Failing with grace is a skill few even acknowledge is a skill, but it is in itself, a very powerful tool because it allows one to challenge one's self for the sake of challenge, and isn't dependent on the outcome.

How is it that we find it so easy to internalize negative views of ourselves? I have concluded that I did so to explain what I was experiencing. While I was able to overcome the negative in order to start living, those underlying lies were never extinguished only to create problems later in life. Why can't we be kinder to ourselves?

We are inferior

No we are not. We may be socially delayed, yet I am convinced that my interests and various experiences allowed me to be successful in my career, and ultimately in my life. I could never see myself having the featureless, bland, lives that I have seen my NT peers experience. Nope, not for me. Perhaps it is odd that I plan to revel in understanding some of Morocco's geology, but I feel good about myself and taking the opportunity to learn from geologists and gifted amateurs gives me a view of our world that is expansive, not narrow.

 

[Orange Glasses]

We are inferior

Maybe you feel this way, but I in no way feel inferior.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

We are inferior

By what metric? Certainly not all. There are employers, especially in the tech industries that specifically seek out the social attributes, intellect, and level of focus and detail that often comes with an autistic employee. Statistically speaking, it's the autistic in the family that has the highest academic achievement. Even sensory issues such as with hearing is an attribute for a sound engineer, being able to hear the tiniest of details. Engineering, tech, and medicine are the top fields for folks on the autism spectrum,...you know,...fields for people who are "inferior". One might even make the case that autistic traits and contributions are a significant driver for humanity to progress.

Although there are specific personal attributes that I wish I could be better at,...I don't think I would be at the level I am at within my career without being autistic. Certainly, there are things that neurotypicals, in general, do better than I do,...but my focus, my attention to details, my internal drive to learn, has made me a leader, a mentor, and educator.

My life has been about trade offs and focusing upon what I do best,...working at things I don't do so well,...understanding my limitations,...and knowing when to delegate to others when I need to.

A personal truth is just that,...personal.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

By what metric? Certainly not all. There are employers, especially in the tech industries that specifically seek out the social attributes, intellect, and level of focus and detail that often comes with an autistic employee. Statistically speaking, it's the autistic in the family that has the highest academic achievement. Even sensory issues such as with hearing is an attribute for a sound engineer, being able to hear the tiniest of details. Engineering, tech, and medicine are the top fields for folks on the autism spectrum,...you know,...fields for people who are "inferior". One might even make the case that autistic traits and contributions are a significant driver for humanity to progress.

Although there are specific personal attributes that I wish I could be better at,...I don't think I would be at the level I am at within my career without being autistic. Certainly, there are things that neurotypicals, in general, do better than I do,...but my focus, my attention to details, my internal drive to learn, has made me a leader, a mentor, and educator.

My life has been about trade offs and focusing upon what I do best,...working at things I don't do so well,...understanding my limitations,...and knowing when to delegate to others when I need to.

A personal truth is just that,...personal.

I agree. My ability to learn and contribute allowed me to publish in molecular genetics and design the experiments that elucidated the link between pregnancy and protection against mammary gland neoplasia as well as getting a couple of patents in processing radionuclides from cycloton targets.

 

[KevinMao133]

Around tall women, I feel even smaller than I am and terribly inferior.

man I can relate. I feel short around everyone. I assume if I get to 6 feet it will be better, I might have to be super shredded

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

man I can relate. I feel short around everyone. I assume if I get to 6 feet it will be better, I might have to be super shredded

It's not about height, It is about attitude. My spouse is 2" taller than I. For the first two months We were discussing plans to get to a project by phone (that long ago) and I was already liking her. Time to meet her before leaving the next day and I was fossil collecting when it rained and turned the ground to a festival of mud. I show up at her door, muddy and wearing a filthy Mickey Mouse wife beater and I see her, and I thought, so svelt, so clean. Much later she said I looked harmless. There is a difference in height, but we fit together well, in many dimensions.

 

[KevinMao133]

It's not about height, It is about attitude. My spouse is 2" taller than I. For the first two months We were discussing plans to get to a project by phone (that long ago) and I was already liking her. Time to meet her before leaving the next day and I was fossil collecting when it rained and turned the ground to a festival of mud. I show up at her door, muddy and wearing a filthy Mickey Mouse wife beater and I see her, and I thought, so svelt, so clean. Much later she said I looked harmless. There is a difference in height, but we fit together well, in many dimensions.

I wish women can like me. I wish I can make myself more attractive. I am too focused on appearance that’s it’s hard to look at my strength

anyways, changing soon. It will be a long but worthwhile process

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I wish women can like me. I wish I can make myself more attractive. I am too focused on appearance that’s it’s hard to look at my strength

anyways, changing soon. It will be a long but worthwhile process

Want to make yourself more attractive? Like yourself first, enjoy your interests, and be open to experiences. It also helps if you can recognize women who are kind and accepting with values and interests that harmonize with yours. There are quite a few women here who are kind, accepting and interesting. See how they express themselves and value that. Liking women in that way and appearance is secondary, plus it provides a more substantial connection than appearance alone.

When isolated I developed a poor self image and body image, believeng that I was damaged, unnoticeable, unattractive and undesirable. I overcame that and meeting my future spouse we connected at that deeper level. She was also tall and attractive, though I'd been attracted to women who are petite. The deeper connection let me open up to her. The rest is history.

Yes, the work on yourself is worthwhile and some lucky woman will recognize that.

 

[KevinMao133]

Want to make yourself more attractive? Like yourself first, enjoy your interests, and be open to experiences. It also helps if you can recognize women who are kind and accepting with values and interests that harmonize with yours. There are quite a few women here who are kind, accepting and interesting. See how they express themselves and value that. Liking women in that way and appearance is secondary, plus it provides a more substantial connection than appearance alone.

When isolated I developed a poor self image and body image, believeng that I was damaged, unnoticeable, unattractive and undesirable. I overcame that and meeting my future spouse we connected at that deeper level. She was also tall and attractive, though I'd been attracted to women who are petite. The deeper connection let me open up to her. The rest is history.

Yes, the work on yourself is worthwhile and some lucky woman will recognize that.

Here’s one thing I need to ask: how important is physical appearance to women? Like do I have to get super shredded in order to look good

Inside stuff, I can work on and fix. Outside? its a bit hard

Currently I’m at 19 body fat. I don’t know if getting down to 12 or 10 would help

Anyways, I will get better but I don’t know how far do I need to push it. Weight loss surgery is an option but not sure if I want to go that route

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Here’s one thing I need to ask: how important is physical appearance to women? Like do I have to get super shredded in order to look good

Inside stuff, I can work on and fix. Outside? its a bit hard

Currently I’m at 19 body fat. I don’t know if getting down to 12 or 10 would help

Anyways, I will get better but I don’t know how far do I need to push it. Weight loss surgery is an option but not sure if I want to go that route

We would need to ask the women here. Some are attracted to looks, and undoubtedly that plays a big role for them. I have read where shy girls are rarely approached by the quirky, sensitive guys that they prefer, so their preferences are for a lively inner life. Do not disregard them. The sad thing that I realized was thinking that women only fell for jerks, yet I never acted to give them a choice.

The basics are good grooming, and dressing well in decent clothes. Like, I find that the cut of Polo or RL clothing suits my body best. So I do not have a lot of clothes but I buy quality. I have lots of things for outdoor recreation: simple, appropriate for conditions, durable. I think all guys look good in leather jackets. My goto is one size larger since I wear it in the winter, usually over sweaters. I also have one left over from motorcycling that fits closely. I prefer Schott or Fox Creek leather. Jeans and leather go well together. I think people look good when they dress smartly with good clothes. I also like ranchwear and think a good western cut shirt looks fine on a lot of body types. I stop by Rockmount anytime i am in Denver.

You do not say what your BMI, body mass index, is. I am comfortable at 22. It helps if it looks like you care for your body. The main thing is to stay healthy.

As you and others see from pics I've posted here, I am not handsom. I don't think I'm physically attractive, but I am OK with that. Funny thing I have related before was when I used to motorcycle to work. I always wore my leathers and chaps are cut in a way that highlights your butt. I was climbing the stairs up to my floor ahead a couple of women and I hear, "my, I do like the view" said in a way where it was obvious I was the view. Unusual because I rarely think I'm noticed. So, dressing well and distinctively does make a difference.

 

[Jordy]

By what metric? Certainly not all. There are employers, especially in the tech industries that specifically seek out the social attributes, intellect, and level of focus and detail that often comes with an autistic employee. Statistically speaking, it's the autistic in the family that has the highest academic achievement. Even sensory issues such as with hearing is an attribute for a sound engineer, being able to hear the tiniest of details. Engineering, tech, and medicine are the top fields for folks on the autism spectrum,...you know,...fields for people who are "inferior". One might even make the case that autistic traits and contributions are a significant driver for humanity to progress.

Although there are specific personal attributes that I wish I could be better at,...I don't think I would be at the level I am at within my career without being autistic. Certainly, there are things that neurotypicals, in general, do better than I do,...but my focus, my attention to details, my internal drive to learn, has made me a leader, a mentor, and educator.

My life has been about trade offs and focusing upon what I do best,...working at things I don't do so well,...understanding my limitations,...and knowing when to delegate to others when I need to.

A personal truth is just that,...personal.

By the metric of achieving overall happiness, life satisfaction etc. I am sure someone will respond with "but i am autistic and happy", but empirical data is pretty clear about the prognosis of our condition.

 

[KevinMao133]

You do not say what your BMI, body mass index, is. I am comfortable at 22. It helps if it looks like you care for your body. The main thing is to stay healthy.

My BFP is 20, I want to get to 10. I just feel like with my height, the only way to look attractive is to get shredded and get super big, like those bodybuilders

Grooming, other things, they will take care of themselves. It will come with time

Ugly I prefer shy girls but most girls like alpha males