Why therapy won't work

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Therapy presumes you have a psyche like most everyone else's. Ours, since psyches are based on brain, and brain on neurology, is a different psyche in many ways.

It's like buying make-up for blondes when you're dark-skinned. Or trying to live in an igloo when you live in the tropic.

It's the responsibility of every aspie to not go where it's not suitable to who you are.

Some of therapy helped me (with childhood trauma), but most was hugely counter-productive and set me back eons instead of advancing me.

If a therapist is honest with you, they'll tell you they don't have the faintest idea what might work with an Aspie.

I'm sure there's understanding people around, you just haven't found them yet. I'm fairly introverted myself but people generally don't try to make me more extroverted cause I'm around the right people (in fact some socialise even less than I do). It can be difficult to find someone who understands especially if you don't already have anyone who does, as it takes time to develop a trusting relationship with them.

And I think a good thing about therapists are that they don't judge you (at least if they're good). For example, you don't have to change if you don't want to. Of course you can choose to if you want, or compromise between not changing and changing by only making small changes. I suspect this is what a therapist would say.

Very often though they don't understand so I often go there for nothing more than a wasted trip.

They constantly tell me stuff I already know, have researched or have already worked out.

I like to know the science behind a specific technique or theory and instead I get information that has been reduced down to the most simplified version they could possibly dumb it down to, either that or I get some silly cliche that is designed to give someone the warm fuzzies but which may not be accurate, honest or true. They also rely on techniques or theories I feel are flawed in some way.

They over generalise. I am not a walking text book and just because Jane Doe down the road finds a certain approach useful or thinks in a certain way that does not mean I do. They keep assuming that my brain works or thinks in ways it does not. This is the problem, my brain seems to work differently to most of the people I meet, this is why I have so much trouble connecting with them sometimes. Therapists make that same assumption...that I think like they do. I do not. This is incredibly frustrating as it seems that one of my main social problems follows me into the therapy session and never gets resolved because they cannot accept that we don't all think in the same way or attach the same meanings to things. People are taught to think in many of the ways they do by society and the culture they live in...I prefer individual and independent thought and always have so 'societies training' does not work well on me as a result. I think for myself, I am not told how to think by the masses.

They keep insisting I use techniques that I have tried and just do not work, like "just go out and talk to people". Um I can walk up to someone and start talking to them (I merely approach them, push air through my vocal cords, move my mouth and tongue and make noises into words etc) but what do I do after that in order to form a friendship? I will be honest in saying that I often do not wish to form a friendship with someone who stands there torturing my brain with general social chit chat as I will get bored with that persons company very quickly and this does reduce my motivation somewhat, even if I did know how to move things forward (which often I don't); but all the same they still assume that I enjoy the act of socialising and making social chit chat and that it will come to me naturally if I just relax.

I only enjoy socialising with people I find fascinating and that is part of the problem too. I rarely meet people I find interesting mostly because all they do is chit chat and rattle on about gossip, the latest fashions, who said what to whom and get generally confused if you even dare to mention words like 'paleaolithic' or 'Isotope' to the point where you get stared at like you just landed in from mars or something. After which point they continue talking about what Jane said to Jack and "how on earth could Jane wear that dress with those shoes...isn't it shocking?" Meanwhile I can't help thinking "Someone please shoot me now and save me from this torture...Just not literally as I don't want to die and it will hurt!"

I end up with yet more leaflets on assertiveness and relaxation techniques and get yet another run down about the fight or flight system. Got it the first time, got bored of hearing the same thing on hearing it for the 50th time. Tell me something new please, I enjoy learning new stuff and it might hold my attention more effectively.

And so on...

I can no longer muster up the hope that there is a therapist who can help and feel I may be better off finding my own solutions. I would probably have done so many years ago but I was slowed down by the pills they put me on with made me sick and housebound for years due to severe flu like side effects that they kept blaming on anxiety and depression and which turned out to be caused by the tablets (ie they have gone now I have stopped taking the pills). Yes I get anxiety (as they call it) but since I came off the pills and went on the paleo diet I get no symptoms like muscle spasms, dizziness, pins and needles, palpitations etc even if I get worked up and have a ranting episode. I also don't worry a lot...I ponder a lot, think a lot, am always trying to figure out the answer to things that puzzle me a lot and so on...people mistake this for worrying, but I actually enjoy doing it and am not stressed by it at all. My problem is that when there are too many things for me to do, I don't so much worry about it, as get flustered by it or overloaded by it and go into a ranting episode as a result. But I don't get the sitting around worrying thing that people keep talking about with anxiety, the only exception is when I have a very serious problem and can't find a solution...in those cases I will spend a lot of time ruminating in order to try and find a solution so that it can be resolved and I can move on to more interesting things to think about.


The medical profession makes people sick!

They give them pills that make them ill and then blame the persons mental health for symptoms that the tablets are causing.
Therapy is over generalised, makes me worse and quite frankly stresses me out to the point that it causes me to have my ranting episodes because my poor brain is overloading because once again I am forced to socialise when I don't feel like it and so on.
I can get some mild depression and yet again it is assumed that socialising will make me feel better...no I need alone time to recharge my energy levels is what I need, I don't need to be exhausted further by doing social chit chat. One of the reasons I can get depressed is because my brain is already overloaded and is now refusing to process things until I have recharged my energy level and rested....socialising is the LAST thing I need at those times. Actually I have notice the best thing I can do is either sleep for a few days or, depending on how exhausted I am, spend some time on my hobbies instead. Social chit chat will drive me further into my depression, it will NOT pull me out of it.

Most relaxation exercises also backfire for me...breathing exercises wind me up something chronic. I relax more when I am moving or when I am occupied by something interesting (at those times relaxation is natural for me and happens automatically). For this reason I am considering tai chi, but if i want to chill out or wind down I usually either opt for dancing or indulging my hobbies instead. Doing relaxation stuff bores me and that makes me feel fidgety, restless and impatient to get on with something more fascinating or fun.

Because I get depression they assume that I think in terms of worth when I do not. Ie I do not measure human beings (including myself) in the sense of deciding if they are worthy or worthless. I also do not do like hierarchical thinking. My brain just does not work like that. I believe all life has value and worth (equally) and just because a skill or set of skills you have are not useful in one context or situation that does not mean that they are useless in all contexts and situations. Ergo this notion of thinking of myself as either as worthy or worthless is ridiculous. I merely have skills that are sometimes useful, sometimes not and all shades of grey in between and so on.

I also do not spend time beating myself up for making a mistake. Mistakes are natural and are part of life's learning curve. Sometimes they are even necessary and are nothing to be afraid of. If a mistake or a failure does happen I have a brief moment of disappointment because I did not get my 'preferred result' and then simply move on to seeing if I can find ways to rectify the situation, try again or move on to something else. NO big deal...I just made an err, life on earth or in the universe will not come to an end as a result. Do I feel bad for not knowing enough not to make the mistake in the first place...no. I am still learning, I was not born into this world in the form of a walking encyclopedia and can't possibly be expected to know absolutely everything. How ridiculous again!

I also disagree that positive thinking is always beneficial as it can be as inaccurate as negative thinking can be. I prefer realistic thinking derived from evidence and fact instead!

I want practical help with socialising (ie do they teach me how to make friends in a way that I can use)...No...all I get is what I have outlined above. Therapy does not provide me with the practical skills I am looking for. It is no good telling me the theory...I already understand the theory, it is putting it into practice I have problems with. Neither do I need anymore pointless cliches and leaflets etc.

Gah therapy bloomin' annoys me. It does...and will they stop over simplifying, I am not a chimpanzee I am a human being with intelligence (most of the time, except on bad days when I am tired and my brain is refusing to work with me!).

Bumble, whether therapy works for an individual or not...you will never get the right therapy, geared towards whatever diagnosis you may have...if you don't pursue an assessment. Having an ASC assessment will at least confirm or deny whether AS is the root of your problems. Even just for your own mind that's important to know, but even more so for professionals to gear support or treatment to the correct cause. Hope the information I gave you further up the thread proves useful if you decide to request referral for ASC assessment.

I will look into it but I am uncertain about whether I want another label added to my so called 'diagnosis' list. Yes it can come with support but it also comes along with a lot of stigma as well...stigma that can hold a person back more than the so called 'disorder' itself.

As a child I had advanced development in many areas (which was officially tested) and that tends to be ignored by society because I have a 'diagnosis' related to my mental health and a diagnosis of having an ASD would only add to that. It means I cannot use my abilities as they are suppressed and over shadowed by peoples ignorance as a result of the stigma attached to having a diagnosis of anything related to mental abilities or health.

If I adopt a theory or way of thinking that is not popular...it is put down to my mental health whether it is accurate, correct, possible etc or not. I am tired of getting the 'Oh she is just seriously mentally ill' accusation just because the people I am talking to cannot understand me. I am fed up with paying the price for their stupidity and ignorance and I am fed up with the world using my 'diagnosis' against me.

My biggest problems are social and health related...in terms of functioning in other ways I am fine as long as I can use my own methods which I designed to help me work around issues like a short concentration span for things I find boring in order to get chores done.

When I am physically unwell, however, and cannot get the correct diagnosis from drs this can cause me problems both physically and socially as well. For example when I had the sinus infection people kept treating it as though it was anxiety related (both the medical profession and people in my life at the time). Their treatment of me was hard, callous, uncaring and ineffective because they were treating the wrong problem with the wrong techniques. It resulted in causing me much stress and quite frankly made me ill....and when I protest I am seen as being difficult. If I become depressed over my treatment because I know they have made an error and that their treatments are not going to work I am labelled as being mentally ill, whereas as far as I am concerned my reaction is a natural one in such a situation and is normal (it is not in fact indicative of any mental illness at all!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !).

The solution was to resolve the sinus infection and obtain the correct cause of my symptoms not to give me antidepressants and treat me like I was intellectually challenged because of their own god damned error and lack of understanding.

The same applies to my sleep issues...there is clearly the presence of a sleep disorder and I would suspect DSPD myself due to the fact that I cannot sleep at a normal time at night regardless of my state of mind. I merely have my peak energy zone later in the evening than most people and have a body clock that prefers to sleep in the early hours of the morning and during the early part of the day. It will not be altered by using sleep hygiene techniques or sleeping pills or antidepressants as although the latter might induce artificial sleep at an artificial time they do not reset my entire circadian rhythm (my peak energy time will still be at the same time at night regardless). They can also lead to my suffering from such severe EDS (excessive daytime sleepiness) that I am not able to function over at all...even to do my hobbies (which upsets me). Again the medical profession and society is making me sick because they refuse to acknowledge and treat the real problem due to their obsession with my 'mental health diagnosis'.

Instead of doing what is sensible and helping me find work with evening or night time hours or even flexible hours they insist I force my body into a diurnal pattern that it is quite simply not suited to it (pushing me to take a day shift with early morning hours), and causing me stress, physical illness and functioning problems as a result. Which then get me labelled as being mentally ill again. It's bloody ridiculous.

Once again I am made sick by their ignorance and stupidity.

Ergo I am dubious about going to the medical profession for treatment for anything other than a simple infection and I am loathe to let them give me yet another label that they can use to treat me like I am some kind of an imbecile.

But I will still look in to it.

But autism is not a mental illness. We can have co-morbid mental health issues obviously. And there is more stigma attached to mental illness than autism I would have thought. You can't be called crazy for having autism. People will still see your abilities if you admit to your diagnosis - but you don't have to tell anyone outside of your GP and supporting services that you have it anyway. I don't think a potential employer can sue you for not telling them.

You briefly mentioned it in one of your posts, and I agree that it's not only possible, but rather definitive, that your thinking is not realistic. I know because I've gone through the same thing. Read the book I recommended and get back to me/us on it. You'll learn a lot and benefit from it, even if what you learn is that it isn't working like it's supposed to (CBT) that's still learning something, just as was the case for me last Summer. Learning the intricate details of how and why CBT is supposed to work, and then practicing it, having it work somewhat and then regress was frustrating at the time, but in hindsight was very beneficial as I learned things from it that I didn't expect. Namely I learned that it wasn't working because the underlying cause of my depression was something different that CBT couldn't fix no matter how long I tried it, however, I'll still always have the knowledge I gained from reading, learning, and doing, and there's still more than enough value in that to make it a worthwhile read. Plus you either have it benefit you big time, or you learn that despite your efforts it's not working & that it may be something else that needs work on. Read it: "Feeling Good," by Dr. David Burns.

I would argue that my thinking is realistic but that we have different perspectives of what reality is.

I will look at the book but I already have many texts on CBT and psychology etc, and unless it is vastly different from the usual self help books out there I doubt I will find it useful.

At the moment I am looking more into alternative rather than mainstream lifestyles such as a more natural lifestyle for our species rather than the modern ones which are incredibly unnatural for us and I suspect are causing such problems as depression and anxiety in society.

Everything from the additives in your foods to modern day technology and advertising that makes one feel dissatisfied with what they have in life when there is no reason to be. I am not a materialistic person, I care little for a life for power and status...only a quiet life pursuing my passions along with a life companion if I can find one and maybe one or two close friendships.

I've no need for more than that as long as I have shelter, warmth, food and a few essential mod cons thrown in (not all technology is bad, it is about balance), but much of my depression is caused by the fact that society (which enslaves people by making them believe they need all the rubbish it is trying to force onto them) won't let a person break free...

Society brainwashes the masses and they are unable to see it. Society itself is creating much of this so called mental illness. Of course most won't think my thinking is realistic, they have been fooled by the system into believing in it. Anyone with my kind of perspective is seen as a kook and I understand that.

Society thinks I should be achieving this, that or the other and that I can't possibly be happy without it or that i am not worthy without it...what rubbish.

Most self help books lead you up the garden path in that they sell you ideas based on society and its faulty belief system, and it IS run on a number of faulty belief systems.

Society is a man made creation, please remember it is not natural.

Nature does not judge, man does.

We only think nature itself judges because we anthropomorphise everything. We are an egocentric arrogant species.

I digressed off topic slighlty but to sum up: Our perception of the world is only one possible reality....but is it there an absolute one or is it really all relative? Is one persons reality really the same as that of everyone else? And if it is different does that really make it unrealistic as a result?

What your post ultimately tells me is that your perception of reality is different to mine.

Can I get extracts of the book online before I buy it?

Amazon has a search inside book function and so far it is the same old same old...the assumption that depression includes the same old types of thoughts such as: "I am such a loser, I am worthless, yadda yadda yadda"

It is beginning to sound like every therapist I have seen.

I feel sad, I feel sad over the state of the world, I feel lonely, I sometimes feel hurt but I don't and never have hated myself or considered myself to be loser.

I hate seeing all the pain out there, I hate seeing all the unnecessary suffering brought about the seemingly cruel in society, I hate that society writes me off because I am different when I can be a wonderfully loving, funny and sometimes capable/intelligent human being (even if my belief systems can diverge from the societal 'norm') and I hate that society is so arrogant that it thinks it has the only answers to how a person should live and what should make them happy.

And I sometimes hate it when I am not sure what the hell the meaning of it all is sometimes.

I have preference for Buddhist theory and mindfulness over CBT techniques. They drop all the preconceived notions about positive and negative and let things just be without judging them as either good or bad...they just are.

To give an over-exaggerated hypothetical example to make my point:

If I say I am not good at singing to a psychiatrist I am being negative. To myself I am being honest, I actually sing rather flat most of the time even I can hear that. Then the psyhciatrist would assume that I am upset over not being able to sing when actually I really don't mind that I can't sing so then they try to build my self esteem which really hasn't suffered at all because of the fact that I can't sing and so you spend weeks and weeks in therapy and on drugs for a problem you don't actually have at all and that only exists in the mind of the psychiatrist because they can't comprehend how you can be ok with not being good at something without hating yourself for it.

Now that is depressing.

What is even more depressing is that I am stuck in this system meaning I am trapped in some imaginary world created by an over eager shrink who is just itching to give me some medications to treat it.

Gah.

Why would people have different perceptions of what reality is? Because your perceptions are altered by your depression/other symptoms, so you perceive things differently than what is commonly accepted as reality. As have I & many of us.

Click the image of the book cover on the left hand side to open a pop-up with excerpts from the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New- ... avid+burns

And I do agree with a lot of what you've written, just not all of it in it's entirety.

"At the moment I am looking more into alternative rather than mainstream lifestyles such as a more natural lifestyle for our species rather than the modern ones which are incredibly unnatural for us and I suspect are causing such problems as depression and anxiety in society.

Everything from the additives in your foods to.."

THIS is great. I've done the same with great success. As stubborn as you are at the moment (admit it, you are.) if you're open to learning what I've managed to do for myself and trying it for yourself, PM me and let's talk. If it works for you, you'll resolve a lot of issues. If it doesn't work, well, you'll learn some things that aren't causing these issues for you. But the key thing is you have to be open to Trying.

Bumble, you admitted to mild depression, but you need to be less defeatist too. Perhaps that is a part of the depression - if so get medication/different medication because it's not until you come out the other side of things like that, that you realise how bad you were.

You come across as someone trudging with their head down through life, not wanting to see things any differently than what you've decided is how it is. Even if you are right, that this is how it is, that doesn't mean you have to let it drag you down.

It's good that you are addressing diet and other things, but they won't lift you out of depression.

I am giving you a virtual shake now!

Forget about stigma and labels, get an ASC assessment, and if you're not on meds it won't hurt to try something mild for 6 months to lift you back up to where you need to be.

Maybe I am happy with some of my choices...my gripe is with the actions of others, not my own.

I am not going to adopt societies way of thinking I am happier and more at peace when I do not.

Actually I feel sad sometimes...you do realise that feeling sad is not the same as clinical depression right? Nor is occasionally feeling lonely for a like minded soul rather than someone who wants to brain wash me into a way of thinking I do NOT wish to adopt.

Do you see the emotional manipulation you are using in your posts? Do you?

Using criticism to try and imply that my way of thinking is wrong because you don't agree with it personally! Trying to make me sound inferior to you or incorrect or ill because you don't like my way of thinking....

You are the very type of people I am complaining about....

And no your manipulation won't work neither is your's the type of help I am looking for and I WILL reject if this is the route you are going to take.

I have told you my decision you either accept it it or you don't but it stands.

What I want is to find are people who realise that the system needs to be changed....and it does need to be changed so that people get fair and equal treatment.

The type of ideas you are selling lead to discrimination and prejudice....

As for perception differing...yes it can.

Does everyone feel pain in exactly the same way as you?
Do you all perceive the colour blue as exactly the same?
Do you attach the same meaning to the colour blue or does the meaning you attach differ from that of another?
Does what you see as negative differ to what someone else sees as negative.

I am busy molding my belief system into what I want it to be, don't you dare ever tell me what to believe and don't you dare ever try to manipulate me into taking your advice by using such lines as: "You come across as someone trudging with their head down through life, not wanting to see things any differently than what you've decided is how it is".

I can and have changed my perceptions in the past as the result of talking with others, but only in areas where the evidence i was shown warranted it.

And defeatist is not the same as making a decision not to pursue something because you have decided it is not what you are looking for or being realistic when it comes to the odds of yourself being able to achieve a certain thing. There is nothing wrong with not being good at something, nothing at all. It is sometimes better to focus your energies on what you can and want to achieve/participate in/do instead.

Otherwise you are just wasting energy that could be better spent on something else.

I opted for working on my own problems one by one because the medical system is well and truly f****d up,.

There are solutions, solutions that do not stress me out or upset me and which I actually enjoy undertaking. The way the drs want me to do things DOES NOT WORK for me and in all the years I have been seeing them they have never yet changed their approach or come up with a method that does work.

Last edited by bumble on 27 Mar 2013, 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And you are still missing the point that I am not getting correct medical treatment for my sleep issues because my drs have their heads up their arse.

I need more support workers telling me what to believe like I need a hole in my head. I saw the kind of support offered and i don't need it...

In one year I cleared more of my health issues than my drs could clear in 10, do you seriously think I am going to go back to doing their way? Their methods are ineffective...

My problem is other peoples narrow minded attitudes and intolerance of anything different.

What do you expect other people to say then? Most people say things cause they want to help you. They're only suggestions and you can choose to take it or leave it. If you don't like what they say then okay but don't go around biting them, it helps no one.

As I have already specified that the route they want me to take isn't going to help me and in fact was the route that caused me to develop certain health problems in the first place perhaps they could be useful and come up with an alternative suggestion instead of getting all judgmental about it because their first piece of advice was not appealing or useful to me (whichever may be the case depending on the advice given).

I bite because I have had this from a lot of other people online and am very tired of it. I have just gotten rid of a whole shed load of nasty symptoms from an antidepressant that I was on for 10 years by slowly weaning off of them and I really do not want them back again. I have also had bad reactions to other antidepressants to the point where my drs pulled me off them because I could not tolerate them at all and one actually landed me up in the A and E (emergency department in the states) due to an allergic reaction.

At this point their concern has fixated on being right rather than actually helping someone. To help someone you HAVE to be able to listen to what works for them and understand that what works for one might not work for another and that there is no RIGHT answer in the first place...only answers that are benefical, those that are not and all shades of grey in between.

Now I have already specified that CBT does not work
I have also specified that antidepressants make me sick physically and emotionally. Ie flu like symptoms etc (as specified above in a different post) not to mention the fact that they do not help my mood but rather cause my moods to swing around all over the place in an uncontrollable fashion. This is far harder to deal with than feeling slightly sad and a little bit tired and I'd rather put up with the latter...it only ever lasts a few days or so anyway and tends to come and go depending on whether or not something has happened to upset me or the time of the month. Antidepressants also make me feel suicidal...not something I tend to be prone to without them. Ergo I can conclude that antidepressant medications are probably not very good for me at all and that they seem to disrupt my brain chemistry rather than help it.
I have also already specified that I am uncertain about taking on another label and said I would consider it...yet people continue to push on the matter. Pushing me will not make me consider it any faster. I would like to do more research and give it a lot more consideration first.

If anyone has any alternative suggestions about other types of therapy, natural methods I may not have come across, ways that I can learn to improve my social skills independently and so on then I will be willing to listen. As long as its not the usual type of self help book designed for someone who already has good social skills already.

Edit to add: I refuse to spend the rest of my life stuck in the bloody system...it sucks ass and I want to be free of it so I can live my life independently. I have a very strong independent streak.

Last edited by bumble on 27 Mar 2013, 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If people would like to offer advice please be aware of the following:

I do not take any drugs be they prescription or otherwise, the only exception being paracetamol if I need them for pain and I am not able to manage it myself without them.

I do not consume alcohol.

I eat the paleo diet which is made up from fresh foods only (meat, oily fish, nuts, vegetables, fruit, eggs etc), no processed foods (including sweeteners or food additives), no wheat or grains, no dairy. It is the only thing that completely gets rid of the stomach upsets/abdominal pain etc I have also been reporting to my drs for years and which they have ignored or put down to anxiety. The paleo diet and the removal of gluten and dairy has stopped them completely regardless of my state of mind or mood and I do not wish to change any of my dietary methods either as I am more than happy with that area of my life already.

I do not use supplements as I prefer to obtain the nutrition I need from my diet.

I have just started practicing mindfulness and mindfulness meditation (to help with sleep etc) and am looking into tai chi.

I have a strong preference for all things natural over traditional western medicine. In regards to former I am more open to trying new things.

I tend to prefer Eastern philosophy over Western philosophy.

I may be open to types of therapy other than CBT. But I would prefer to do research first before committing to anything.

------------

If people want to continue talking about their experiences with therapy I am very interested in hearing such.

PN as some of my depressions result from bad experiences socially it would be more practical to treat the cause rather than the symptoms it can cause. My depression is a symptom not the cause and treating it will not make any real difference as the problem still remains all the same.

Therefore resolving some of my social issues would be more beneficial, however I am not sure about relying on support services as I can often find their attitude to be patronising rather than helpful and would prefer a method that I can undertake independently instead. I would prefer not to acquire any more labels or take anymore medications.