Therapy?

Post Reply New Topic

Has anyone been to therapy? Did it help?

I have had only one therapy session, but it made an immeasurable difference. My first semester of college completely went to pieces, and nobody, myself included, was able to say why. My parents decided to schedule an appointment, and it is at that appointment it was first suggested that I have Asperger's.

Last semester, I made Dean's List, and after this semester I will have my scholarship back. There's no way that would have happened without that session.

I was in therapy off and on over the course of my life, even as early as 3rd grade. It was helpful to a degree, mostly I think seeing things from another's point of view, but things didn't fundamentally improve until I was 42 and in therapy (substance abuse-particularly) with the addition of anti depressants. Otherwise, I was too depressed to absorb anything.

In my opinion the success of therapy depends very much on the therapist. I recently moved from Slovakia to Czech Republic and when I was still living in Slovakia I was visiting one therapist for a year. At that point I wasn´t diagnosed with AS and the therapist suggested I had schizoid personality disorder. So this didn´t help because I was treated as having schizoid personality disorder (which I don´t have). Actually, I became even more frustrated.

But then I moved to Brno in Czech Republic and found another therapist who diagnosed me with AS. And that was a huge, huge relief. And I suppose therapy is helping me cope with my anxiety, depression and some other personal issues I am now facing. For me it´s important to have someone I can trust and whom I can show my thoughts and feelings without being ridiculed.

It depends on the therapist you have and the amount of effort you're willing to put into therapy. You can't do it half ways, you need to feel emotionally exhausted after a therapy session from dealing with everything.

My first therapist twisted my words around so I stopped going to her because she was really upsetting me.
Then when I was going to go to another one, for the first session he had both my mom and I in the room and as a 16 year old there were things I didn't want to discuss with my mom present so at the end he said he didn't think I needed help.
Then a few years later I finally tried again to get some help and after a long time trying to get the doctor to set up the appointment, the therapist told me there was nothing she could do for me. Nothing quite like a therapist telling you you're hopeless.

I gave up trying to find a therapist, but time has been good to me and I'm doing well at this point in my life. Especially since discovering AS and realizing that whether or not I have it, I now know there are people I can relate to about certain things I always thought I was alone with. The other thing that really helped me was a blog that I found one day that has been a great motivational and inspirational source in my life.