What to do when your Peer perception varies greatly from Management perception

I'm relatively new to the programming scene. I taught myself a new-fangled programming language and, as a result, landed my first programming job being taught yet another new-fangled programming language. After a short while (2-3 months) the person who hired me was usurped from their position and my new manager, though infrequently interacting with me, quickly developed what seemed to be an estimation of incompetency in myself. After about 6 months at this job the new manager had me dismissed on grounds of incompetence. The manager who originally fired me, and had been the one mentoring me, and actually working with me in a consistent fashion, was outraged but impotent to change things at that company (he did go out of his way to help me in my job search).

fast forward a couple months and, because of my experience learning two newfangled languages a company decides to take a chance on me and teach me Java.

In this new company my Manager is frequently gone for weeks at a time. I seem to have the same kind of dynamic, the people I work with seem to act and treat me like I'm doing fine, but my manager is convinced that I'm a lost cause.

I feel like I'm growing by leaps and bounds and that, all things considered, I'm doing pretty well. But my view of things isn't what keeps me in a job.

Any suggestions? Like experiences?