Is your therapist/psychologist your primary support?

[Paralleluniverse]

Hello beautiful people,
I wonder if this is for Aspergers especially , I'm a 30 y o female diagnosed and find it hard to open up properly about my difficulties to anyone other than a therapist. Sure I can open up about my personal issues to friends which could be related to life circumstances , career, boyfriend's etc but when it comes to this day to day struggles that I suffer from the most only my therapist is the one I can tell.

But even with a therapist, its never healthy in this "new age" therapy industry to have them as your "support", know why? Because CBT is THE therapy for this neurotypical would which means the therapists only care about changing your thoughts and perceptions they don't care much about our deep struggles and I'm sorry I'm a positive person who's been through a lot but telling us to "change the way we perceive difficulties" is very simplistic.

So does anyone feel more isolated by therapy? Everyone goes on about how therapy only works with a "solid support system" well they never talk about those who don't have family or many friends or a partner, what do we do exactly?! All the emphasis on therapy is on that well if we try hard to be liked and not many people do or understand is then what else is there?

Anyone here has that "Gap" in therapy?
Who is your primary source of support when you need to talk?

 

[Fino]

My primary source of support is a friend I met in college and who I got close with by going to his bible study and church.

Have you talked with your therapist about this problem?

Not all therapists exclusively use CBT, as it sounds like your therapist does. There are all kinds of therapists!

 

[Shamar]

Hello beautiful people,
I wonder if this is for Aspergers especially , I'm a 30 y o female diagnosed and find it hard to open up properly about my difficulties to anyone other than a therapist. Sure I can open up about my personal issues to friends which could be related to life circumstances , career, boyfriend's etc but when it comes to this day to day struggles that I suffer from the most only my therapist is the one I can tell.

But even with a therapist, its never healthy in this "new age" therapy industry to have them as your "support", know why? Because CBT is THE therapy for this neurotypical would which means the therapists only care about changing your thoughts and perceptions they don't care much about our deep struggles and I'm sorry I'm a positive person who's been through a lot but telling us to "change the way we perceive difficulties" is very simplistic.

So does anyone feel more isolated by therapy? Everyone goes on about how therapy only works with a "solid support system" well they never talk about those who don't have family or many friends or a partner, what do we do exactly?! All the emphasis on therapy is on that well if we try hard to be liked and not many people do or understand is then what else is there?

Anyone here has that "Gap" in therapy?
Who is your primary source of support when you need to talk?

I have no source of support, other than this forum. In the past, all my more than a dozen therapists (except one) varied from useless to less than useless to detrimental. NON of them picked up on my autism, so all the advice and alleged support missed the mark. The only one who was useful is the one who kept me from killing myself.

As far as support outside of therapy, I never had that, either. Nobody in my family even suspected I was autistic, just "shy." Acquaintances (I never had friends) varied from neutral to treating me as something to be used for their entertainment.

In my opinion, when a therapist tries to change you into an NT, it is time to change therapists. You cannot be who you are if you are forced into being somebody else.

 

[Loren]

My family is supportive, however, my therapist and a friend who has/had similar experiences to mine, are my main sources of support with things that family wouldn't, necessarily, have the ability to help me with.

I don't perceive their to be a 'gap' in the therapy/ support I receive, nor, does my therapist practice CBT with me, although, I do believe CBT can be an effective form of treatment, after addressing and working through 'past struggles'. As Fino mentioned, there are in fact, therapists who take different approaches, who could, perhaps, be better suited to you/your needs.

I encourage you to seek support, here, if you feel comfortable doing so, as there may be those who share the same or similar, past experiences. Most importantly, there happens to exist, a wealth of kindness, understanding and compassion, here!

 

[Ginseng]

I will start a new therapist tomorrow. I will let you know if I can even talk to her. This will be my third one in 4 months. The first one did major damage to me. I have wondered if she wasn't using CBT to eliminate some of my "inappropriate stemming behaviors" from her highly stressful "therapy sessions." The second one was virtually ineffective. The one I am seeing tomorrow is a Christian therapist. I am hoping she can help me. But I have never been able to confide in a therapist. I tried when I went back after 25 years of not seeing a therapist because I felt it was pointless since I couldn't talk to them. It will likely be harder to talk to my new therapist tomorrow since I am still in recovery from the abusive one I had a few months back.

 

[MeghanWithAnH]

I know what you mean about not being able to talk to people about your difficulties related to Aspergers. There are so many things that I can't talk to anyone about, and I have to be careful even when I'm talking about 'normal' things because I never know when I'll mention something that seems normal to me but gets a really weird reaction from the person I'm talking to. Even when they mean well, they just don't understand, and it just becomes awkward. I don't have a therapist to talk to, but I do have an advisor at my school. I tried therapists in middle school and it was not helpful. One put me on an antidepressant medicine that made me depressed (depression wasn't my problem to begin with) and one decided I was cured from whatever was wrong when I joined the track team. No one considered Aspergers, of course, because I was a girl who could sit in their office and have a one-on-one conversation with an adult who was telling me exactly what he wanted me to talk about. I know people who have had good experiences with therapists but I haven't been inclined to try again, other than briefly to get my diagnosis.

The advisor I work with at school is helpful and is one of the most knowledgable people I've met about ASD, but even with her I still occasionally get the feeling that she's trying to fix me and underestimating what I can do. She knows how much skills can vary, but she still overgeneralizes when I tell her about a particular problem I'm having. The problem with having a professional as our primary person to talk to is also that their job is to be focused on solving problems, and sometimes you want to talk to someone without always trying to fix everything. I don't know a solution to the problem except maybe try to find other people on the spectrum who can relate, which can be hard to do.

Those problems aside, a good therapist should be helpful. if talking to your therapist is always making you feel more isolated then that problem is worth bringing up with them. If it doesn't improve, it might be worth seeing if another therapist will be more helpful.

 

[Fino]

Does anyone else have the problem where they want to be in therapy but am often not in the mood to speak?

 

[Stardust Parade]

Although they can be rather difficult to find, if you are able to find a therapist that specializes in working with adults on the spectrum, it makes a world of difference! It took me quite a while to find one, but it's honestly made all the difference. Regular therapists don't have the same skill set that ones who work with autistic adults do.