Disillusioned after realising you are on the spectrum?

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It's only about 2 months since I twigged that I have AS or HFA. I've travelled a million miles since then in understanding what it means, and how it affects me, and have many more to go.

Lately I've been thinking of my dvds and all the books I collected over the last 20 years and wondering how many of them are
irrelevant to me. I have plenty of easy-to-read psychology books that I found very inspiring and thought-provoking, but
now I am thinking, yes, these are all pretty close to the truth, but not my truth. They might help me understand NTs in an academic way,
but not myself.

I don't feel like getting rid of them, I just feel like putting a whole lot in a box for a while. And getting some other stuff.
They just aren't "me" anymore.

Did anyone have a big hiff-out of books and stuff post-diagnosis, or post-realisation?

I gave up on conventional psychology and self-help books before I learned about AS. I found that some of them helped me on some of the issues, but I really ended up hitting the proverbial wall. There seemed to be a point where they simply could not help me. There was a core part of me that simply did not respond at all to their methods. I realize now that the wall that I was hitting was AS.

Hi.
yes, also realised that NT self-help techniques were useless.
Interesting, but useless.
Maybe someone could write ASD self help books?

I gave up on self-help ages ago. None of it seemed relevant to me.

I had an entirely different disillusionment when I realized I was on the spectrum three years ago: I had no idea who to turn to or talk to, and didn't have access to medical care. So I just sort of panicked and went into denial.

One of my constant problems is not knowing how to ask for help. I've managed to get better at it over the past three years, but for the longest time I'd just try to do stuff without help. This is part of the reason I never really thought to seek therapy.

It's interesting how we've all been through the self help book phase! It helped to some degree but I definately think self help for people with ASD is different. I had imagined that they do exist though - there seems to be a tonne of books on the subject surely some are self help.

I think there is a basic assumption that psychological problems are fixable, that they are caused by some personal weakness. That drives us to self-help books. Given the huge market for self-help books, though, one wonders how much good these books actually do. If they were that useful, would it really be necessary to keep trying new things? How much good do self-help books really do?

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Over the years have become aware that a number of very high profile publishers pushed books about a variety of topics including Asperger's / autism which were written by professionals but were a pack of fibs. The books were pushed, not because what was in the books was true, but because the books sold and made money for all involved. It was all about profits, not truth. There are a lot of faked statistics in some books about Asperger's / autism where faked success rates were published so as to make the publishers and the authors look good. Those phony success rates pushed the sales of the books but those behind the whole con / ruse didn't care since they were making money off the fibs. Some of the ruses are based on the idea of telling readers what readers what to hear / make the readers feel warm and fuzzy inside vs what the actual truth is. It's better today than it was few years ago (my view). The disillusioning part (to me) was realizing that some persons didn't care about actual book contents as long as the books were designed to appeal to readers and sold well. In my view, when a diagnosis is correct, there's no point in being disillusioned about it. Realizing that an author was irresponsible and would twist data so as to increase book sales/make money is very disillusioning. Large fibs (lies) such as the Enron company and the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme are extremely disillusioning (my view).

Very little probably. Aside from the quality of advice contained within the books, there's a huge gap between reading a book and actually following the advice. I'm sure that most people don't ever bridge that gap.