Freaky Councellors

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"Trapped and confused" is a very good description of how I felt. Don't tell me the psychologists are at it too!



Yup, it's always down to the parents! I haven't seen my biological father for 9 years (don't miss him, he's an a**hole)- you can imagine the field day they have with that!

It's been more than twenty years and I didn't have the means to pursue a lawsuit and investigation. The trouble is that it takes too long for a victim to find out what went wrong and even then, blaming people even for things that they wilfully did is too late. Deeds are really hard to undo. Monetary compensation is not entirely meaningless but it doesn't do a lot of good when it doesn't change the system.

There are other ways to change the system and I am hopeful that they will work.

So do I.

Although I didn't move around alot like you did, I did often change schools and by the time I started 9th grade, I was on my 7th school. I often had social problems when I changed schools and my sister, 1 year older than I, who changed schools more often than I, didn't. My parents always used this fact as proof there was something wrong with me and that I needed to straighten myself out.

I did once go to a counselor, but not for AS but for depression when I was being treated for cancer. He thought my problem was I didn't have much of a social life. He then went on to tell me a story of a patient he once treated who had the same problem so she'd go to one of the casinos in the area and start gambling and had run up thousands of dollars in credit card debt in the process.

The social life wasn't the problem, it was only a symptom. I used to sometimes wonder if my constant school switching was the problem, or the fact I was never around other kids my own age until I was 6 years old and started first grade. I now know it was something more.

I hate counselors/non-MD therapists/psycologists. Everything they do is based on theory, and each theory is proven wrong, time and time again. I used to kind of have fun with my therapists, but decided not to waste money to have fun. There IS one sort of therapy that I feel is VERY helpful for anyone on the Spectrum. It's called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It actually helped me. A lot. If you never heard of it, buy a little yellow book called "Feeling Good" by Dr. David Burns. It's a cheap read, and there's nothing fancy about it; nobody tries to trick you or freak you out or make you talk about what your mother did to you when you were ten years old (which I feel is totally irrelevant). CBT can actually teach us a less stressful way of perceiving the world, and most of us need that. I also feel it can help us learn to interact better with NTs. I never forgot the stuff I learned in CBT. The "head game" stuff--forget it.

The "sit and stare" approach is a cheap and lazy tactic that relys on an NTs dislike for silence to get them to keep talking about themselves until they suddenly realize whats going on in their head (sort of a forced introspection).

However since people on the spectrum dont have this reaction and are naturally inclined towards introspection already its useless.

I had a therapist try it once. She asked a question I answered in one sentence, she sat and stared, I stared back.

5 minutes later she caved and started talking.

By the end of the session she was telling me about her parents and childhood

When I was young I didnt get a choice on whether I went to see them or not so I turned it into a little game.. my record time for making the therapist start crying stands at 8 minutes.

Agh, that sort of thing annoys me.

I've been considering becoming a counsellor/psychologist myself for some time, and recently decided against it in favour of becoming a learning disabilities nurse (however I've not started uni yet so my options are still open) ... but people like that make me want to become a psychologist after all, just to even out the average intelligence pool a bit.

I've seen CBT mentioned in books, but I've never heard it mentioned by a doctor or psychiatrist. Does it work on people who aren't on the spectrum or is it specifically for those who are? I'll look up the book, Thanks!

I should have tried that. I guess I was taking the whole thing far too seriously.



Awww, I feel a little sorry for the therapist, but still can't help finding it amusing. More power to you.

From what I've seen, assuming you're IQ is within normal parameters you'll probably double it . If you don't mind me offering my opinion on the matter, I think a psychology degree would be excellent training for someone wanting to work with people who have learning disabilities- remember, what you do your degree in isn't necessarily what you end up working in. I wish I'd known this before I did my undergraduate degree.

I had a counsellor in college that told me that, because I am a Wiccan, she had concerns that I might be psychotic. Needless to say that this did not encourage me to open up to her about the issues I had come to speak to her about, namely my social anxiety issues. I finished my one session and never came back.

But I gotta wonder. Let's say I was psychotic... and I'll be honest I had some fantasy/reality issues back then... what the hell kind of approach is it to tell someone on their first visit that you're worried that they might be psychotic?? I mean, laymen throw the word around a lot, but when it's coming from someone who can hang the diagnosis on you and make it stick, shouldn't you be a little more delicate?

On the other hand I had one in high school that actually gave me a concrete solution to my problems with my mom... my mom had transferred to my high school as a teacher and begun trying to control every aspect of my life. She told me a boarding school that I would (and did) enjoy very much.

I have had concerns about this sort of thing as well. I am a Heathen (Asatru type), but I don't see how the fact that I worship different deities in a different way makes me psychologically much different from a Christian, Muslim or a follower of any other mainstream religion. I'd say the same thing about Wicca. The bats are not crawling out the walls. I'm not losing my grip on reality. However, it would only takes one ignorant psychiatrist or psychologist to mark me down as psychotic or delusional and suddenly my life would be blighted, as any hope of help for any of my actual problems would go straight out the window.



Sounds like she was really on the ball- glad you had a good time at school .

Hailsa!

I don't want to provide the impression that every therapist is going to be so silly-- I know many Heathens that do not have any such issues.

Mostly I was just sympathising with a bad counsellor experience.

Thanks for the sympathy. I know they're not all like that, but I think there is a lot of ignorance about non-traditional spirituality amongst mental health professionals, and you never know if you're going to get a good one or a bad one. Personally I prefer not to talk about my spirituality with them, and the last one I saw didn't ask.

CBT would be good for anybody. Rather than the silly old-fashion and proven-not-effective method of sitting while you bawl about your rotten life, you get real, concrete help on how to change your thinking so that it's not so destructive to you. I worked once for a group of psycologists. They were so screwed up I can't see how they could help anyone. One was a coke addict. A therapist brings his or her own dirty laundry to the table and, again, there is nothing scientific about psycology. It's strictly theory, and, after enough of them, I think sitting and babbling about how pathetic you think you are is a waste of time. CBT was more proactive and positive and I actually learned a lot.

In the past ten years I've been shuttled between approximately two dozen psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors... From those two dozen, I can only remember three being halfway useful.
Unfortunately, finding a good one is very much a case of trial and error - even recommendations from other people can be relatively useless because what works for one person doesn't always work for another.
For me, the good ones have been people who talk to me as a human being. They don't study me, they interact with me. Through the interaction and sharing there is some help.
There aren't many shrinks out there like that at all. I wish you the best of luck.