Writing therapy/creative writing helpful - Autism Spectrum?

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I sense that creating a discussion thread specializing how writing therapy/creative writing might be helpful with the Autism Spectrum was ............personally helpful.

Writing and receiveing feedback on a few well thought-out paragraphs might just prove helpful.

"creative writing" I'm not so sure about. I communicate best by reading and writing. I got therapy years ago due to major dysfunction in the "real world" due to autism and my very dysfunctional family. I had not learned how to think and behave in healthy ways. The therapist recognized that I was a reader and writer so I got "homework" to read a book he was using to teach me, then I would write and write and write. Writing and revising for clarity helped me find my emotions and helped me form ideas, opinions, and to see patterns. Therapist would read what I had written and ask questions to help me have better understanding. therapy was the best thing I have ever done for myself. Using reading and writing, for me, was the key. I had seen 3 other therapists that all wanted to talk about "how do you feel about that" and they did not help (I have very poor visual and audio processing) but reading and writing worked beautifully. No regrets.

I never tried.

But I'm inclined to try some.
Because I don't have the time to practice drawing, didn't have the habit and eventually build up some skills... I just want something faster.
Journalling ends up falling out on me, or 'failing' even after hours and pages worth, and losing sleep.
I'd even forget it right after.

The downside would just be my own issues around languages though. Not a reader/writer type, words are not one of my stronger suits.

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Here is a writing, essay topic best summed-up in three words, 'not disabled enough.'

Personally, I can write something short of a novel regarding the challenges of being not quite disabled enough, yet not quite able enough either - a distinction alot more common than is assumed, experiences difficult to put to words.

I sense those three words, 'not disabled enough' can potentially ripple thorugh the Autism Spectrum/Neurodiverse communities beyond.....Wrong Planet!

I'm a writer but that's helpful to me because it's my hobby, and has been for most of my life. If you don't like doing it, you probably shouldn't. Even for me, it's often very stressful, and feedback is probably the worst part of it(tho of course, constructive feedback is very good, which doesn't make it any less stressful to receive).

ntsh

For me it's not so much creative writing but I do like to journal. I find that getting my thoughts out in text helps me put my thoughts into words and be able to look at different things and different dynamics in more depth. Not that I can't do it without writing, just that writing helps pin it down and stabilize what I'm looking at.

I've got a diary that goes back as far as 1991. I thought I was doing it just so that I'd have a record of my life to look back on (for some reason I like to have a handle on my history), but a lot of it is so woffly that I can hardly bear to read it, though the digital volumes can at least be searched, and some time ago I went to the trouble of summarising the paper volumes in a digital document, so whenever I want to know when this or that happened, I can usually find out without too much trouble. I rather regret throwing away my pre-1991 diaries.

So my motive for writing a diary seems to be mainly down to an interest in (my own) history, and the document has been of practical use when I've needed to know when this or that happened, but I think there's a therapeutic element in the actual process of writing it as well. I like to feel that I've spat out my experiences.

I also seem to get something out of writing posts for WP, regardless of whether or not anybody turns out to be interested in what I've written (though that matters to me also). It helps me crystallise my thoughts on topics - sometimes they're about things I've not thought about much before.

In his later years my father turned to writing about his special interest, and sent the results as articles to one or two American magazines that were about that interest. His work was well-received and he made a few good friends that way. He told me that he felt he'd become a big fish in a small pond. Certainly writing those things was good for him. As he was (very likely) on the spectrum, he barely had any "real-life" friends, so it was a good social outlet for him. After his death, one of the guys who had liked his stuff set up a website with all the articles on it, which AFAIK is still there.

A long time ago I began to co-write a fiction book with a friend, and that was great fun while it lasted, though the project fell by the wayside when I realised that it would be too hard for me to complete it. Is fun a kind of therapy? Certainly I feel happier when I'm having fun (to state the obvious), and I suppose the main point of therapy is to become happier. Maybe it's better, though, not to medicalise it (isn't therapy what you do when you're emotionally unwell?), but instead just to call it an enjoyable pastime.

Anyway, whatever you want to call it, I'd say it's a good idea to try writing and see if it does you any good.

WP can serve as an outlet for writing therapy, creative writing.