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IsabellaLinton
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18 Dec 2022, 2:04 am

It's me in some ways but not others.
Autism / ADHD / alexithymia / Sensory Processing Disorder etc. adds many more layers.
I don't have a "split personality" but I'm deeply affected by everything and I don't recover.

That's where I saw a similarity.

CPTSD is only one piece of a huge puzzle, so to speak.
It just happens to be the part we're working on now, since I've given up on my therapist.

I know it's not identical to what you're experiencing.
The degree of pain, vulnerability, and exhaustion is possibly similar, though.

I was obsessed with The Boy in the Plastic Bubble as a child.
It was one of my first hyper-fixations and I still feeling haunted by his story.
It was interesting that you mentioned him because I could always relate to him.
I didn't have the words to explain to anyone how it felt as a metaphor for my life.

I care very much about what you're going through and I want to support you.
I'm half-asleep so I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing.
I don't want to offer platitudes or tell you you're strong (I hate that, too.)
I understand how that can feel when you've put your heart on the line.

Let me sleep on this and I'll write more soon.
Thanks again for sharing.



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18 Dec 2022, 3:54 am

skibum wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:
skibum wrote:
But I am not only different because I am Autistic. I am also different because I have another disability on top of the Autism which I don't really disclose often. I don't disclose it because it is unique to me. As far as my doctors and therapists know, I am the only person with this issue who has managed to live to adulthood. It is such rare issue that it has no name and most people, including doctors and therapists don't know it exists. Fortunately, two of my therapists had heard of it. It is one of the rarest psychological conditions and if someone has this, they don't survive past their mid teens. So, as far as we know, I am the only adult person alive with this. No one is able to understand how I manage to survive.

Surviving until now is something to be very proud of. That does not make it easy at all but the right frame of mind can make it less hard. Hopefully you can survive until the condition with no name is understood and treatments for it available.
Thank you so much. It is so often a survival game for me. It's very interesting, I have contacted doctors and therapists and suggested to them that they study me but they are not interested. I guess it's their loss because I do make a fascinating case! Once I have responded to people, I will post an explanation of what this is so that you can understand.

You are welcome. Thanks for the explanation.


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18 Dec 2022, 9:47 pm

skibum wrote:
I think it's extremely common in Autism that in many ways, we are younger than our chronological ages. I wish that nts would understand and respect that about us. I am the same way and I tend to do better with preteens than with adults. So it makes it very difficult to be able to enjoy interests with other people. I totally feel you in this. I am trying to educate so that nts can hopefully start to understand this age functioning difference and start to be ok with it. I know that they often hold it against me and I am guessing that that happens to a lot of us.


for me, aside from interest-wise, I don't vibe well with kids or even much younger adults. I definitely wouldn't be comfortable interacting with kids, especially in a one on one situation. but also just in general, I'm very uncomfy interacting with minors.
that said, yeah, I'm with you on the rest of what you said. it's hard. I have anxiety quite often about being 33 while not feeling anywhere near 33. I'm secure sometimes, but not all the time. it's hard to be, when many people out there will try to guilt you for being who you are.



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19 Dec 2022, 10:49 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:
It's me in some ways but not others.
Autism / ADHD / alexithymia / Sensory Processing Disorder etc. adds many more layers.
I don't have a "split personality" but I'm deeply affected by everything and I don't recover.

That's where I saw a similarity.

CPTSD is only one piece of a huge puzzle, so to speak.
It just happens to be the part we're working on now, since I've given up on my therapist.

I know it's not identical to what you're experiencing.
The degree of pain, vulnerability, and exhaustion is possibly similar, though.

I was obsessed with The Boy in the Plastic Bubble as a child.
It was one of my first hyper-fixations and I still feeling haunted by his story.
It was interesting that you mentioned him because I could always relate to him.
I didn't have the words to explain to anyone how it felt as a metaphor for my life.

I care very much about what you're going through and I want to support you.
I'm half-asleep so I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing.
I don't want to offer platitudes or tell you you're strong (I hate that, too.)
I understand how that can feel when you've put your heart on the line.

Let me sleep on this and I'll write more soon.
Thanks again for sharing.
Oh, I understand what you mean now! Sorry I misunderstood. I am fascinated by what the article was saying though. It's so interesting.

CPTSD is a tricky one. I think the hardest part of it is its continuous nature. I would be interested in how your therapist is helping you. The thing that helps me the most is just sharing my experiences. I have taught myself that whatever I feel, whether it's painful, or exciting, or joyful, or scary, it is just a feeling and just an emotion. I actually embrace the emotions and feel them to completion. I never fight them. I just let them run their course. Having felt such intensity for so many years and fully embracing everything I feel is what enables me to survive. I also have a degree of Alexithymia where I might not always be able to identify the emotions. Once I get through the most intense phase, which is pure feeling, I then start analyzing. Understanding the event could take days or up to even years or decades so it's always a work in progress. I think the ability to embrace the most intense emotions and then to deeply analyze the experience itself, is what allows me to get through it. So the intensity is just what I am used to and it's my normal.

You don't ever have to be worried about saying the wrong thing to me. That is one of the reasons that I don't disclose this too often. I don't ever want people to feel like they have to walk on eggshells with me or be worried about what they say. I know that you would never intentionally hurt me or anyone and that is the case for the people in my life whom I am close to. There are always times when things are said accidentally or when people don't realize how what they might say might impact me, or anyone for that matter, just like I have unintentionally hurt people with some of my words as well. That is just life. I completely understand that. It would be ridiculous for me to expect people to never hurt me or to have to constantly stress over what they say.

When people unintentionally or unknowingly say or do things that cause me to have an extreme response, that's just normal life. I understand 100% and I get through it. I usually don't even mention it. But some people are incredibly rude and hurtful either on purpose or by nature. That is the worst because many people will actually bully me. That is when it becomes exceptionally dangerous because the four year old part of me who is processing the emotional impact does not, nor will ever be able to understand why people bully her or treat her badly on purpose. That is not something that I am capable of understanding emotionally. So that is when the real damage is done because I can't deflect any of that. But if a friend or someone who loves me accidentally hurts me, the pain is the same, but it has a different effect. And I truly don't mind the pain at all because I experience it so often. But the intent can be incredibly dangerous. So don't ever worry, Isabella, you are totally fine. You don't have to worry.

I understand that you are a highly sensitive person as well. I have always known that about you. It can be difficult because we really do experience more hurt than most people. But it is also a beautiful thing because as intensely as we experience the difficult emotions, we equally experience the beautiful ones like love and compassion and joy and exuberance. And that makes it worth all the pain.

I am definitely interested in how your therapy helps you. Please let me know.
Much love and big hugs! :heart:


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19 Dec 2022, 11:05 am

MOONTRIPS wrote:
skibum wrote:
I think it's extremely common in Autism that in many ways, we are younger than our chronological ages. I wish that nts would understand and respect that about us. I am the same way and I tend to do better with preteens than with adults. So it makes it very difficult to be able to enjoy interests with other people. I totally feel you in this. I am trying to educate so that nts can hopefully start to understand this age functioning difference and start to be ok with it. I know that they often hold it against me and I am guessing that that happens to a lot of us.


for me, aside from interest-wise, I don't vibe well with kids or even much younger adults. I definitely wouldn't be comfortable interacting with kids, especially in a one on one situation. but also just in general, I'm very uncomfy interacting with minors.
that said, yeah, I'm with you on the rest of what you said. it's hard. I have anxiety quite often about being 33 while not feeling anywhere near 33. I'm secure sometimes, but not all the time. it's hard to be, when many people out there will try to guilt you for being who you are.
I completely understand how you are uncomfortable with kids. It's interesting because the age at which I function socially, or the social part of me, is comfortable with kids of that age, around ten, but the age at which I function emotionally, the part of me that is four, is not comfortable around other toddlers. When I am around toddlers, I tend to take on a very maternal nature and act kind of like another parent to them. But when I am alone, or when I am with someone like my older brother who accepts and loves and "cares for" the four year old part of me, that part of me is very comfortable and can thrive.

It's does real damage that we get so bullied and rejected when the younger parts of us show up. This is really bad because these age functioning levels are real and they are just how we are designed. So it is so important that we are allowed to have times where we are allowed to be these ages freely and without fear of rejection and bullying. Not being allowed to have these parts of us show up is as bad as people telling us that we can only be around them if we bring half or our faces or if we only bring one arm and one leg, forcing us to leave the other halves of our bodies in hiding. No one would ever think that leaving half of your physical body at home every time you went out was reasonable, but somehow, they think that leaving half of our functioning abilities in hiding or at home is an acceptable demand. They cannot even comprehend the damage that that does to us.


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IsabellaLinton
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19 Dec 2022, 11:24 am

Thanks for the kind acknowledgement, my love. I'm glad you understand that I wasn't trying to explain your experience as Complex Trauma. I know it's so much more than that. It's more than that for me, too.

I don't have a therapist right now. I worked with a trauma specialist for over ten years and he was my mentor, best friend, and confidante. He was a Holocaust survivor and did his PhD on kidnap and captivity trauma in war crimes. He was old school with no agenda except to build my trust, and get me talking. In the beginning I was so afraid I sat in a ball under his desk at the hospital and I wouldn't say a word. By the end, we went to parks and shopping malls for exposure therapy, and we ended our sessions by dancing to Little Richard. He gave me challenges and walked me through them in real time, like sending me on a wild-goose-chase to find him one day, to assess whether I'd shut down, have a meltdown, or cave to my fears of abandonment and agoraphobia. Our therapeutic relationship ended when he became senile. He only kept three patients at the end, and I was one of them. He started falling asleep during appointments, or having toileting accidents. I helped him with self-care, wrote my own appointments / receipts, and talked him through the death of his brother. It was very intense.

As he faded away I tried to cling to him as a therapist but I finally had to cut the cord and find a new one. Normally he would have recommended someone, but I tried to do it on my own. The person I found was a specialist in trauma, ADHD and brain injuries, but she also had experience doing ASD assessments so I thought she'd understand autism and it would be a good fit. It started out strong when I was infodumping, but devolved into useless CBT. Most of the time I was teaching her about my research and all she would do was pat me on the head, or tell me I was clever. The best we got was one appointment when she said I was stuck at the emotional age of 4-5 in terms of social-emotional awareness or coping skills. She remarked that I'd never learned to heal from any trauma or upset, that I'd never learned how to mask or script, I'd never learned any resilience or coping skills (learning from mistakes, forgiving myself, moving on, recognising patterns). Then I didn't learn how to be any other age or keep pace with my peers in adolescence or as a teen. Certainly not as an adult woman. She said I should have had intense ASD and ADHD support as a child. Her solution was that I needed to go back and learn ABA or something similar, so I could learn to make small talk, eye contact (as needed), or self-advocate. She said she wasn't an expert in any of that but she was willing to try. The next session wasn't for about 4 months (that was a huge problem with her -- massive gaps between appointments), and she had forgotten everything we talked about. When I reminded her, she suggested I go to someone else for help. That was never my goal because I'd just learned to trust her, but she no longer felt she was qualified. She referred me to an autism agency for adults but we planned to keep doing therapy concurrently. The place she referred me to said I was too old for their services. I forget the cutoff age but it was something really weird, like 46??? I had to wait months to talk to my therapist again and tell her. When I told her, she referred me back to the same place yet again (forgetting it was the place she'd suggested previously.) I gave up on her and I've been cold turkey without a therapist ever since. I think our last session was in April, maybe.

I've done hundreds of hours of OT but I need a trauma therapist who is neurodivergent. I can't find one, so I'm not willing to try again. The process of trusting and speaking is too much for me, when I know they'll approach the topic cognitively or academically. I don't respond to CBT and in fact it leaves me feeling gaslit. Oh, I've also done EMDR but it didn't work for me. I had a TIA (mini stroke) in session, which led to my first "real" stroke, immediately afterward. I think the processing was too much and too overwhelming for my poor little brain to handle.

So here I am flying solo, and destroying my life as a result.



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19 Dec 2022, 11:47 am

Oh my goodness, what an experience. Your first therapist was amazing. What a shame that he couldn't live forever. The other one sounds like complete nightmare. Even if she had some good ideas that might have been somewhat helpful, the incompetence is unimaginable. I am so sorry you had to go through that with her. What a mess.

I don't know if it would help you or not, but I am happy to help you any what that I can. I am not a therapist, nor do I ever aspire to be one, but sometimes a good friend who is incredibly analytical might be helpful. One of my other Autistic friends is similar to me in that regard and he and I talk all the time. He is more helpful than any nt therapist I have ever had. I do love the therapists that I have now, but they are not very good at helping me understand things. I end up teaching them. But I find the act teaching them incredibly therapeutic so that works for me. But my friend who is Autistic like me, he is like me in his abilities to analyze and understand deep concepts, is great because when we talk, we do so on a level that is incredibly deep and that helps us understand ourselves and each other and what we are going through. Maybe you and I can do that as well. I would love to help you in any way that I can and I will NEVER suggest that you go to ABA therapy! :roll:


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19 Dec 2022, 2:42 pm

That second therapist OMG. While she is right that you should have had support as a child to not know such things were rare when you were a child (SMH). Then to recommend ABA to learn how to do small talk, grrrrrrrh. I have to give her credit for recognizing she was unqualified and cutting you loose. Most clinicians would gladly accept the money, patient be dammed.


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19 Dec 2022, 5:35 pm

skibum I am so sorry you are having to go through this. Of course I don't understand it all, but I have read it all. I am wondering what your living conditions are like, with all that to deal with. Maybe you could say, in very general terms of course.

What interests me most is this: are you somehow entitled to a support dog?

I got a dog when I came to believe I was autistic. Wasn't raised with dogs. Until I had a dog, I knew nothing, because it is the bond that counts.


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19 Dec 2022, 6:00 pm

skibum wrote:

CPTSD is a tricky one. I think the hardest part of it is its continuous nature. I would be interested in how your therapist is helping you. The thing that helps me the most is just sharing my experiences. I have taught myself that whatever I feel, whether it's painful, or exciting, or joyful, or scary, it is just a feeling and just an emotion. I actually embrace the emotions and feel them to completion. I never fight them. I just let them run their course. Having felt such intensity for so many years and fully embracing everything I feel is what enables me to survive. I also have a degree of Alexithymia where I might not always be able to identify the emotions. Once I get through the most intense phase, which is pure feeling, I then start analyzing. Understanding the event could take days or up to even years or decades so it's always a work in progress. I think the ability to embrace the most intense emotions and then to deeply analyze the experience itself, is what allows me to get through it. So the intensity is just what I am used to and it's my normal.



I forgot to comment on this earlier. This ^ is exactly what my first therapist taught me. He said not to run from emotions but to embrace them and immerse myself in them fully, even if I can't name them or make sense of them. For example, if I felt sad (for lack of a better descriptor), to cry and wallow and do whatever felt intuitive until the emotion was purged. Resisting it by trying to block the feeling, or having people say "Cheer up!" only prolonged the agony because that sadness needed to be felt and explored. I used art therapy, equine therapy, talk therapy, journalling, poetry, etc., or even just "wallowing", to get through the ups and downs. On happy days I had the same licence to live large and really feel it. Do silly things: blow bubbles, turn cartwheels, or dance like a crazy girl. I thought it would make me bipolar (lol -- back and forth), but it did the opposite. Since each feeling was recognised and allowed to happen, they weren't as traumatic and didn't feel like mood swings at all. It was much better than quieting my emotion by painting everything grey.

I analyse afterward like you do. Maybe that's why I'm online so much. It's easy for me to put my experiences in words for other people like yourself, or to support others, but all of that requires a bit of retrospection and analysis on my part. When I see my life in written form here I can edit and make sense of what I'm saying, and that helps me to find patterns which might help others. That link I sent you is a good example. Now I'm analysing the ways it matches (and doesn't match) my experience.

I don't want to make this about me. Thank you for your kind response but this is about you, and the types of support you need. How can we help you?



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19 Dec 2022, 6:19 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
That second therapist OMG. While she is right that you should have had support as a child to not know such things were rare when you were a child (SMH). Then to recommend ABA to learn how to do small talk, grrrrrrrh. I have to give her credit for recognizing she was unqualified and cutting you loose. Most clinicians would gladly accept the money, patient be dammed.


I don't know exactly what she meant, because I didn't get the opportunity to go. I don't think it was actual ABA. It was more like "You need the type of autism psychotherapy and support that a child would get, because that's where you're stuck." She said I needed to start back at the beginning to gain some building blocks, so I wasn't in continual free-fall mode.

As it stands when I have to make small talk (etc.), I don't have a script or action plan. I ad-lib every experience like it's the first time, and I don't remember any tricks or tips to make it easier. There's no learning from past mistakes and I don't have a toolkit of ideas for how to cope. Certainly not in real time. I can usually think of what I did wrong in retrospect, but then it's too late. All I can do at that point is blame myself and reinforce the trauma cycle. She said I didn't need to learn "how to act Neurotypical", but that I should have an arsenal of coping strategies to make most basic situations easier to manage.

Who knows if that would even be possible at my age. You can't teach an old dog new tricks and I have a feeling that I'll always be like this, no matter how great of a therapist I find. I'm a perpetual free-faller. Everything that happens is like a brand new experience and I'm a deer in the headlights, just like skibum. That's true of going for a haircut and not knowing what to talk about, all the way up to major trauma where I can't self-advocate in real time.

The therapist that I quit cost $255 / 50 minutes, so that's another reason I gave her the boot.



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19 Dec 2022, 6:47 pm

LeafyGenes wrote:
skibum I am so sorry you are having to go through this. Of course I don't understand it all, but I have read it all. I am wondering what your living conditions are like, with all that to deal with. Maybe you could say, in very general terms of course.

What interests me most is this: are you somehow entitled to a support dog?

I got a dog when I came to believe I was autistic. Wasn't raised with dogs. Until I had a dog, I knew nothing, because it is the bond that counts.
Thank you LeafyGenes. I live in my house that I own. I live alone by choice because I get too overwhelmed when other people are in my personal space. One of my sensitives is movement sensitivity, meaning other people's physical movements can be very overwhelming for me as well as their speech.

I would certainly qualify for an Autism therapy dog but I can't afford one. And also my life is not really conducive to owning a dog. When I was a kid, dogs were my special interest and when I was in college I lived in a household with a bunch of other girls and one of them had a golden retriever who lived in the house with us. I do like dogs but I wouldn't be able to take care of one. Every now and then, people will allow their dogs to poop on my lawn and I have to pick it up because they are rude and entitled. The other day, I had to pick up diarrhea poop from a little dog who went on my lawn and the smell made me so sick I was not able to function for several hours. In order to have a therapy dog, you have to be able to take care of it and I don't have the ability to do that. There is a place not far from me that is a therapy dog training center. I had tried to volunteer with them just to be able to be close to the dogs and help with the training, but I was never able to go. It was too overwhelming for me.

I also do a lot of sports where I can't take a dog so if I had one, the dog would spend too much time alone. But I had thought about it. I was raised with cats, and I absolutely love cats. I would definitely have another cat if I could afford to have one. But taking care of any animal is not realistic for me. Not only the financial aspect, but also the responsibility is a lot. But I do ride horses. I don't own a horse, but I am very close to the horses that I ride. And since I ride at the very least once a week, and sometimes even up three times a week, I am able to spend time bonding with them so that really helps.


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19 Dec 2022, 7:11 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
skibum wrote:

CPTSD is a tricky one. I think the hardest part of it is its continuous nature. I would be interested in how your therapist is helping you. The thing that helps me the most is just sharing my experiences. I have taught myself that whatever I feel, whether it's painful, or exciting, or joyful, or scary, it is just a feeling and just an emotion. I actually embrace the emotions and feel them to completion. I never fight them. I just let them run their course. Having felt such intensity for so many years and fully embracing everything I feel is what enables me to survive. I also have a degree of Alexithymia where I might not always be able to identify the emotions. Once I get through the most intense phase, which is pure feeling, I then start analyzing. Understanding the event could take days or up to even years or decades so it's always a work in progress. I think the ability to embrace the most intense emotions and then to deeply analyze the experience itself, is what allows me to get through it. So the intensity is just what I am used to and it's my normal.



I forgot to comment on this earlier. This ^ is exactly what my first therapist taught me. He said not to run from emotions but to embrace them and immerse myself in them fully, even if I can't name them or make sense of them. For example, if I felt sad (for lack of a better descriptor), to cry and wallow and do whatever felt intuitive until the emotion was purged. Resisting it by trying to block the feeling, or having people say "Cheer up!" only prolonged the agony because that sadness needed to be felt and explored. I used art therapy, equine therapy, talk therapy, journalling, poetry, etc., or even just "wallowing", to get through the ups and downs. On happy days I had the same licence to live large and really feel it. Do silly things: blow bubbles, turn cartwheels, or dance like a crazy girl. I thought it would make me bipolar (lol -- back and forth), but it did the opposite. Since each feeling was recognised and allowed to happen, they weren't as traumatic and didn't feel like mood swings at all. It was much better than quieting my emotion by painting everything grey.

I analyse afterward like you do. Maybe that's why I'm online so much. It's easy for me to put my experiences in words for other people like yourself, or to support others, but all of that requires a bit of retrospection and analysis on my part. When I see my life in written form here I can edit and make sense of what I'm saying, and that helps me to find patterns which might help others. That link I sent you is a good example. Now I'm analysing the ways it matches (and doesn't match) my experience.

I don't want to make this about me. Thank you for your kind response but this is about you, and the types of support you need. How can we help you?
I love how similar we are. That first therapist was a diamond. I wish they were all like him. Don't worry about the thread morphing. It's for all of us, not just me. The whole point of sharing here is to have other people share their own experiences as well. It's all good. I love that your share your story.

I really believe that everything that we feel is made to be felt no matter how we feel it. I know that not everyone believes that and that's ok. I respect that each person has to have his or her own way of processing. But for me, I must feel everything that I feel, and I must allow the feelings to run their course. If I don't, then I am not being real and genuine with myself. I think you might understand that well. It is in staying true to myself and acknowledging the reality of what I am going through, that I am able to stay sane. Like you said, fighting it would probably cause me to mentally or emotionally snap.

I have a friend who is Bipolar and he has helped me understand what that means and how it works. For him, he has to really regulate how he experiences his emotions. He can't allow himself to feel his emotions because if he does, they will take control of him in dangerous ways. So he and I are opposite in that regard. For me, the safety comes in allowing myself to embrace the emotional pain or whatever I feel, no matter how strongly I feel it. Over the decades, I have trained myself to not be afraid of the emotional pain and to not think of it as a bad thing. I know that I am designed to experience it and the deeper the emotional and mental pain that I am able to feel and embrace and understand, the deeper my capacities for empathy, love, and compassion for others grows. So I am very grateful that I was created in a way that enables me to understand and comfort others in a real and genuine way when they are in emotional pain. I also have a physical disability which can case me a lot of physical pain sometimes. I am also grateful for it because it also teaches me to have compassion on others.

People often ask me if I would want to be cured of Autism and if I would want my challenges and disabilities to be taken away. But honestly, I don't think I would. I think I might be a very shallow person and I doubt that I would have a lot of compassion for others if I did not have my afflictions. I also believe that the intensity of pain that I can experience is also what allows me to find beauty and joy in the simplest things and in life itself. It's so hard for so many people to feel real, deep, and true overwhelming joy and gratitude and exuberance just because the sun is shining or just because the water is rippling or just because they catch a whiff of honeysuckle. I often irritate people if we are on a hike because I am so incredibly enamored with every little thing. My brother once told me that he could never take me hiking in the dessert because he would never be able to get me out of there! So, there is a beautiful flip side to feeling and experiencing things so intensely. It can be very dangerous when people treat you with disrespect but as dangerous as it is, it is equally wonderful and beautiful.


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skibum
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19 Dec 2022, 7:47 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
ASPartOfMe wrote:
That second therapist OMG. While she is right that you should have had support as a child to not know such things were rare when you were a child (SMH). Then to recommend ABA to learn how to do small talk, grrrrrrrh. I have to give her credit for recognizing she was unqualified and cutting you loose. Most clinicians would gladly accept the money, patient be dammed.


I don't know exactly what she meant, because I didn't get the opportunity to go. I don't think it was actual ABA. It was more like "You need the type of autism psychotherapy and support that a child would get, because that's where you're stuck." She said I needed to start back at the beginning to gain some building blocks, so I wasn't in continual free-fall mode.

As it stands when I have to make small talk (etc.), I don't have a script or action plan. I ad-lib every experience like it's the first time, and I don't remember any tricks or tips to make it easier. There's no learning from past mistakes and I don't have a toolkit of ideas for how to cope. Certainly not in real time. I can usually think of what I did wrong in retrospect, but then it's too late. All I can do at that point is blame myself and reinforce the trauma cycle. She said I didn't need to learn "how to act Neurotypical", but that I should have an arsenal of coping strategies to make most basic situations easier to manage.

Who knows if that would even be possible at my age. You can't teach an old dog new tricks and I have a feeling that I'll always be like this, no matter how great of a therapist I find. I'm a perpetual free-faller. Everything that happens is like a brand new experience and I'm a deer in the headlights, just like skibum. That's true of going for a haircut and not knowing what to talk about, all the way up to major trauma where I can't self-advocate in real time.

The therapist that I quit cost $255 / 50 minutes, so that's another reason I gave her the boot.
$255/50 minutes, I would have fired her too. That's crazy!!


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19 Dec 2022, 7:48 pm

That's expensive!



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19 Dec 2022, 9:13 pm

I'm a mixed bag RE loneliness and the need for company. Most of the time I'm fine just by myself, in the sense that I don't feel overly lonely. However there are times when I do feel lonely. I've had very very few friends in the nearly 66 years I've been alive . I have no idea how to make friends. Attempts at socialising ,as that's seen as a positive thing mental health wise, have been varying degrees of failure.

Last one was a group at the library pre Covid. I was too nervous to speak much , but did speak a bit only to get blanked. The rest of them were getting on fine with each other. The final straw was the person running the group, a self styled 'radical social worker' taking the p out of me when I paid for my refreshments. Something he hadn't done to the woman who'd paid the same amount 5 minutes before me.

My decision not to go back was strengthened by finding out he was a virulent anti-Semite who'd been expelled from the Labour party.

Online is better, comparatively speaking, but I'm never going to be 'popular forum guy'. I get the best response, I am accepted more, from genius/gifted and/or severely mentally ill people. I fit in here, better than average.