Do You Think Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Is Good In Autistic People?

[WhitewaterWoman]

CBT was very helpful to me in exactly the ways Au Naturel explained. It is a tool, or rather a whole set of tools which can be used as needed.

It dovetails with the much less complicated 12 step programs Which I also found helpful.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

CBT did not help with my PTSD, depression or anxiety, or anything else.
I’m going to try EMDR because it seems to have worked for a lot of people I know.

Talking about what happened is cathartic to an extent, but I trust very few people with the detailed stories (and they make people want to throw up) so I mostly keep it bottled up which I know isn’t healthy.

Hopefully I can find a therapist who specializes in EMDR and hopefully I’ll be able to afford it.

@Luca , have you ever thought that keeping things bottled up is part of the powerlessness that feeds your PTSD? I have the idea that you are stronger than you may appear to others.

 

[velociraptor]

but misguided for trying to turn an autistic into an NT

I have benefitted from it, but I have never tried to be an NT. My goal is to function better as an ND. To push past old limits (e.g. sensory overload issues).

 

[Crabcore]

Certain people respond well to CBT, so I guess it shouldn't be entirely discounted for NTs or NDs alike, but it's easy to hit a brick wall if there are genuinely certain limitations that you have that the professional simply will not accept as a final answer. Obviously, this does way more harm than good and can sort of imply that you're worthless if you don't meet these seemingly-impossible goals that are supposed to be 'easy' for others. It did for me, anyway.

I think NDs should simply be allowed to be NDs, but the vast majority of society doesn't even like to accept the idea of HFA (or level 1 ASD) to begin with, so we have a long way to go.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I think the fact that I was being abused but it was done in such a way that people didn’t suspect anything immediately wrong unless they looked closer is part of why I couldn’t accept CBT’s teaching or allow it to work for me. I mean why would I want to accept the fact that I’m being hit for hanging a shirt incorrectly on a plastic hanger only to have the shirt ripped off the hanger and both thrown at me? I knew that I couldn’t change my abuser and make her stop screaming at me and hitting me over very insignificant events.

I couldn’t change anything because complaining and telling my abuser how she made me feeling like I was a horrible person for “ruining” her life and that I didn’t deserve to be happy or have good things happen to me was as effective as setting a mouse loose to try and kill a cat and telling her no and refusing to go with her whenever she wanted me to go anywhere with her just lead to more screaming and hitting. I couldn’t lock myself in my apartment and refuse to come out and never see her again because she had the keys to unlock the main door and then my apartment door and could come and go as she pleased without any warning. I had no car or friends to drive away from her and stay in hiding at a friend’s house because she isolated me from others and made sure that I never had access to a car. I was stuck in this very toxic and abusive relationship and the only real way to escape was to either get the police involved or get committed to some emergency shelter for a mental health and safety crisis center because hospitalization wasn’t necessary and neither would fully work because my abuser would find me still. Changing the locks would only make her furious. Ignoring her phone calls was even worse as she got screaming mad if the cordless phone battery died in the middle of a call with me and she’d immediately take it as me hanging up on her on purpose.

Yeah being mindful was never going to help me one bit when I was living in fear of upsetting my abuser and I was also so anxious whenever she was around that caseworkers, my roommates, dad, and even therapist noticed how scared I became whenever she was in the room and only relaxed when she was gone. I couldn’t change the fact that I was being abused, accepting that fact and allowing it to happen was definitely not an option or even a healthy one at that, and the reason I had negative thoughts about myself was because I was being abused and gaslit horribly and was constantly being told what a horrible person I was to be around and that I “ruin” the lives of people constantly. No amount of CBT is ever going to fix that mess while it is happening and any progress if any being made is going to ripped apart with the reminder of how your abuser “sacrificed” their entire life on you and you are nothing but a f-ing lying a** b**** that doesn’t appreciate their life or deserve nice things and you are ruining their life with your lies before the abuser hits you again for what is probably the eighth time that day. This is what was literally happening to me when I was trying out CBT and I couldn’t exactly tell anyone because that would make my abuser look “bad” and cause her to abuse me even more when we were alone. And she’d make sure nobody believed anything I said by claiming that literally everything I said was a complete lie and no one should trust anything that I said and that she’s the only one telling the truth. If I tried to defend myself, she’d say “Look! There he goes again lying! You heard him lie just now and can’t say that he didn’t!”

@Captain Jigglypuff , your tale of abuse makes me want to cry before my righteous anger sets in. Nobody should ever be treated in such a reprehensible manner. Words fail me. All I have to say is that you are valued here.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I have benefitted from it, but I have never tried to be an NT. My goal is to function better as an ND. To push past old limits (e.g. sensory overload issues).

Isn't it obvious from people's experiences here, that overcoming difficulties imposed upon us by our neurology does not mean we wish to be NT? I like your framing, @velociraptor, of being the best ND that we can be. We are not prisoners of our reflexes and have choices for our behavior.

I have benefitted immensely from my Neurodiversity in my career, and even so was saddled with social deficits that I could not understand. When I started working on myself to get involved socially, it was not to deny my neurodiversity, it was because I desired to be part of the dynamic around me as well as being a person that would be attractive in a relationship.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

@Captain Jigglypuff , your tale of abuse makes me want to cry before my righteous anger sets in. Nobody should ever be treated in such a reprehensible manner. Words fail me. All I have to say is that you are valued here.

Yeah the abuse was pretty bad. She was really triggered when I wrote in the margin “Yeah right” next to this supposed affirmation that I was supposed to accept and I refused to because it felt patronizing and a complete lie. The affirmation said, “Life is easy. I will take it one step at a time.” I had my reasons to say “yeah right” next to it. I mean if life was “easy” then why was I constantly being hit for minor things, screamed at for ridiculous reasons for twenty minutes straight, and have severe symptoms of the trauma I had to endure in high school? The group leader didn’t really know about the abuse or that it was pretty bad and I never really talked about how badly I was bullied in high school and how that messed me up completely or even about being sexually assaulted for months. Why would I want to accept that affirmation? It was a total lie and accepting it was just going to make the PTSD symptoms I had worse as the causes would never be addressed or handled properly. This is exactly why CBT did work for me and why it wasn’t going to work for me at the time. It wasn’t because I was lazy and not taking it seriously. It just couldn’t help me with the real problems I was experiencing at the time. If it works for you, great. You do you and continue doing CBT. It’s not my place to tell you not to do it. CBT just wasn’t right for me and the people running the group that I had attended never knew the truth about why it wasn’t working for me because I was too afraid to tell anyone what was happening to me when I was alone with my abuser and even if I did, she’d twist the situation and make it seem like I was making it all up to make her look bad and that she was the real victim and then no one would take me seriously if I tried to tell them about being hit again because the dishwasher left spots on the dishes. My therapist was the only person back then that I even told a bit about the abuse. I needed more serious treatment that CBT was never going to give me.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Yeah the abuse was pretty bad. She was really triggered when I wrote in the margin “Yeah right” next to this supposed affirmation that I was supposed to accept and I refused to because it felt patronizing and a complete lie. The affirmation said, “Life is easy. I will take it one step at a time.” I had my reasons to say “yeah right” next to it. I mean if life was “easy” then why was I constantly being hit for minor things, screamed at for ridiculous reasons for twenty minutes straight, and have severe symptoms of the trauma I had to endure in high school? The group leader didn’t really know about the abuse or that it was pretty bad and I never really talked about how badly I was bullied in high school and how that messed me up completely or even about being sexually assaulted for months. Why would I want to accept that affirmation? It was a total lie and accepting it was just going to make the PTSD symptoms I had worse as the causes would never be addressed or handled properly. This is exactly why CBT did work for me and why it wasn’t going to work for me at the time. It wasn’t because I was lazy and not taking it seriously. It just couldn’t help me with the real problems I was experiencing at the time. If it works for you, great. You do you and continue doing CBT. It’s not my place to tell you not to do it. CBT just wasn’t right for me and the people running the group that I had attended never knew the truth about why it wasn’t working for me because I was too afraid to tell anyone what was happening to me when I was alone with my abuser and even if I did, she’d twist the situation and make it seem like I was making it all up to make her look bad and that she was the real victim and then no one would take me seriously if I tried to tell them about being hit again because the dishwasher left spots on the dishes. My therapist was the only person back then that I even told a bit about the abuse. I needed more serious treatment that CBT was never going to give me.

What I found with my CPT for PTSD, was that I had to be open with my therapist and really discuss things that were hard for me.