Have any of you ever tried treatment?

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Did it help you in any way? Did you notice any difference?

Under my parents advisement, I may have to visit a neurologist and i'm curious as what to expect.

Almost all mine's been about useless, and I've gone through a TON, dozens at the very least of psychs, social workers, etc. It might work if I wasn't alexithymic, but since I can't really identify my feelings in the first place, almost all psychs hit a roadblock there. I've gotten OK advice/affirmations from like 5-10% of the people I've seen, but for the most part, it's dumb advice (like I've gotten advice to go to culinary school, which is ret*d as demonstrated here: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/05/31/ ... udent-loa/ ) As far as making yourself "feel" better, a lot of times it's as simple as just exercising, and getting enough nutrients for your body. So I've had pretty negative results with it.

As far as having someone to talk to, I feel more comfortable with a priest, and at least mine's had more practical advice than almost all psychs I've been to. Not that I've gotten to the level of "confession" yet, but even confession, it's the exact same thing people pay psychiatrists for. All a psychiatrist is, is a secular priest preaching the religion of psychiatry, with it's own standards of morality, normalcy, etc, with the DSM being it's bible. But if a priest isn't around, I've got friends I can talk to and again, get better advice and understanding from than a random person paid to "care."

So no, I can't recommend any treatment. I've not done any treatment specific to ASD/NVLD, though, maybe that'd be different. Who knows.

I tried seeing a psychologist, but she focused more on my anger management issues than anything else.

However, she's also got a Christian focus, which kinda turned me off (I'm a pretty strict atheist), but she didn't actively proselytize.

I have tried treatment and it helped some but I'm still sort of a loner.

I like my PsyD, she's there to offer support and help me through difficult things, I'm really glad i get to see her, and i believe she will help me a lot(I only started seeing her last month)

When I was a young teenager, I was sent to a psychologist or therapist about 8-10 times. In short, it was a waste of time because he spent most of the time asking for the names of who was attacking me over and over. I gave him the names twice and after that said to myself "what the $@$#@ does it matter what their names are?" While trying to explain its irrelevant to the issue. I just wanted to abuse to stop. Period.

As far as I see it, it's like asking for advice to traveling to Antarctica from me. I've read all about it and know its very cold but that's about it since I've never been there.

Even if I wanted to be treated, I would have no place to. The psychologists/psychiatrists in my country treat you like a ret*d if you don't act normal. They don't even know the term "aspergers" or "autism".

Counseling is the best and only treatment, IMHO, for autism and Asperger's. I would not be living as successfully and productively as I am, were it not for an excellent therapist. The key is finding the right one. Even if all of them were well-qualified and with the finest education on autism, only one in maybe 50 would be "in tune" with any one of us. The rest would just not have the same connection to be able to help us to read ourselves, and to help us decide on direction in life, etc.

Charles

It depends on the definition of "treatment"...if this means psychotherapy, counseling etc I would say go for it counseling has helped me understand my behaviour and feelings a lot more.
But if you mean treatment like these places that claim they can "cure" autism for a lot of money...seriously avoid.

I agree with AJ. That depends on what do you expect from "treatment". My daughter has being receiving therapy for the last 4 years. Therapy has helped her improve her hand writing, concentration, social skills, she has even learned to control her emotions and how to behave in public. She will always have AS, but now she functions better in a social environment, which is good for her.

I've tried going to therapists, but it never really helped.

As a child, for the most part, the "help" I received was more traumatizing than anything. I remember this one set of rules that my parents and one of my psychologists made together.... and if I didn't meet a certain number, I was punished. I -never- got above that number, because these rules were made with unrealistic expectations - they expected me to be able to do things that I can't - simply because I got punished if I didn't meet them. But I was not able to do those things, so I just got punished for things I cannot control, for years.

I have an ASD therapy and it has made somewhat of a difference. It isn't done by a psychotherapist but a pedagogue and mainly consists of

- understanding and identifying autistic behaviours including how/what those look like to others
- learning about those so-called normal people and their motives
- talking about how someone could have meant something they have said or why they have done whatever they have done
- figuring out how to do phone calls
- actively working on figuring out and preparing ways to get me to whatever unfamiliar weird place I need to go in my everyday life
- preparing what to say to important people such as to during job interviews
- trying to teach me to read non-verbal language (failed and doomed to fail for all of eternity)
- figuring out body language of my own to show others about how I feel, receiving feedback and advice on my (previously non-existent) non-verbal language (smiling at the right time or looking angry, having normal eye-contact, not turning away from people when you talk to them)
- working out how to use those non-verbal signals to my advantage
- figuring out how to explain to others about the disorder
- talking about what triggers meltdowns, figuring out how to avoid those that can be avoided
- figuring out and working out how to reduce overloads
- going over social niceties, discussing why they are generally considered important - and which ones can be ignored (I totally skipped this, I don't have any gross/pronounced problem applying those, the problem is elsewhere)

That's all I can think of right now.

Good for you.

Yes. My daughter had one of those "psychologists" once. It was the 2nd specialist we took her to. She said what my daughter had was that she was an only child and she had not developed the concept of authority because we were too protective (nice move, blaming the parents, which made us more inclined to do what she said). She even got the school to send my daughter home for two weeks, so she could learn not complying had consequences. My daughter was in 1st grade. My husband and I were concerned about the methods, but as we did not know better we did as she said. Things turned so wrong that the school ended up not receiving our child the next year. Two years later she was diagnosed with Asperger's and we learned punishment do not work with people with AS.