Therapy Issues

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I’d like to share my experience, if that’s ok. Just wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences and wants to talk about how to move on from this kind of thing.

I had a really difficult experience of therapy when I was about 29. I should stress that the issue wasn’t that the therapist did anything majorly wrong. Although she did do some things that i found unhelpful, for example she spoke about herself a great deal more than I think was appropriate. I think the main issue was that she had a very impressive neuro-typical mind while I was always very insecure about the “flawed” and “limited” way that my autistic mind works.

I was diagnosed very recently, years after I stopped seeing this therapist but I feel that since childhood, I was always aware of how other people’s minds work compared to mine I think I always knew that I had the inflexibility of thought characteristic of autism, and it’s especially an issue when I feel under pressure. I was always envious of people whose minds seemed to come up with ideas more easily than mine did.

The therapy was for addiction issues, along with anxiety and depression. The therapist I saw was gaining a really impressive reputation at the time. When i started seeing her, I wasn’t aware of just how highly regarded she was - she’s now considered a world expert.

When I was having therapy with her, I made a remarkable amount of progress in terms of looking after my health/fitness and building up a social life. It was all undone though when I started to feel like I’d been fixed by someone with a very impressive neuro-typical brain. I didn’t have an autism diagnosis at the time but, as I said, I’ve always been very aware of how I think compared to how other people think.

I was quite defensive in the therapy and I remember one day quite clearly when I suddenly felt very self-conscious about how I’d been resisting her treatment. I felt embarrassed and that I should stop resisting - that I’d been wasting my experience of therapy by resisting.

Then I was hit by this feeling that I jist needed to allow myself to be fixed by someone better than me and I felt a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Shortly after that, I decided to end therapy abruptly. After the therapy, I felt I needed to know whether or not my positive or insightful thoughts had come from her in some way. It felt very difficult to deal with.

I still feel so sad that I threw away so much progress because I couldn’t handle these feelings. I keep wondering where I would be now if I’d been able to cope with those feelings. I walked away from a world-renowned therapist because I couldn’t handle the fact that I needed someone else’s thinking to help me. It’s something that still affects the way I see myself to this day.

I was in awe of her and I wanted to be like her. I was attracted to her positivity and intelligence even while it made me feel worse about myself. After I’d ended therapy with her, I sent her emails saying that I needed to see her again. She said it would be a bad idea but eventually saw me for one session to speak about moving on. It was difficult and I couldn’t say all that I needed to say. Following that session we exchanged a few emails and I eventually told her that I loved her and was amazed by her and she replied to say that it would be unethical of her to have any further communication with me. It’s a shame I never told her in person how I felt - I feel that if I’d brought it into the open she might have helped me to work through it. It’s been so difficult to move on because she’s such a well-known figure in this area of psychotherapy.

It’s been on my mind a lot lately because I’m facing redundancy and I doubt whether I’m mentally well enough to handle it. My addiction isn’t completely out of control but it’s been serious enough to dull my thinking quite significantly. It’s one of those times when I feel a lot of regret that I wasn’t able to have a successful experience of therapy with her.

I’m trying to not dwell on it but at the same time, I feel like it’s something that I should reflect on and try to process.

Now that I have the autism diagnosis and have found a psychotherapist who is trained in working with autistic clients, I think It’s worth trying.

Thanks for reading

Hopefully you can build up on what you learned earlier.
It is not an easy process to learn new things.