Is autism the same as social anxiety disorder?

[WildCat]

Do you have training in therapy? Psychology? Reading a few books and watching a few videos doesn't count.

Good for you if you've "recovered" and I mean that really, but enough of this already. Please and thank you.

 

[MyLifeAsAnAspie]

I don't understand why you keep claiming you're "formerly autistic" when you admit that your autistic traits have not diminished. Depression and anxiety are treatable co-morbids and I don't see anyone disputing this.
I'm glad to hear you were able to use CBT to improve your social abilities.

 

[Els]

I don't understand why you keep claiming you're "formerly autistic" when you admit that your autistic traits have not diminished. Depression and anxiety are treatable co-morbids and I don't see anyone disputing this.
I'm glad to hear you were able to use CBT to improve your social abilities.

According to the reactions this person manages to make people have, I doubt about the claim that there was any type of social abilities improvement.

 

[Thinx]

Do you have training in therapy? Psychology? Reading a few books and watching a few videos doesn't count.

Good for you if you've "recovered" and I mean that really, but enough of this already. Please and thank you.

AND the material quoted is so out of date. AND Bettleheim himself had no relevant qualification and has been widely discredited. AND there's no evidence that the patients he worked with were autistic. But this has all been said already. The OP says he doesn't care what anyone thinks if they disagree with him, which is just plain rude. Stop posting, if you don't care what anyone thinks. Bettleheim cared what people thought. As did Kanner. And so do most of the nowadays experts. Take the feedback.

 

[Aspychata]

According to the reactions this person manages to make people have, I doubt about the claim that there was any type of social abilities improvement.

Exactly, like they are having a huge parade, the banner proclaims cured at last, and at the front is the emperor but the clothes are missing.

 

[Matthias]

I don't have much of a desire to be socially active. And l feel l am wired differently. And l feel no shame for who l am nor do l feel that l need to be cured.

I totally understand. I felt the same way for most of my life.

I think l strongly resent the fact that you classify all of us by one statement- that we wish to understand other people better.

I clearly stated in the OP that "some people, possibly even the majority of people, diagnosed with ASD may just have autistic traits + social anxiety and/or depression." and that "some would call that a misdiagnosis." I then stated, despite the possibility I was misdiagnosed, my experience is still relevant because there could be other people in my situation.

You seem to be missing the bigger picture of we wish to understand ourself better, not some random stranger.

If you look at my signature, you'll see the first guide in my blog is precisely about understanding ourselves better - Knowing Yourself - How to improve your self-esteem

Some people get upset when they are criticized or told they have a disorder because they are, often unconsciously, ashamed of it or believe it would make them inferior. They may convince themselves it's a condition, not a disorder, to suppress their feelings. I'm not talking about any specific disorder (such as anxiety) because it can happen with any of them. I want people to stop being ashamed of themselves and know they're not inferior.

You can't take your textbook example and magically cure us and your simplistic thought patterns are frustrating for us who truly see we are different. I have dealt with this my entire life. Just saying to me, hey it's just anxiety and depression and boom, your problem is solved. If only.......

I dealt with autism my entire life too. Renown experts have reported that clients with lifelong depression and anxiety who worked hard and struggled for decades trying to overcome their problems were able to overcome them in just 4 weeks. I know that's hard to believe, but science proves it. Scientific studies have shown that most people with depression can recover in 4 weeks with proper targeted treatment that addresses the root cause(s) of their depression even if years of inadequate treatment has failed.

Here's what I discovered that I want people to understand:
"External events and people cannot make us feel any one certain way, even though it often seems that way... our beliefs and expectations about a person or event or situation directly influence and, many would argue, cause our feelings. They are not the result of or inherent in of the situation itself. Others do not cause our feelings — we cause them ourselves.This turns out to be great news, because that means that we have control of our feelings, much like we have control over other choices we make in our life." We Are Responsible for Our Own Feelings

All I did was recover from emotional problems. I didn't recover from a single autistic trait. For example, when people tell me I'm weird, have a disorder, or criticize me it no longer bothers me. I'm no longer frustrated when I don't know how to act. I hardly ever get upset anymore. That might not seem like a big deal but once I got rid of all my emotional problems, I was suddenly able to think clearly and now understand people easily. I realized my brain wasn't wired differently. It was those emotions, caused by maladaptive thinking patterns, that caused my brain to work differently my entire life until recently. It's not just my experience. There are hundreds of scientific studies proving that stress and emotional problems alter how the brain works.

I think the fact that you keep coming back with this l am cured blah blah blah makes me thinks you are on the spectrum. A more normal response is - this happened, l read this, now this is and therefore l surmise. You are like very intent to just keep ramming the same thing over and over (characteristic trait of autisim).

That's not what I'm doing. I'm trying to explain it differently (more clearly) because people here keep misunderstanding what I'm saying.

This worked for me, therefore it has to work for you ,(black and white thinking). And maybe l don't honestly guilt trip myself for not being social. It's freeing to not feel like you have to have a social circle at all times.

I specifically stated many times that autism has multiple causes and that what worked for me might not work for everyone.

 

[SDRSpark]

It's almost like you don't realize that we remember all of the other threads that you've made about this, and the things you've said in those threads. Also, your username is FormerlyAutistic. It literally means that you are no longer autistic. Every time you try to say that you aren't claiming to have cured yourself of autism, your own username makes a liar out of you.

It IS fun watching you get thoroughly dismantled every time you start a new thread (or jump into an existing thread) with your repeated attempts to get us to "see the light" and join you on the righteous path to...whatever the heck it is that you're peddling.

No one asked for your "help" or "guidance" and frankly, it's unwanted, and getting tiresome. The only reason anyone is bothering to reply to you, I suspect, is because it's a bad idea to allow ideas like yours to go unchallenged, lest someone who comes here looking for insight sees them and doesn't know any better.