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dontmesswithtexas
Emu Egg
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Joined: 10 Jun 2014
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12 Jun 2014, 10:39 pm

So I've tried going to therapy a few times and I've never really liked it. I know theres the whole doctor- patient confidentiality thing, and no matter what I tell her she can't say anything, unless I'm going to commit a crime. But I feel like my life is so messed up that she would go and tell all her coworkers how crazy I am. She sits and stares at me for an hour and basically says nothing but "how are you?". And of course, being an aspie, I can't really strike up a conversation with anyone so it wouldn't matter if it was a therapist or not.
Does anyone have any advice on getting over a fear of the therapist? Or what do you normally talk about with your therapist? I know therapy is supposed to help, but it only makes me feel worse.



Waterfalls
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13 Jun 2014, 6:28 am

You talk about whatever you want. If a therapist is going to be helpful, i think they need to be capable of helping make the conversation happen. If they don't have the ability to recognize you are doing your best to communicate and help you do so, which I've had happen too, makes you feel worse. Very isolating, very upsetting, like you aren't human. And everyone else is, and you're just looking on at all these humans doing confusing things they have a program for and your have no idea what is going on.

One thing to watch out for that happens to me is I get upset by things a therapist might say that I take literally and generalize, and which are apparently generalizations not meant to be taken literally. That makes communication hard and is really upsetting when it happens.

But I absolutely think it's the therapist's job to make you feel you belong by being welcoming and helping scaffold the interaction, to use the word I was taught by one of the speech therapists working with my child. I like the idea, because I get so lost and confused sometimes by competing agendas and people not saying things that are consistent or match their behavior. It's the therapist's job to recognize where you are confused or lack typical skills and help you use your strengths to go around what is difficult. If a therapist can't do that and instead tries to make you fit their mold of a patient and magically have more social and communication skills than you have in reality, it feels to me they are refusing, then in reality they may be unable, to recognize who you are as a person.

You're better off without that kind of therapist.

Someone who is good with working with people with ASD, or good with children or severely I'll or learning disabled or even people with brain injury is likely to be better, because they typically don't think supporting someone in socially interacting and having conversation and organizing themself and regulating emotion is beneath them. Therapists who work only with adults typically have refused to work with me, and one who did, it was destructive. I think it's just harder for some people to understand can't and won't are different. I hope you get a therapist who understands the difference. And who also understands that can't doesn't necessarily mean forever, but can't does definitely mean can't right now in this moment and won't without being taught and helped to learn.