Being invisible has harmed my self-esteem

Depression, anxiety, and CPTSD continually rob me of my capacity for self-love and acceptance. In this article, I tell my story and make the case for empathy for 2024.

I am autistic, have ADHD, I am Filipino, queer and nonbinary.

There are so many things that I see going against me, despite my attempts in multiple spaces, in various places, and different aspects of my life to “improve” (aka assimilate). But none have become fruitful.

The conclusion that I often feel is that people do not want to read anything that I write, listen to what I say, or care about my well-being, and it’s extremely frustrating.

For one, I graduated from both community college and university with a perfect GPA (4.0 in the US), secondly, I have all the empathy in the world for my fellow human, and, finally, my perspective is not at all common, though some can relate.

But when the knowledge, expertise, and creativity that I have spent years crafting, honing, and improving upon has seemingly led to very little, in terms of social and personal connections beyond my closest friends, I am unable to see the progress that I have made in this life since I was a bullied school kid, or the joy, awe, and inspiration that I have brought to fellow humans in the past.

CPTSD has stolen my ability to be grateful, to experience true joy, and to have empathy for myself with the constant barrage of doubt, fear, and insecurity, combined with my compulsion to prioritize people-pleasing over my needs. Combined with my already harmed self-esteem from lived experiences that I was subject to, I barely have trust in another soul.

But the worst part of all is that, even when I choose to entrust my fragile heart into the hands of another person, or try new things, every single time that I perceive that I have been rejected is a new chance at ego death.

When I read that my last post on here had zero people opening it?

Ego death and I seriously considered just quitting this platform.

When views on my social media videos or posts have little to no engagement?

Ego death and I stopped posting new content.

When people snub me for wearing a mask in public because I’m immunocompromised?

Ego death and I avoid people by retreating to a secluded space.

When I started receiving criticism of a photography assignment on Coursera because I didn’t properly read the instructions?

Ego death and I literally quit the class then and there.

As a result of so many letdowns by the world around me (even when they were valid), my already fragile self esteem, and resulting perception that my efforts aren’t truly valued in this life, my mental health is literally a wreck.

• I suffer from depression, specifically persistent depressive disorder.

• I have OCD, resulting in my becoming a perfectionist because I believe that being perfect is what I have to do to get noticed even though it has not actually worked out for me at all.

• I am an anxious wreck every time I do anything online that requires deep thought and reflection because what literally is the point of posting a single thing if no one cares? In general, I’m anxious about everything, including going outside.

• I have CPTSD because my body dysmorphia, history of being bullied, had constantly being told that I’m not good enough has traumatized in ways beyond repair to where I find it very difficult to function in the outside world.

As a result, I have trust issues, even with loved ones, acquaintances, and family, as well as a negative, twisted sense of self worth and self esteem.

I acknowledge that it isn’t necessarily my fault and that it isn’t necessarily any individual person’s fault either.

I also know, now, that ego death is something that people like myself have the tendency to experience after even basic forms of rejection after watching this YouTube video:

…and realizing that this is exactly what has happened to me as a neurodivergent, specifically autistic, ADHD, and OCD, individual.

Believing that I had to be as neurotypical as possible, and this narrative still being pushed onto me in every single aspect of my life is harmful.

Honestly, it all boils down to the standards and ideals that we use to judge each other by.

We judge people by Western, Eurocentric, cisheteronormative, neurotypical, popular culture, and other standards inspired by social norms rooted in colonial and feudal mentality - all of which are already unattainable to most people in this world but is especially unattainable to racialized, disabled, queer, and trans people in the West.

These societal expectations that we just have of people in the ways that they should conduct themselves in public, the ways that they should speak, write, or otherwise communicate, and even the ways that they should exist in this world or life, all boil down to the same conclusion:

That we will never be enough if we cannot fully live up to these standards to where the second-best thing to do is to uphold and enforce these standards to the next generation or to our peers.

And, for so long, this is what I attempted to do. But, as I have realized in living this life, it is not enough and that, of course, is by design.

We are socialized to uplift people who fit Eurocentric standards of attractiveness and youth culture, the cishet, Euro, abled standards of professionalism, presentation or discourse, and others who are, overall, seen as the ideal or, at least, ideal enough.

And, yes, of course there are movements and people working towards shifting this paradigm.

And, yes, we can say that these things don’t actually matter in the long-term.

And, yes, many people can, have, and will continue to minimize my own struggles out of a eugenicist-inspired need to apply toxic positivity towards the experiences of marginalized people.

But the truth is that it is 2024 and we know better, or at least have the access to the information necessary to shift our perspectives to understand that these issues are systemic, not personal.

Mental health is a societal imperative, not a personal responsibility.

We all have a communal commitment to each other to actually give a damn about the individual mental health and wellness, and overall health and wellness, of each person on this planet.

You may not be personally responsible for what happened to someone else, but you can make a very small difference in their day by simply smiling at them.

In the same way, when life has humbled you, it is not your sole responsibility to lift yourself up.

Humans are social creatures because the value of humanity is greater than the capacities, experiences, and lives that each of us live. Our power and strength comes from our ability to collaborate and cooperate, rather than to selfishly see ourselves as individuals who don’t need others.

Thus, we should no longer tolerate or accept apathy for the struggles of anyone, regardless of what it is that they are currently going through.

All of our struggles matter and should be acknowledged.

Individual and collective healing are the only way to make the world a better place, and that starts with giving a damn about your fellow human, whether they be a loved one or a stranger.

What the world needs has never been love, love has all-too-often been used as a sociopolitical tool to justify atrocious behavior anyhow.

What the world needs is empathy and understanding for every single person, group, and being.

Only by acknowledging the many things that individual people go through can we actually and truly understand them. And only by understanding each other can we work together for the common cause of coming up with the solutions necessary to transform this world.

It is 2024 and I have a lot of stuff to work through, but you probably do too.

So thanks for reading, take care, and let’s make 2024 an empathetic year.

Bonus content:

If you have made it to this point, here’s a bit of a treat because, on Thursday, I made the realization that my ability to dissociate was caused by my body dysmorphia and negative self-image, which resulted in my creating this AR effect for Facebook and Instagram.

My effects can be found when you search for “Fornesus” on the Effects library on Instagram and Facebook.