By an anonymous contributor

As I progress in my improvement of self-esteem, I have started to notice that the way I talk about my life or myself with others is often not really respectful. Instead of seeing myself as a person worthy of the same respect that you would grant to everyone else, I find myself almost taking for granted that I am "less-than" or, for lack of better words, "not a real person" as much as other people. For example, I find myself minimizing my knowledge, using too much self-directed humor, volunteering too much information to "justify" why I did something, or else needing to joke to make myself "more palatable", as if I am constantly anticipating that I don't have a right to simply be taken seriously by others on an equal level.

I have made a commitment to change the kind of  communication and humor I use to share myself with others, in order to grow towards the idea that my life and opinions hold dignity as much as everyone else's in the room, even when I am limited by my disabilities.

Over time I have found that changing my actions is generally the way for me to change my inner world, more than vice versa, so I am focusing on directly changing the way I talk rather than focusing on changing the way I think.

Has anyone else noticed that they were holding a double standard when it came to respecting themselves v. respecting others?

Share questions:-

• Have you found aspects of your experience where you realized you were not granting yourself enough respect? If so, how did this manifest? Where does it come from?
• Have you ever anticipated disrespect from others, because of being autistic or due to other reasons?
• How does self-respect relate to respecting others for you?
• What have you found helpful to develop and express healthy respect for yourself?  
• What is respect to you and how does it relate to self-esteem?
• Do you feel like your past and current environments respect you?
• Is there anything that you mistook for respect but it wasn't, or vice versa, mistook for disrespect, but later realized that it wasn't?