Tired of being misunderstood therapy session- need to vent

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I am so tired of being misunderstood. Growing up, I felt that people misread my actions. Therefore, they'd respond to me inaccurately to what I said. Sometimes this could have poor consequences. My facial expression didn't match my claim, so some people assumed I was lying. A friend shared something she was struggling with, and she thought I wasn't listening; she was hurt. I tried to explain. We no longer are friends. These are just a few examples.

To my point, I'm attending therapy for OCD, and I can't tell my therapist that I have Autism. I don't tell people about my Autism because of the stigma surrounding the subject. I live in the South, and for whatever reason, adult autism is frowned on. As if I use my Autism to garner pity. I don't know.

So I try a soft disclosure about the Autism. I try to spell it out without using the A word.
Instead, I told her that I struggle with non-verbal problems. I let her know about it so she'd have insight into my behavior.

I may have to preface that I have no trouble seeing a therapist and being diagnosed with a disorder. I think mental health is vital to one's overall well-being. I've got my bachelor's in psychology for crying out loud!

I tell her I've got eye contact problems, but I also explained it's not due to self-esteem problems. I told her I struggle to read body language, and it's better not to make eye contact because it's distracting. So she says, oh, it's because it's part of your past. I didn't say this out loud, but I was like, no, it's due to my nonverbal problem.

It took so much courage to see a therapist for counseling for this condition. For this very reason, I haven't gone to see a counselor in a long time. It's probably not personal. Being minimized is a trigger for me because of my sensory problems. Instructors and people in authority would say that I was exaggerating and what I was really experiencing was x,y,z instead. This can mess with ones head and cause a person question their internal experience. It is really trippy.

How do I deal with this? I want the help, but I don't wish to be misunderstood. It feels like I'm gaslit. Deep inside, you feel like you're honestly sharing your experience, but you think that the therapist in their head is like yeah, yeah, this happened because of trauma.

I want the help, and everything in me is telling me to run. You wiser in years aspies, how would you deal with this? Anyone with experience, how would you handle this?

Lastly, I apologize for the negative tone. I usually try not to be negative. This post isn't specifically towards the therapist. It has to do with the frustration I feel for being misconceived and the lack of support. Also, I am aware that I hold some responsibility for presenting myself to people; however, it's not my responsibility to control how they perceive me. People will make their own judgments.


I was really inspired by this Ted talk about a man born with abnormality and how to have control over how he defined himself.


Own your face: Robert Hoge: TEDxSouthBank
https://youtu.be/QbxinUJcLGg

Also, I'm not offended if no one responds to this comment. So please don't feel obligated to respond. I just need a safe space to vent. However, support or words are appreciated.

Considering that they're your therapist I'd divulge just to make their job easier and help make your perspective better understood.

Having autism recasts some of our behaviours compared to the NT population.

I'm sorry you're not comfortable divulging because of local attitudes, that must be a burden. I'm sorry that being surrounded by that mindset harms your ability to work with professionals because I know the same feeling even though it's not as bad here and I have basically no shame when it comes to anything so I'm not very inhibited even if backlash is a dire concern.

When you can't disclose things that impact your perception it hurts the possibility that they will understand your perspective, contributing to the dismissal/invalidation that a lot of us deal with. Basically they gaslight us because they don't imagine that we could be right and don't know how our perspective and the other person's can be so divergent.

If you divulge having ASD she'll stop looking for non-ASD explanations for your ASD traits and hopefully will stop trying to gaslight you because she won't need another explanation. I'm not even sure it's really gaslighting if she doesn't know she's doing it, she might just guessing without understanding the context because you haven't told yet.

I have given up on therapists, and your problem is one of the reasons. People in general simply do not know how to properly interact with someone on the spectrum, I find it enraging and crazy-making, so I'm better off dealing with whatever mental health problems I have on my own.

Even if you do share that you are autistic, if the therapist isn't prepared to deal with that, the therapy may not improve. You could try asking whether the therapist has any experience with autistic people, then decide whether to tell her or not based on her answer.

Personally, I have decided to leave therapy because the stress of being misunderstood was too great and the probability of getting any help was too low. Leaving is another option for you.

A very mature/experienced therapist (an elderly person) might also work better because they have experience with lots of different personality types and, sometimes, different treatment modalities (also they are hopefully less judgmental than younger people, so you might feel more comfortable sharing that you are autistic). Another option is a therapist who specializes in a kind of therapy that isn't so focused on judging and categorizing your personal experience—acceptance therapy, for example.

When I have a problem, I try researching solutions instead of therapy. Books and websites might help you. If I felt that I absolutely needed a therapist, I'd try my damndest to find one that has experience with autistic clients.

If you just need someone to listen and empathize, you could try some type of counselor instead of a therapist. Counselors can be caring listeners without trying to fit everything you say into a psychology theory.