Aspies For Freedom

How competent do you feel? And how much self esteem do you derive from your special interests?

At the moment I’m feeling quite incompetent--everything I touch seems to fall apart. Problems at work, difficulty relating to my wife and children--a botched DIY project. Things aren’t going well.

But at other times…say when I’ve successful completed a sketch or poem--or made a good post on AFF--I feel very competent.

I’ve come to realise that most if not all of my self esteem comes from success or competence in my special interests. Do other aspies feel like this? Or are you able to maintain high self esteem outside your special interests?

Yep, QD.  Totally.  If I cock something up - a batch of biscuits, a guitar piece - I'll be really, really depressed.  I feel like I'm not good at anything and when I do manage to do something well, it's a fluke.  And it stops me doing a lot of stuff... I used to do bellydancing, but quit because I didn't think I was much good (plus the fact that I was doing it to make friends, but wasn't making any) and I haven't played the guitar this year, even though I used to like it, because I'm not as good as I should be.

And don't tell me 'but if you enjoy it, it shouldn't matter if you're good at it or not' because I've tried telling myself that for a long time, and it doesn't stick.

I'd consider myself highly competent at my special interests and say this is due to how much time i've devoted to studying and practicing them. However, I can be rather incompetent at times if stressed out or otherwise not in a good state of mine.

I consider myself shit at my special interests.

So shat it.

I thought I was wonderful at work till my bosses told me otherwise.

Now - with that knock to my confidence, I feel like a klutz.

Could we see one of your sketches or poems Quickduck.

Well thats not wholly fair..

I suppose I am good with my hands ;]

I know for me I seem to go through stages... sometimes everything seems to not go well and I start not doing my special interests because I decide I'm not very good at them anyway, and then sometimes the world is lovely. It's confusing thinking about the cause though... seems like a mix of things.

I'd correct that to say that half of it is your gifted intelligence in those areas, the other half was the devotion.

Your statement cannot hold true for everyone because I know I cannot learn many skills, regardless of how much time I put into them.

And it's a truthful statement.  I don't exaggerate to get sympathy.

Snap.

I think this is actually related to the emotion thing - either not being able to describe or recognise what you're feeling, not being aware you're feeling it, or not feeling it at all.

I liken it to monitors.  If you've got a daggy old monitor that only displays 16 colours, you can have it plugged into the fanciest computer on earth, and run the most sophisticated software on it, but you're not going to see all the graduations of depth and shade that the programs are generating, because it's being fed to you via an imprecise instrument.  Instead, you're going to get blocky slabs of colour with clearly delineated edges between them.

That's a bit how my emotions are.  Instead of going through a sequence like: happy happy happy a bit bored, bit more bored, annoyed, frustrated, angry, thoroughly pissed off, resigned, miserable, depressed, I'd just go HAPPY PISSED OFF DEPRESSED.  And that kind of transition gives you less opportunity to step in and do something about it - maybe go back and play a few older pieces you know you can do well rather than the new stuff you're struggling with - before you give up wondering why you ever bothered drawing breath.

I don't know whether that means the graduations are there, I just can't pick them up, or whether my brain doesn't generate them in the first place.

I often think I know what I want and when I try to do it, I just can't figure out what to do next.  Sometimes I have to write out a detailed set of step by step instructions of what I want to do.  

I am often frustrated.  If I project gets a problem I will often leave it unfinished.  I was told to lie and say in job interviews that I like to finish things for some reason.  I prefer to plan, design and think about starting projects but I don't always like doing them.  I tend to collect information and items and plans.

I worked at a summer tennis camp years ago when I was a teenager and held two jobs- teaching the beginners tennis (I was the least impressive at tennis amongst the counselors even though I won a city tournament) AND camp secretary.

Well one of my bosses told me I wasn't a detail person so that made me mad initially but then I decided to work on that aspect of myself and eventually became more of a detail person. I used to have to spot errors on Excel worksheets before the report came out so became somewhat good at that. Years later I am able to spot other people's mistakes quickly (typos, wrong numbers) which impresses people. Apparently LOTS of people aren't detail oriented.

Criticism can push us to try harder, thus become more competent!

You have to be taught what errors to look for and what parameters of deviation can be tolerated.  I know this because I used to work in quality assurance.  Some managers just don't know how to manage and complain it is all the workers fault.  They expect workers to know what they want through esp.

And criticism can tear us apart and destroy us.  Because 'criticism' is a many headed beast.  For me, the worst of it comes from within myself.

Heh, i'm like that.

The part of me that does the doubt can be fearsome indeed.

In the end I think (or if in private) say "Shut up Ian, just Shut up." lol

Don't I know that too well.  Criticism is especially harmful for Aspies.