Talking to Therapists

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I am seeing a therapist about my social anxiety problems and I am not sure how much information it is wise to give them...

For example would admitting to them that I don't actually enjoy socialising very much and don't really want to do it be a good thing to admit to them? I mean, it's not because I don't like any human contact, it is just that I prefer to only socialise with a few others with which I share a bond. No bond and I really have little interest in spending time standing around talking to people. It's not only difficult sometimes to work out what I should and shouldn't be doing but its also very boring. I really do struggle to be interested in what they are saying when they insist on gossiping, making small talk and are telling me about their shopping trip next Thursday and how they went clubbing last Saturday and a fight broke out and....after a while you just see lips moving and the words are getting lost somewhere because your body might be present but your mind has retreated back into it's own world again. I often avoid people talking to me at times actually because I am off in my own little world and don't want to be pulled out of it or disturbed.

When it comes to spending time with other humans I'd rather spend 3 hours with someone showing me their rock collection and explaining the various rocks to me than spend 30 minutes watching someone's lips move as they rattle on about stuff I really struggle to have any interest in.

I also don't like a lot of people interaction in my life as I am a fairly quirky person who is not as conventional as most. Even when it comes to relationships I am slightly quirky and although I love being in love and I don't mind being in a monogamous relationship I don't actually want to live with anyone...so I'd prefer it if they stayed living in their own place rather than wanting to move in with me!

In fact the reasons listed above are why I am most likely to avoid Socialising. My social anxiety due to bullying at school etc is only a very small part of why I choose not to spend a lot of time mixing with others. Add to the mix that socialising exhausts me because it's not instinctive to me and that half the time I can't figure out what people want from me/expect from me/what their their intentions etc are, have trouble knowing how to make friends, don't know how to start conversations etc and tend to misinterpret people...

Socialising seems to be more trouble than its worth. However, most therapists expect all humans to be highly social creatures and if you are not you are either seen as abnormal or labelled as having some kind of personality disorder (I am not presently officially diagnosed with an ASD as I have never been tested for one). Although I withdraw from socialising at times I don't have anything like hallucinations or delusions etc and don't want to get slapped with a label or misdiagnosed.

I don't really know how much of it I should open up about to my therapist.

I don't see why you wouldn't tell the therapist those things. There is nothing odd or unusual there - it all sounds perfectly normal to me (but what would I know ... I probably have an ASD )

I don't see how anyone could draw "hallucinations" or "delusions" from what you have described ... so I don't think you need to worry.

I have an assessment with a psychiatrist coming up soon and have never been able to talk about anything about me to anyone - I lose the power of speech when I try - so I'm not entirely sure how that is supposed to work ... write notes??!

Yeah, that's wot I did. I said I find it hard to talk about these things and handed him 3 pages listing my what my issues were and why I thought I had them.

It certainly made me feel a lot more in control and, although of course I did have to talk to him, I made it a lot eaiser that I'd got the difficult stuff out the way first.

He did seems at all phased by it so I guess people must do it quie alot?

I can relate to your post in the sense that I have been thinking about this as well at least in the beginning when I first startet to go to therapy. In the beginning I was shielding myself a bit in regards to what to share and what not to share in therapy, I am the one that decide it afterall, but for me it was and still is one of the most important issues actually to say that a VASTLY significant part of the time I have spent alone and my isolation has not bothered me as much I would believe it to bother other people.

I am an introvert and I love to be on my own just doing my things and it has been of pivotal importance that my therapists have understood this just pricesely so they would not label it as being worse for me then it is.
Afterall honesty and first and foremost to yourself is key in therapy as it is to be such towards the therapist, if I were for example to not say that my isolation does not bother me much then it basically is no wonder if my therapist would interpret it otherwise couse to be quite honest I do believe that many others would have problems spending so much time alone as I have.

I am not diagnosed with AS by the way but it has been mentioned in therapy and I will see if I will go further ahead with it, I guess I will at some point but I am not sure if I will do it now.

I was told about Asperger's by my support worker. I am presently on disability due to my socialising problems (so my therapy is not entirely completely optional as the disability people want to know I am doing something to work on my social issues so that I can return to work). My support worker makes sure I get the right benefits etc and after running through the details for my medical asked me if I anyone had ever spoken to me about Asperger's disorder.

Now I don't mind working on my social issues so I can return to work (although I would prefer a job that does not have a lot of people interaction and where I am allowed to get on with it on my own as I work best that way). I don't have any learning disability intellectually or academically so am not worried about learning a new job. It is socialising that I struggle with and seem to be slow to learn. I can, for short periods, mask my problems (a hour here an hour there), but over time, once people go beneath the surface my problems will start to show as I do not have the energy or ability to be able to wear my mask for a long period of time.

When it comes to social interactions they are mostly surface based and somewhat scripted...I had manners and politeness drummed into me as a child so I keep it short, brief, and remember to do things like say please, thank you, excuse me, to offer my seat to the old lady on the bus and not comment on someone elses behaviour or appearance, don't stare, respond to people when they talk to you (got told off for not responding a lot as a kid lol). However, when I need to deviate from my script I struggle unless I know a person very very well and I am used to their particular mannerisms and patterns of behaviour. However, when meeting someone new I have to start the learning process all over again in some ways.

This takes a lot of energy and mental effort on my part. For that reason I do not enjoy mingling at a party or in a room full of strangers. I also prefer one on one interaction and not interacting in groups. Being in a group overwhelms me, as do crowds.

I also enjoy my routines and find that sometimes having a lot of people in my life can disrupt them to the point that I start getting upset over the constant disruptions. Most don't understand why I need my routines and why I get so upset when they are thrown out. I can tolerate the occasional change here or the odd disruption there but if it becomes too frequent I can find myself devolving into what appear to be temper tantrums. Now these tantrums are often mistaken as anger issues by people when in actual fact I am really very distressed and seem to be unable to make people understand just how distressed I am. In my youth I would have them in front of others but as I have gotten older I have spent much time analysing them and am now able to sense them coming on. I can feel myself overloading...it's a sense of overload. If I detect them early enough I can sometimes either try to resolve the issue (so it is no longer distressing me), flee (avoid, escape so the overload stops) or distract myself (sometimes works) but every now and again they will erupt anyway.

At those times I do not attack people or become aggressive towards others, I do not even vent them at people...If I know its coming I isolate. However the worst of the worst can be pretty bad and will result in my screaming relentlessly, punching myself, hitting myself, slapping myself, pulling my hair or on occasion hitting my head repetitively against a wall. I can also break things. What I am not comfortable discussing with the therapist is the fact that once they start, I am not in complete control of them. I cannot stop them and they seem to need to run their course. It is not the same as when I have just lost my temper as at those times I can stop myself...these seem to power themselves. If people intervene, try to give me emotional comfort or tell me just to breathe at those times it tends to do nothing to help. I am best left alone as they will always fizzle themselves out once they either run their course or I exhaust myself (pn I do not self harm between tantrums). Afterwards I do feel a bit blah, maybe a bit embarrassed if anyone has heard me or was around (unusual as I try to isolate when they are coming on as I said above) and a bit tired, however I have not lost my mind or gone insane lol. My reasoning comes back to normal afterwards. People will tend to think that I have gone mad however...

I have had them all my life, I had them as a child, as a teen and sometimes as an adult. I know them and when I don't have people interfering I know how to prevent them. I know when NOT to push myself but others do not understand this and think I should just learn to be more tolerant.

There are many reasons that people interaction seems to not work well for me. What has kept me sane though is the fact that quite frankly other than spending time with someone I am bonded with I do not need a lot of socialisation and enjoy spending many hours working on my hobbies on my own. In fact if I do not have an ASD I would say I was on the extreme side of Introverted.

I am always dubious about therapists though as I have tried to explain my issues before and they always fail to understand them. At 7 the authorities wanted my mum to take me to see someone but she would not. At 13 I did see a therapist and was told I was just emotionally immature (I was offered no help of any kind with that lol). By 16 I was desperately trying to tell them I could not mix with people and they completely ignored that and decided to fixate on the depression I was developing. In my twenties it was the same. I am now 35 and still they fixate on the depression as my main problem and insist that when that is resolved all of my other problems will magically disappear, including the social anxiety.

They think I don't want to socialise because I am depressed.

They think I sit in my pyjamas every day because I am depressed (when in actual fact I am irritated by day wear and find my pyjamas much more comfortable to wear)

They think I draw my curtains in the day or won't go out for a walk in the sun because I am depressed when in actual fact I am light sensitive and don't fair well in heat either. On overcast rainy days I am happy to go out for a walk as long as its not in a crowded place and so on.

I do keep trying to explain things to them but they don't listen. But I am also wary of talking to them about some things in case they misinterpret them, such as in the case of my tantrums. I am 35 and have never injured anyone and the ones where I attack myself are the minority...so I'm not a dangerous in any way lol. Still they do seem to keep insisting I need anger management. Maybe I do, who knows.

I tell my therapist almost everything. I haven't said anything about my sexual kinks. He keeps trying to get me to be more social, and I do want a girlfriend, so I've been dating with little success, though I've been slacking off lately....but I think I'm getting better at it. I'm just disappointed in people, they respond better when I'm acting how I think they want me to act rather than just being me. I had a stint as a vacuum cleaner salesman almost 20 years ago, the company sent me to classes on how to sell, how to relate to people etc... I took the advice to heart and tried my best to be just like the guy in the training videos, and when I was this made up guy I was able to sell to people. After I sold something to someone I wouldn't feel good, most salesmen describe this great feeling rush they get after making a sale, I just felt like a lying jerk. They told us we were really selling ourselves, and I was selling a lie. When I related this to my therapist he told me that I could use those sales techniques that I learned to get closer to people. He had nothing to say when I responded "But there's nothing fulfilling about that because they're not getting closer to me, they're getting closer to somebody I made up!"