First therapy session

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I have never talked to my therapist about my autistic traits. For the most part, because I was in denial about the ones I was more or less aware of, and I was unaware of most of them. I thought a lot of it was... you know... normal. Like... Isn't it normal to be more or less unable to hear in slightly noisy situations? Isn't it normal to be overwhelmed by lots of conflicting noises and social interactions? Isn't it normal to not understand non-literal speech and such? Isn't it normal to completely fall apart and lose control of oneself when one is too overwhelmed with data? etc. etc.

Anyways. Therapist is encouraging me to continue to explore this. She says we're "onto something" with this autism thing and wants me to continue to investigate it and think about my past. We're going to get together again next week and talk more about stuff. One of the things I want to do is work on better coping strategies than I currently have, because in my haste to deny my situation, I've developed a lot of maladaptive coping techniques for things, particularly for dealing with allistic people in emotionally charged situations.

Yes, the things you're talking about are normal for autistic people, but they are stressful. People describe resulting feelings from this stress as becoming drained or exhausted, feeling anxious, feeling physically tired, and even feeling depressed.

A lot of people rely on a combination of coping mechanisms that they have used since childhood (such as stimming, time alone and with their special interests, and time organization) and soothing adult habits (exercise, talking with a friend, assigning tasks you don't like to a co-worker or family member in exchange for doing a task for them).

Some people have been stepped all over by other people who did not understand or respect them as a different kind of person. So there may be a lot to work through in therapy. It can also be hard to rewire yourself back if people have taught you to not trust your natural instincts.

You'll just have to judge for yourself how much you share with your therapist and how helpful the therapist will be for you. Some of them are great and sometimes you get one who just doesn't understand.