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Perdido
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Joined: 29 Oct 2015
Posts: 6
Location: Manchester

07 Nov 2015, 2:54 pm

When I say 'abusive' here, I don't mean sexually abusive but rather emotionally abusive. Before I was diagnosed with Aspergers, I ended up seeing an NHS therapist for various mental health problems and my experience was very damaging. I didn't really see it as abuse at the time, though, because I do have serious problems understanding people's intentions and processing my own emotions. I just didn't understand what was going on, even though I felt very uncomfortable, upset and at times even afraid.

My therapist once asked 'Why can't you just be happy?' I understand now that this is a terrible thing to say, even for a person who isn't a mental health professional! It is one of things that nobody is supposed to say to someone suffering from depression, or any kind of mental illness. However, because I have Aspergers (although I didn't know it at the time) I simply didn't process the hostile implications of the question. I saw it as a logical question and I tried my best to answer it with a logical answer, but I simply couldn't. I didn't understand why I wasn't 'happy' or why I'd spent so much of my life not feeling 'happy'. I also look back and recall that the question was asked in a hostile spirit. I have a near photographic memory and can picture exactly his expression when he asked that. With the insight of knowing about my condition, I can see clearly now what I wasn't able to 'decode' back then, and this explains why in fact I was very emotionally upset by his question. On some level that I coudn't understand, it had an emotional effect on me.
Another time, he lent in very close and asked 'Have you ever even felt an emotion?' He then leaned back and looked at me for a long time as if I was a total freak. At the time, we had been discussing a very serious cycling accident that my partner had had and he was asking me how I felt about it. I totally shut down, because I had been really badly affected by it, but as I am sure you all know it is very difficult for a person with Aspergers to translate those feelings into 'neortypical' language. I believed that he was suggesting that I was some sort of psychopath who never felt emotion. I was frightened by this. In a later session, I murmured that I had been googling 'Am I psychotic?' He responded with a sarcastic laugh and a slow hand clap.
Another time, he made me engage in role play which had to do with my fears that my partner might be attacked around where we live. Because of his accident, I had started to see my partner as very vulnerable and because there had been a spate of attacks around us, I became very anxious about him. I didn't want him to ever leave the house! My therapist's point was that my partner is a tall, well-built man, much like my therapist himself. He wanted to show me that such a man is unlikely to be unable to defend himself, so he told me to stand up and throw a punch at him! I have a history of childhood abuse, so I totally freaked out - but not in a 'neurotypical' way. I flinched and withdrew, looking away and rocking. He said, 'For God sake, I'm not going to hit you!' It felt weird, and scary, but I couldn't explain how. I became fightened of him, but I kept going back to therapy because I'm a typical 'rule follower' and I wanted to honour my commitment to therapy, especially since it was being provided on the NHS. Now I look back and think that I was the victim of some very bad therapy and I couldn't respond as another person might have done because of my Aspergers. I remember also how he used to roll his eyes a lot. I didn't know how to respond because although I knew that this is generally taken to be a hostile act, I couldn't put into words how it made me feel.
Because Aspergers in women is rare, I wonder how many other women have had similar experiences?



Magda
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Joined: 10 Oct 2015
Age: 48
Posts: 4

08 Nov 2015, 3:38 pm

What about females? :-)

I was going to this lady for a few months, privately, and I could just about to afford it. At the second session I had this feeling (what I understand now as the six sense that some of Aspies have) that she is a manipulative b***h. But I didn't know at the time I may be on the spectrum, I thought it's because I don't feel I deserve to feel better.

For quite a while things were going really well, we explored problems and she used to summarize everything with some really soothing explanations. I felt much better and when I was looking toward ending the therapy and just wanted to talk about a few more things, her reaction to whatever I said changed. She started to interupt me when I was saying something, instead of exploring my motives she would just be telling me what to do and making disaproving comments when I said I didn't agree. But, being an aspie, I thought: oh well, maybe it's just how the last stage of therapy should look like, so that I could leave without feeling too attached to her. But thank god that wasn't long, 3 sessions only. Actually, at the begining of the second session of the bad stage I explained I didn't like what she said and she appologized and said it's good I learned to be assertive. That session was ok.

The next one, the last time I saw her, I told her I believe I have Asperger syndrome (I discovered it outside of therapy, as a coincidence). She said: oh well, maybe it's because your mum was angry with your dad when she was pregnant? I was like: what? She: you know, things like that affect pregnacy, but not always. Some women drink when they are pregnant and their children are normal, but other's not.

And even if I'm not that great with reading face expression, I could see she's not having much respect for me.

I though, so she's saying I am not normal? But I was still sitting there and listening to her rubbish, and there was more of them, exacly those same that I had told her before, I didn't like. Only next day I decided I can't come back and sent her an assertive email that I didn't like those comments. She replied that she feels very sorry and understands if I don't want to continue therapy, however she thinks I should come back and discuss issues with her in person. She didn't even offer me a free session. So I told her to f***k off, basically.