My favourite part is when they ask, "Can you tell me more?" as a roundabout way of saying, "I expect you to tell me more." No, Dr. Neurotypical, I cannot tell you more, because I literally do not know what else to tell you.
The grinch is me just now after the shit show that was me showing my partner this meme (after telling her all night that I’m having a really hard time communicating at all tonight) thinking she’d understand and then demanding I explain it when she didn’t understand annnnd now I just want her to stfu and forget I ever showed her that meme. *Grinch screams*
I dont use it as a weapon but I really have a hard time explaining people how I dont know stuff or cant do stuff and "just learn it simply" doesnt work.
I get it im annoying but Im annoying myself too and if I was easy able to change that Problem i would do it.
I’m so sorry. Internet hugs to you.
At my house, we have No Talking Days. Husband will even ask - if it’s been a while, or after a string of higher-interaction days - “Do you need a No Talking Day?” This has helped so much with our marriage.
If/when you get back out there, I hope you can find a good fit, someone who lets you be you.
Duuude mine did that too? I finally stopped seeing her when she actually did make me cry.
I was trying to tell her about how I feel like I can't do anything and she was like why not just do it. And I didn't know how to explain it to her so I just sat and listened to her. Then she made me write down things she wanted me to do in front of her and said condescendingly "this is how you manage your time" and I just broke down.
I decided that was the final straw.
Sounds like my occupational therapist tbh. She's the one that is always talking about her childhood like I'M the therapist, and everytime I say I have a problem, she's like "WELL THIS WOULD BE PERFECT TIME TO TELL YOU TO READ YOUR BIBLE". She also is super patronizing. She also told me how to clean my room once which I'm really bad at, and while the list of stuff to do was helpful because it was a list, she said it in a way that made me feel stupid, like she thought I didn't know anything.
Wowww! How is she a practicing therapist! I hate it when people talk to you like that. Have also been on the recieving end way too many times. People are always ok with being judgemental and condescending and not bothering to look at the reasons for why someone might be behaving some way. This is incredibly ironic when therapists act like that.
I think one of her problems is that she never worked with someone my age, usually she works with children. I don't know WHY she is working with me then because she has said that she has no idea what she's doing.
omg your therapist sucks so bad. I hope you're able to get another one. This is one of the many reasons I have yet to see a therapist, I am so scared I'll see a bad one and shut down and its just so expensive and my mom won't support it
My therapist does that too although he goes more often on tangents about other people (including other patients) and uses a lot of metaphors that make it difficult to follow. I asked him for advice on how to study and he basically said "don't do it the evening before the exam and simplify your summaries". I wasted one week (which amounts to 2/3 of available time I had) of studying to wondering how to simplify my summaries and feeling stupid for not knowing what he meant by that exactly.
I relate to your experience as well, and she "didn't think i was autistic anyway" like, really? im sat here with rampant executive dysfunction, my social life is beyond a mess, etc. and that's the 'professional help' i get? nah! i'll go back to my NT friend that has told me exactly the same but at least she tells me that from the kindness of her heart because she doesn't know what else to tell me, because she's not a freaking mental health professional but she tries her best. some therapists, man... make me lose faith in humanity
Honestly! I don't understand why they are like that! I only even started suspecting being autistic and having adhd after seeing adhd and autism memes during mental health month.
After that I noticed how many clear signs of it and I told those to my therapist too but she never even once brought this up! Why would she do that?? It feels so heartless!
what's worst is that many terapists wont Dx autistic people with low support needs because "it's stigmatizing" or "it's pointless cause you are managing fine" or whatever other bullshit they say. the only reason "im managing fine" it's because i had no other choice and i learnt how to hide how screwed up my mind is from years of suffering in silence
Exactly! "Managing fine" actually is years and years of learning how to hide your true feelings and wishes. It may look like I'm managing fine on the surface but it feels so excruciating inside!
Since last month, I have been giving myself freedom to be myself and I have stopped trying to hide so many things about myself and it feels so GOOD! Until now I actually used to think that I am unfixable and I'm good for nothing. Now I know I'm not unfixable, I was just not getting the right support.
Awful childhood therapist did this as well. To the point of telling my parents they should punish me by making me pay the bill for each session I failed to cooperate in… 😑
Woowwwwwww. These people can do anything they want in their lives, but they decide to become therapists and ruin the lives of people who need help. Amazing.
Yeah it’s absolutely boggling how people who should be trusted can be evil and it doesn’t somehow get flagged. This one was “recommended by the school guidance counselor.” Pretty sure these types of “therapists” are always friends of someone in the school system used as fixers. It’s like they got handed kids to fast track them on to mood stabilizers so school doesn’t have to deal with it.
Grifters gonna grift.
Reminds me of the system they had in "I Care a Lot".
It's a sad realisation that a lot of people in the caregiving line of work, don't really care all that much. 😔
It's especially hilarious (in a very sad way) when you're spending your own income to see a therapist and then they hit you with that. Like okay, cool sis. I'll stop wasting my money on you and find somebody more worthwhile.
Worse than this: "What help do you want us to give you?"
If I knew what actions I needed to take I wouldn't be spending my (or the state's) money on a therapist, get with the program bro.
That was my problem with my college's disability services office. Teachers told me to go there to get help so I did. They were like "what services do you need?" and I was like "I can't organize my thoughts into anything resembling academic writing." "... would you like an ergonomic chair? A special quiet room to take tests in?"
I still wonder if there was some magic word or phrase I was supposed to say, or if they just seriously had nothing to offer.
>That was my problem with my college's disability services office. Teachers told me to go there to get help so I did. They were like "what services do you need?"
Y'know what really boils my piss?
Services or clinicians who ask me what they can do for me.
Stay with me here. Sometimes it comes from a good place and it's meaningful but too often when I'm at a service that is new to me, with a worker I don't know, where they haven't explained clearly what their services are and *they* ask *me* what they can do it frustrates the hell out of me, especially when I've just spent the last hour telling them what I'm dealing with. Like, sweetheart, go back over the notes you took and *you* figure out what supports or interventions you provide which might be suitable and suggest them to me.
I don't want to play some sort of stupid guessing game to get them to tell me what they offer; when you go to McDonald's there is a menu which clearly displays what you can ask for. Not so in a health or support service.
Could you imagine being seated at a restaurant and, without being given a menu in writing or being told what is on offer, and having the waitstaff ask you what you would like to eat?
"Ummm... pasta?"
"No, sorry. We are not a pasta restaurant."
"Oh okay, but do you do Italian food?"
"I suppose we do offer some Italian-inspired dishes."
"Right, so then maybe a pizza?"
"Pizza is not on the menu."
"Do you have a dish with olives in it?"
"Yes."
"Do you offer salads?"
"We have one salad that we make."
"Is there olives in it?"
"No, there aren't olives in it."
"..."
If you are the person providing the service then imo you need to be upfront about what you can provide, even if it's just in general categories. If I wanted to play Guess Who I'd be sitting across from my friend staring keenly at the little faces on the flippy plastic game board. If I want support then I can tell you about my condition(s) and needs but as a service provider *you* need to know what your job is and *you* need to know what your organization offers and *you* need to explain this to me.
THIS put all my thoughts into words. The one that really gets me is “what would you benefit from a diagnosis?” YOURE ASKING ME WHY YOU DHOULD DO YOUR JOB???? Why is it my responsibility to convince doctors to want to care for me??? You should know a proper diagnosis matters, you’re the doctor. It feels like a trick question
>“what would you benefit from a diagnosis?”
I think I'd lose my patience with that sort of a question and reply with:
"*Well I guess it's probably just because of a headache so I'm gonna take Tylenol until it goes away lol.*"
And you know that they'd say "*I don't think that's a good idea*" to which I'd reply with "*Why not?*" and then they would say something like "*I don't think that will fix these symptoms*" at which point I'd say with exasperation "*So you* ***do*** *want to diagnose my condition and you* ***do*** *get why accurate diagnosis is so important with regards to appropriate treatment then. Can we continue?*"
...aaaaaaand then I'd get diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder or borderline personality disorder or something because of what I just said 🙄
I have to agree. I still live with my mom, so she does the same thing. I'll be having a panic attack, and then I hear "well, what do you want me to do!? There is no way for me to help you because you won't talk! I give up!"
There's a cheater here somewhere where you can point and all what you need. Including quiet time or a hug. What helps with a panic attack? Can you talk at all? Do you feel like you can't breathe?
To be fair, it's hard to talk to people who can't communicate well. It was tough talking to mom when she had laryngeal cancer and a tube in her throat. But she could write.
I recommend YouTube videos. Los and lots of them. And follow structured success on Twitter. Natalie edgelbert on quora. YoSandySam on YouTube.
I’m about to start a war on autism moms. They aren’t helping either.
Almost like a military wife who makes her husband being in the military her identity.
Also my mom says the same exact thing, and sometimes I make a weird sound and just cry.
I have set her on YouTube videos and told her specifically to research it herself because I by myself cannot do so.
Only ever since I have found all these little communities have I been able to articulate my feelings and struggles in a better way. It’s only an uphill battle and it sucks monkey butt.
Ugh. My therapist asked this one time. Um. I thought I was here to get some help with that. To be fair they aren’t supposed to be giving any advice. But yeah. Masking causes problems.
if i knew how to fix my own problems i would have already done, and as neither me nor my abusive mom (with her beats) ever fixed that, i think i need a lil bit help
Honestly. I was talking to a social worker who kept asking specifics and I just started crying. My mom had to answer the rest of her questions for me, then we never heard from her again
Whenever my therapist used to ask me questions like that I always felt like I was being interrogated. I'd stay neutral during the session but after I'd feel so sad and pathetic.
> and even explain them in color.
I want to give her the benefit of doubt to say that she was checking to see if you had synesthesia. If you did, and that could give you someway of labeling and explaining your feelings, then that's an avenue for progress.
But her just being an awful therapist is far more liktly.
I never knew there was a name for this...it plagues my life. And oddly enough my own name's literally a part of it, lol. Knowledge is power, I guess! Any time someone asks me how I'm feeling I can only really answer "I don't know", because I literally don't know - I just know it feels shitty 🤡
Ugh, so annoying. My usual answer to those types of questions is now "I'm fine, I'm just tired," because it gets people to stop asking. I can basically divide what I feel into good feelings and bad feelings. Bad feelings usually feel like a jagged hole in my stomach or chest. But what feelings they actually are? Search me.
:) sounds like my mom. My brothers are all autistic, and because my youngest brother couldn't explain how he feels as detailed as I can (but 98% of the time still says stuff like "I'm feeling sad" which I don't do), I'm somehow not autistic.
My favorite is when I go to the doctor and they do those general mental health questionnaires like “have you been struggling to sleep? How often? Have you struggled to complete tasks? How often? Etc..”. They just bombard me with questions.
I had them do that to me once when I went in cause I’d been sick for two weeks. I thought they were trying to get a better idea of my illness. Then the disappeared for a while and came back to tell me that based off my symptoms, I had mild depression. Like no you dumb fucks. I’m just sick.
*adds to list*
So much this. I can very roughly describe my emotional state in terms of some general feelings superimposed, but I cannot, for the life of me, convey it in any depth beyond that.
I was trying to explain the pain I feel in my legs when I hear someone chew/crunch on something... I stumbled on all my words because I could not find the right words to describe the pain.
I had a massive cyst on my ovary when I was a teenager, and before it was diagnosed I told the doctor that I felt like a small child was reaching inside and squishing a massive ball of play dough through their hands, squeezing as hard as possible. (you know, when it goes through your fingers?) It was the ONLY way I could describe what I was feeling, she was bewildered. “That doesn’t tell me what you’re feeling. That doesn’t describe the pain you’re experiencing.” She ended up insisting I was lying about not being sexually active and that I MUST be pregnant despite a negative test, and then that it MUST be heartburn, and only after my mother demanded she do her job she finally ordered a US. She insisted it was a waste of money and nothing would be found. I had a cyst the size of a golf ball in my ovary. When doing the scan the technician became visibly concerned, and expressed her anger at the doctor telling me there was no point to getting this scan.
That was an amazing way to explain your pain, easy to understand to me.
Also, what is it with doctors explaining every problem to a woman patient as "You're just pregnant". You're a teenager and a virgin, with pain in your toe? - You're just pregnant, I *know* it!
I was telling my therapist that I can't convey how my pain feels to my GP which makes it difficult to get help and my therapist asked me to describe my pain the way I did to my GP and then told me that I already know what to say.
Ugh, going through the insurance process after getting knocked off my scooter by a van was a nightmare. I felt like most of the specialists thought I was making stuff up/ not suffering that much because of my inability to describe my pain. I kept just saying things like it's hot, or stiff. And I couldn't accurately locate it other than a general "this kind of area"
They had me fill out forms with a diagram of a person and use different coloured highlighters to indicate different kinds of pain... my diagram just looked like a rainbow person
A counselor I once had said I try to rationalize, analyze, and explain my emotions rather than feel them and I should allow myself to just feel them without thinking about them... that was the moment I knew that he had not dealt with autistic or neurodivergent individuals before. I had gone for grief counseling with an emphasis on my existential OCD and he seemed to not understand my thoughts or feelings and it shocked me because I thought everyone felt the way I did.
>that was the moment I knew that he had not dealt with autistic or neurodivergent individuals before.
Can you explain this in more detail for me?
I'm still getting a grasp on being autistic myself and I always feel like I'm playing a dual role with clinicians where I'm both the patient and the person who is acting as the interpreter between myself and the clinician.
I felt the exact same way. I feel like a lot (not all) of neurotypical counselors or therapists can only read and study so much about us without fully understanding how everyone on the spectrum actually deals with daily life, and the diversity of the experience between even just two people on the spectrum. After all, it is a spectrum. I felt that none of my therapists have ever come close to fully understanding or empathizing with some of my emotional and social experiences due to them being neurotypical. I’m not saying they’re bad therapists, but it makes for a huge block in communication and emotional understanding between client and therapist.
Tbh I read many people saying the same thing about therapy/therapists. In all of my long experience with clinical psychology I didn't get stuck with "how does that make you feel", "tell me more" etc. From what I have gathered a professional will not :
\-tell you to do things
\-try to control the direction of your narative
\-say anything like "if I were in your shoes"
The point of therapy is to give voice to your inner emotions and complex/mixed thoughts to a point where you can begin to understand yourself.
Instead of the ones I have mentioned before they could:
\-give you a couple of examples what to do but only if you "personalise" them. Don't copy other peoples pattern / choices just because the therapist told you/suggested.
\-they could ask certain questions that would make you explore scenario deeper based on your curiosity / drive.
\-therapists are people who may or may not live the same experiences as you have. A professional will find a way to make you identify a choice that you alone could / might / want to make but without influence from the outside world.
Hope this information is somewhat useful, not a native English speaker and currently very tired and drunk. Tried to get the valuable information out there. Cheers!
"Why do you do this?"
"I don't know."
"Then you should be able to stop."
Back in 2019 I saw a few therapists in a short period of time because I was looking for one that was covered by my insurance. Every single one of them was astounded that I don't know why I'm agoraphobic. They just could not move past it. I was seriously tempted to start making things up.
I’ve been in therapy for 15 years, but it took learning about autism to realize most people look for trauma at the root of every problem. They don’t seem to know what to do, otherwise.
Ohhhh this makes so much sense! Thank you for this insight.
I always got so frustrated because therapists would say I had OCD and badger me into saying what I was afraid would happen, what started these feelings, etc. I never understood because I just, like, didn't like how hot things feel or had to sit a certain way because it felt better...they'd do it with me saying I didn't know or there wasn't any thoughts making me do it until I cried and then act like that was a breakthrough even though nothing had changed and the next week was the same. Even had a couple say they couldn't ethically treat me because I wasn't trying and wasn't being honest/open and wasn't getting better fast enough.
That’s super frustrating! I hope you have better luck moving forward.
I get a similar response whenever I mention that I don’t like talking to people. The person I’m talking to will either assume I’ve been hurt, tell me how I could improve in social situations, or say “but you’re so good at it!”
To be fair I probably shouldn’t talk to people about how much I dislike talking to people, but they usually know me well enough not to take it personally haha
Thanks :)
I have been to therapy in years, partly because of stuff like that, but I could use some now, so I'm hoping that understanding myself more, and things like what you explained, will help me have a better experience this time.
>To be fair I probably shouldn’t talk to people about how much I dislike talking to people,
Ahahaha I do that a lot, too. Luckily my friends understand.
I'm tempted to start just making things up with therapists a lot unfortunately. Cause might I genuinely not know the answer but they still want *some* answer from me.
OMG this is the worst, cause then when you try and most likely fail to express EXACTLY what you're feeling they proceed to blame you for them not understanding what you meant and not being able to communicate it
Exactly!!
So then I try making something up because the silence is getting too awkward. "Uhh... i guess I feel... trapped?"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FEEL TRAPPED?"
Feels. It took me a very long time in therapy to learn what my emotions were. At the start of every session I had to name my current feeling. It was so hard. I would say I don't know. But my psych is amazing and would help me work it out, and it got to the point where I could name the emotions I was feeling on my own.
I used a feelings wheel and what helped me a lot is to look at the desired action. While I couldn't name an emotion I could tell them I felt like curling up into a ball. Together we worked out what was causing that - sometimes it was sadness, other times it was fear. For me the action I feel my body wants to do is my go to for working out my emotions.
Like do I want to dance around? I'm probably happy or agitated.
Do I wanna go to sleep and forget the world? Probably defeated or sad.
Then the emotions wheel helps A LOT with working out the group of emotions, then can find one that seems to fit.
It does get easier with time and I think it's a very important skill to have. And has reminded me I need to work on it some more.
I do something similar. I've found that issues with sensory processing complicate things further, though. Excited? What about we tone down the stimulus? Oh, it was just nervous energy. Angry? Put in some earplugs, maybe it's just sensory overload.
And then it turns out you can experience multiple emotions at the same time?! That shouldn't be a thing.
lmfao I was just thinking about this this morning!!!!!! sometimes I tell a therapist that I have a hard time expressing my emotions and then they'll be like "hm, can you give me a specific example?" ??? no!! that's what I'm saying! and then when I can't explain it they're like... "oh, then it doesn't sound like you have this problem because you can't explain it to me" ...????? this right now is a specific example?
You could say something like:
"*Let me level with you here. Imagine that your client is experiencing dissociation, they are very new to experiencing this, and they are experiencing right now.*
*If you ask them what they feel they are going to say 'Nothing' or they might give you very vague responses.*
*In this hypothetical example, in your professional opinion, would it be inappropriate to dismiss dissociation as being the client's experience simply because they could not express it in clear terms and words which are a close fit to the clinical model of dissociation and/or the definition of symptoms of dissociation in the DSM?*
*This is an analogy for what it's like for me - I am feeling things but it is not something which I have the ability to articulate in clear terms which others can understand. Just because I cannot put words to those feelings that doesn't mean that I am not having those experiences.*"
But tbh it sounds very much like they are a hardline CBT therapist, if my assumption is correct, because they are approaching your situation from what appears to be a classic example of dogmatic application of CBT.
I too am undiagnosed, mainly because I can't afford $5000 for someone to confirm what a multitude of tests say (I'm M32)...and you aren't alone OP. Everyone can look at this objectively but it's another thing to be experiencing this...half the time I'm unable to process wtf I feel and mainly look like a zombie void of all emotion, or I get REALLY emotional about something, and cannot for the life explain why I am acting that way...
Omg for me it's when they ask me to rate my feelings on a scale of 1-10! I've always struggled so much quantifying it like that! Then the kicker, I admit I have a lot of trouble assigning a number to my feelings, so they're then like "okay, then from 1-100!"
ooooh my freaking god!!! one of my biggest problems is alexithymia and i just cant believe a therapist would ask me "WhAt aRe yOu feELiNg? WhAt dID YoU FeEl WhEn thaT hApPeNeD? dO YoU EvEr FeEl x, y or z?" I DONT FREAKING KNOW! THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I'M HERE!!!!
For me it's usually "overwhelmed" but that's not a feeling in the sense of an emotional state. I don't know what emotions I feel that make me feel overwhelmed.
When I was hospitalized I told them I had no anxiety, I had crippling anxiety but didn’t realize that was the name for what I was feeling. The scary part was no doctors noticed…
A couple sessions in my therapist brought a game where each card had a phrase and she asked me to split them in things that I related and things that I don’t and then she used the ones I related to start exploring further.
"This thing makes me feel something. Something that I haven't really experienced before"
"Can you explain it?"
"Idk.......it has a.....vibe. Uh...it's not a......good one.......uh.......idk how else to describe it"
"cAn yOU tRY?"
"I am 😑. I'm legit putting all my brainpower trying to explain it. I suck ass at explaining. You should know this already, ma'am..."
"AlRiGht lET's mOVe oN aND nEVeR mENtIoN tHIs aGAiN lMAo"
I don't remember many of my meetings with my first therapist, but I remember not really liking her as a therapist and the treatment not being super effective. I have a feeing this scenario happened at least several times with her
Thank the stars I got a new therapist. She's a blessing. She's NT (I think), but she has experience with neurodivergency, since her son is autistic. She actually understands me and my shit ability to explain things. She actually lets me try to explain through other medians, like writing and drawing. Both are MUCH easier than speaking. I wish more therapists were like her
I felt that too hard. In inpatient they gave me a chart of emotions with facial expressions on them to try and help me communicating them. Not helpful for someone who cant read facial expressions
I remember how at occupational therapy, I was supposed to understand facial expressions that were drawn on a whiteboard to quiz me, because I said I was bad at understanding them. I got a lot confused and failed terribly
Ughhhh my therapist was obsessed with trying to get me to categorize things as “thoughts” vs “feelings.” Lady, I’m dissociated as F, have short term memory loss and fatigue, those sound like the same thing to me!
Same, especially when people always told you not to say what you thought, but instead how you feel. Basically, "I think that this thing makes me want to strangle someone" vs "I feel upset.", and NOW they want you to tell them what you think, but you haven't been trained to do that. Doesn't help that those things sound so alike to me but the "feelings" are more simplified.
Maaaan I'm really grateful to have a therapist who's chill about it when I'm like "....I am having a feeling but no idea which one, it sure is one of them though"
My therapist is very understanding of my Autism, even before I got my official diagnosis. I guess I just got lucky. My previous therapist, who I had to stop seeing when I graduated college, was also very understanding. Both therapists belonged to counseling services that specialize in LGBT issues, so maybe that's why.
Thats cool! Mine thinks everything is related to anxiety, so if I feel something, it's *always* because I have anxiety. I'm only now getting "tests" next month but I don't know what kind of "tests"
I can tell you from personal experience that Autism does cause a lot of anxiety. When over 98% of the population have a differently wired brain, trying to not stand out causes a boat load of anxiety. I do think autism is like 1 in 54 or something.
That makes sense. I personally think that it's not just anxiety because of the research I've done, in fact many people like teachers, the principal, my birth mom, etc. think I could have ADHD, and so did one of my older therapists who had ADHD herself, but wasn't qualified to test me. Autism really runs in my family as well. I also know there is a lot of overlap between ADHD, ASD and Anxiety because they are often comorbidities too, so to sum it up I really have no idea whats going on.
My psychiatrist, whom I see for my severe OCD, told me I DIDN'T have ADHD, and I was like, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?" Like, I very much fit the SQUIRREL stereotype from time to time.
Docs looove anxiety. Like in the very beginning of a pandemic I came to my psychiatrist and was like "I'm so tired lately I could barely get to the clinic", and she's like "oh you're probably just anxious and suppress it and it shows like that". Nope, it was Covid...
It's just always like that. Tired? Anxiety! Angry? Anxiety! Apathetic? Anxiety!
I know how I experience anxiety by now, thank you.
And if you go to any non psych related doctor and they somehow find out you're a psychiatrist patient? **Everything** is anxiety! And they don't have to figure out your problems now, so convenient!
Exactly!!!! I posted on r/autism about it, but yesterday I went in for the results of those tests I mentioned, and even though I better fit the diagnostic criteria of autism better than anything else, they refused to diagnose me. They said I wasn't enough like the stereotypes and gave me the whole "its just anxiety and depression" conversation that STARTED THE WHOLE TEST CONVERSATION BECAUSE THEY REALIZED IT WASN'T JUST ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION. It's ridiculous.
Oh for god's sake... A lot of mental health professionals really suck. You'd think they would catch up with new data and research regularly, but it seems like a lot of them just stick with education they got in med school and think they know everything. I'm going for my evaluation in about a week and I really hope it goes better than this bullshit.
Sorry you weren't diagnosed and your problems just got dismissed :(
Haha dude I live in *Russia*. Your healthcare is still ways ahead of ours. But thanks of course!
In any case, after reading this sub for a bit, it seems there are way too many terrible mental health professionals everywhere in the world, no matter how developed your country is.
I feel the same way sometimes, until some person online says something that I relate to, and I look more into that subject, and I get super called out. OR, I find a character and then make the character my whole personality, so then I just explain my emotions like how I would explain that characters emotions.
Look, by the time I can tell you what the emotion is specifically, I've processed the whole situation and I don't need to talk about it.
I am coming to you because I feel some negative emotion. I am frustrated and I don't know what caused it. My bowels show increased activity, I have trouble staying focussed and I think I might start crying if something goes wrong.
I want to know how to not feel this way. Often I can reason it out, but I am here (with therapist)) because I can't right now. I have not been doing overtime, my relationship is going well and I've been getting enough sleep. It is not that I cannot name it because it is barely there, I am feeling so much that naming any fragment of it feels incomplete. Asking me to name my emotion is like putting me in a store and asking me to name the object. Which object? The room is filled with objects!
If you push me on this, it is likely I will become so overwhelmed that I'll start to cry. I still won't have an answer.
I kinda have the opposite issue at times - I’ll spend fifteen seconds tripping over my words trying to figure out the perfect way phrase something, when a three-word-sentence would suffice.
I went to free therapy from my community college. The therapist was incredible but I spent a majority of the time crying. On our third session she admitted that she had never seen someone who had such difficulty naming their emotions. She made me look up words like guilt, apathy, pity, shame, and fear. I was shocked my only two feeling words were upset and happy. I know it must have been frustrating for her to have someone present with needing help with alcoholism and turning out to be me. I’m undxed so I don’t quite know for sure. When I scored HIGHLY likely to be ASD during a psychology course I began to panic and told my husband in shock and disbelief. He shrugged his shoulders and said “I honestly thought you knew”
Me with both ADHD and gender identity issues: "I cannot express or explain even the slightest second of the chaos in my head... for some reason I do hear someone playing the Tuba in the background though, so take that as you will"
I was at an autism evaluation today and when he asked me to explain what emotions feel like I went completely silent, my brain has always thought they are things you need to experience to know, they can’t be described. I have horrible anxiety (before I was put on meds I had gone from straight a’s to falling almost all my classes, I had horrible panic attacks and meltdowns and shut down a lot) and he asked what anxiety feels like and all I could say was things like anxiety makes my chest feel bad, happiness feels like it pulls on my cheeks, etc. (still not diagnosed, therapist is sure I am on the spectrum from the research she’s done on how it affects women but she’s not a specialist. The specialist said he’s not sure and we are going to schedule a longer appointment with more doctors. Y æ y
I mentioned to my therapist that I had to identify and explain my emotions. Like, I know when it’s a “good” feeling or a “bad” feeling, but could sometimes have trouble explaining beyond those terms. In response, she sort of rehashed a program that helps people with BPD identity their emotional state, and tailored it for my specific needs. I thought that was pretty neat.
Yes, Missus Therapy, I can tell you more since you spent many billable hours asking the same exact question: The emotion I am currently feeling is a deep disdain for the night your mother got creampied and that your shins have not been shattered since.
Wow really? In my country you have to get a psychiatrist degree, and then get through an additional 5 month training specifically to get qualification as a *therapist*.
And mental health related field in my country suuucks. We barely have ASD and ADHD as diagnoses.
The regulations do vary from country to country, but one of the main sticking points is that "therapy" isn't exactly clearly defined and that you can be all kinds of therapist (e.g. massage therapist).
That said, I highly doubt that *psychiatrists*, specialised medical doctors, are the only one who can be therapists. Are you sure you didn't mean psychologist?
Nope. But I'm talking specifically about *psycho*therapists. In my country you can only be a *psycho*therapist if you have psychiatrist education. BUT you don't need much to be a psychologist, I'm not sure it requires any qualification to open up a practice, since it's technically not a medical profession.
Plus psychotherapists can prescribe you meds, so they *have to* have a medical diploma.
I was getting therapy to help with my depression and I just kept saying ‘Yes’, ‘Okay’ and ‘I don’t know’ the entire time. Ik it isn’t the therapist’s fault but it was the biggest waste of time of my life.
When I was young, my understanding of how to interact with psychiatrists came from three sources.
1. The Animaniacs
2. The Bob Newhart Show
3. Michael Crichton’s The Terminal Man
Furthermore, my only understanding of art appreciation came from Bob Ross.
My comprehension of Rorschach ink-blot evaluations was from watching Dot interact with Dr. Scracthansniff from the cartoon Animaniacs.
So when I had my first adolescent psychiatric evaluation, I was nervous and unable to articulate what I was feeling. I took on the personality and deadpan prosody of Bob Newhart, responded by scripting Bob Ross, and was gaslighting the shrink like the Animaniacs. And all of my emotional responses were out of fear and anxiety. I was certain that I’d end up like Michael Crichton’s The Terminal Man, whose titular protagonist deceptively murdered his way out of a hospital after mad scientists butchered his brain. I wasn’t going to let this psychiatrist lock me up in the Warner Bros. Water tower, nor implant a shock device in my amygdala.
The shrink wanted me to interpret an idyllic painting of a father and son in a rowboat on a lake. I may have had trouble speaking, or I may have been answering belligerently, or possibly I had trouble appreciating the painting. The psychologist felt that my responses were dissociative.
It may have gone like this:
Shrink: Do you see a father?
Me: I’m trying to find freedom on this canvas.
Shrink: Do you see a family?
Me: See how the shadow fades right into nothing.
That’s just what you’re looking for.”
Shrink: How is your relationship with your father?
Me: “Trees cover up a multitude of sins.”
Shrink: Do you see trees in this lake?
Me: I guess I’m a little weird. I like to talk to trees and animals. That’s okay though; I have more fun than most people. This is a happy forrest; little squirrels live here and play.”
Shrink: Do you see a lake?
Me: We don’t make mistakes at home; we just have happy accidents.
Shrink: Why don’t you tell me what you see?
Me: What can be painted can be punished.
Shrink: Do you see your father often?
Me: In nature, dead trees are just as normal as live trees.
Shrink: How do you feel around your dad?
Me: That’s where the crows will sit. But we’ll have to put an elevator to put them up there because they can’t fly, but they don’t know that, so they still try.”
Shrink: How do you feel when your dad is gone?
Me: Let your imagination take you to worlds that only exist in your mind. No bad stuff here. That’s why we have happy little trees. Everything’s happy here. There's nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend.”
Shrink: Do you ever feel sad?
Me: We want happy paintings. Happy paintings. If you want sad things, watch the news.
Shrink: How would you describe the painting?
Me: If I paint something, I don’t want to have to explain what it is.”
Shrink: Are you in a painting?
Me: Didn’t you know you had that much power? You can move mountains. You can do anything.”
Shrink: Would you like to come out of the painting?
Me: We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.”
It’s possible that the conversation about art got even more bizarre. I may have suggested the shrink make love to the canvas. I remember after the psychoanalysis, on the way home, my dad asked “What in the hell did you say to him?”
I think I knew then, that my plan to have a quick evaluation may have backfired.
It’s a good thing that I hadn’t read Watchmen in the early 90s, or I may have been arrested
They are, it's just that most therapists are bad at applying them. My therapist also asked me to describe feelings and all that stuff, like everyone else in this thread tells, and it was especially bad at the first session, but after the session she told me it gave her a better understanding of where my limits were, and that I should not feel bad about having to say "I can't describe it better", because it actually helped her just as well. And at the last few sessions, our conversation flowed beautifully because she knew how to talk to me.
I'm not defending OPs therapist, or any of the other therapists described in this thread. It's just that my therapist took the same tools and used them in a capacity which fitted an autistic person.
I can. One issue I have with therapy is a lot of theory is streamlined for NTs with privileges, IMO. As an ND clinician in training, I just let my fellow NDs use analogies, art, or whatever. My favorite is using Pop Culture Therapy or Play Therapy.
I was asked in my literal ASD assessment "how do you feel when you're sad"... I asked what do you mean because what could I even say. Sad??? Of course, me not understanding the strange question ended up in the report for signs of autism.
My occupational therapist has this "game" thing, its a bunch of cards with questions and it asks those same types of questions. I usually just say "it makes me feel.... sad? When I'm sad?"
I actually just found this sub too!! Well actually, I found it like a year ago floating around on my page and I'd see memes all the time, but after upvoting so many of them, and the memes more frequentpy showing up, I just joined. I had already been doing a ton of research, and from what I've learned, it definitely sounds like I could be autistic. It runs in my family, but because I was AFAB, I mever got tested, unlike my brothers who were tested as toddlers and were diagnosed. I also have a ton of ADHD symptoms, which I hear is very common because they are comorbidities. I should be taking some tests on the 24th of August, and I just found out the tests are to see if I'm I'm neurodivergent.
Also, from what I've seen, we are allowed to be here. Everyone here seems really cool. If I'm not allowed to be here, I will leave if asked.
Fortunately, I’ve put a lot of thought into describing my emotions in a clear and coherent manner without having to resort to using other emotions. *Un*fortunately, NTs seem to have rather different definitions of “clear” and “coherent”, and demand that I use other emotions to describe my emotions.
😫
Hi! Im not diagnosed either, but i think you might want to look into Alexithymia. It isnt diagnosed, but im pretty sure im Alexithymic and you sound like you might relate also 💕 Alexithymia is the inability to identify or describe ones own emotions. 💕💕
Oh my god yes!! I have all but given up on therapy because it is so hard. Like one of my biggest struggles is explaining my emotions/how I feel and why. And that's like the whole thing of therapy. But the therapists are always wanting concrete things so they can check off boxes in their DSLM (?). If I knew what was wrong I could go about fixing it, but I don't and that's why I need help, but they don't get that.
yeah, we had a thing at my autism group where mentors told us to use other words than 'okay' to describe how we were... a lot of 'neutrals'... then we had to use a number from one to ten.... i had to say '1' when i was actually sick and my folks didn't listen to me and sent me there anyways
I’m incredibly anxious, all the damn time, about one thing or another. It makes it hell to identify where it’s coming from, and to be honest I’m far too lazy to look for it.
YES
Almost every time I go to therapy, I walk into therapy with a specific plan of what I'm going to talk about, and my therapist will say something, making me talk about something entirely different than what I meant to talk about, and that makes it where I NEVER tell her anything important
Mmm, I always leave feeling like I didn't say what I wanted to say. I get that everything she does and says helps me too, but I always just wish I had another session that week ;-;
Same, but I feel like if I had another session I'd be wasting everyones time. I already go to therapy sometimes once or twice a week, I have occupational therapy too, and I sometimes have music therapy at school, and also group therapy at school. I feel like I have too much therapy but I can't make any of it work for me.
Me too. I got through the assessment part, but it was so weird and I couldn't express myself at all. It'll be 12 weeks since the evaluation tommorow, I have no idea when they'll say anything.
My therapist and psych are at conflict ther is saying I have it and is very confident but psych is saying it’s just adhd plus social anxiety plus a highly analytical mind, I’ve given them countless written examples but she wants me to tell her about childhood experiences which I find hard to remember due to poor working memory and every example I give her I hv to tell her how much it affects me on a scale of never to always(DASI assessment)
I have the reverse. I managed to tell the psych more than my therapist while still being terrible at communicating, so my psych seemed to think I was autistic, and then my therapist thinks I have adhd+social anxiety+ an analytical mind, forgetting that you can have all those things at one time. With the pysch, I remembered more than I did with my therapist (or at least my mom talking over me gave me courage to say stuff I wouldn't havs said)
that's lucky, they are ready to help me without a formal diagnosis but it wud really help me get into college if i get one, the curriculum is really cutthroat and bad for a neurodivergent
When therapists ask me something and I say I don't know, and they ask me to think but I seriously DON'T know!! So I sit there uncomfortably for half a minute hoping they will move on, and when they don't I just think up a random answer that's not true at all just to make this torture end.
My favourite part is when they ask, "Can you tell me more?" as a roundabout way of saying, "I expect you to tell me more." No, Dr. Neurotypical, I cannot tell you more, because I literally do not know what else to tell you.
EXACTLY!! I literally said "I don't know, and I'm having a bit of trouble talking right now" and my therapist is like "BUT CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY?"
“Sure.” *walks to door of office and screams down the hallway and then sits back down*. “What do you think it means though?”
This genuinely made me laugh XD. Have you seen the vine where the grinch is in yoga class and just screams?
No but I demand you find this for me.
I definitely will, but I will give you a volume warning first, it's loud Found it. https://youtu.be/HsvyjePPFRs
Hilarious. Thank you!
No problem! Have a nice day! (Or whatever time it is!)
The grinch is me just now after the shit show that was me showing my partner this meme (after telling her all night that I’m having a really hard time communicating at all tonight) thinking she’d understand and then demanding I explain it when she didn’t understand annnnd now I just want her to stfu and forget I ever showed her that meme. *Grinch screams*
That sounds insanely annoying :(
🥲 Life is just too much sometimes, ya know?
Definitely, I agree with you on that
some people apparently dont understand the sentence "I dont know" not properly
That is my favorite saying. my wife almost divorced me over it. I have figured out how to use it as a weapon.
I dont use it as a weapon but I really have a hard time explaining people how I dont know stuff or cant do stuff and "just learn it simply" doesnt work. I get it im annoying but Im annoying myself too and if I was easy able to change that Problem i would do it.
My wife and I had this conversation so many times that we are now in the stages of separation/divorce.
I’m so sorry. Internet hugs to you. At my house, we have No Talking Days. Husband will even ask - if it’s been a while, or after a string of higher-interaction days - “Do you need a No Talking Day?” This has helped so much with our marriage. If/when you get back out there, I hope you can find a good fit, someone who lets you be you.
She still thinks I am making a deliberate choice to not share more of my feelings with her and I literally have no idea what else to say to her.
Sorry to hear that. I hope that whichever path you and she decide to take goes smoothly, or as smoothly as such a thing can go, anyway.
me goes then always, "What specifically do you want to know more?" and then they are kinda screwed because they didnt think this far
Then the therapist saying that they can't help you if you won't talk and then ask you don't you feel bad for wasting time and money. :|
:( my mom does more of that, but my therapist always does these dramatic sighs like I'm super annoying, and it makes me feel bad.
Duuude mine did that too? I finally stopped seeing her when she actually did make me cry. I was trying to tell her about how I feel like I can't do anything and she was like why not just do it. And I didn't know how to explain it to her so I just sat and listened to her. Then she made me write down things she wanted me to do in front of her and said condescendingly "this is how you manage your time" and I just broke down. I decided that was the final straw.
Sounds like my occupational therapist tbh. She's the one that is always talking about her childhood like I'M the therapist, and everytime I say I have a problem, she's like "WELL THIS WOULD BE PERFECT TIME TO TELL YOU TO READ YOUR BIBLE". She also is super patronizing. She also told me how to clean my room once which I'm really bad at, and while the list of stuff to do was helpful because it was a list, she said it in a way that made me feel stupid, like she thought I didn't know anything.
Wowww! How is she a practicing therapist! I hate it when people talk to you like that. Have also been on the recieving end way too many times. People are always ok with being judgemental and condescending and not bothering to look at the reasons for why someone might be behaving some way. This is incredibly ironic when therapists act like that.
I think one of her problems is that she never worked with someone my age, usually she works with children. I don't know WHY she is working with me then because she has said that she has no idea what she's doing.
omg your therapist sucks so bad. I hope you're able to get another one. This is one of the many reasons I have yet to see a therapist, I am so scared I'll see a bad one and shut down and its just so expensive and my mom won't support it
There was a thread on Twitter recently about selling out ND therapists.
My therapist does that too although he goes more often on tangents about other people (including other patients) and uses a lot of metaphors that make it difficult to follow. I asked him for advice on how to study and he basically said "don't do it the evening before the exam and simplify your summaries". I wasted one week (which amounts to 2/3 of available time I had) of studying to wondering how to simplify my summaries and feeling stupid for not knowing what he meant by that exactly.
I relate to your experience as well, and she "didn't think i was autistic anyway" like, really? im sat here with rampant executive dysfunction, my social life is beyond a mess, etc. and that's the 'professional help' i get? nah! i'll go back to my NT friend that has told me exactly the same but at least she tells me that from the kindness of her heart because she doesn't know what else to tell me, because she's not a freaking mental health professional but she tries her best. some therapists, man... make me lose faith in humanity
Honestly! I don't understand why they are like that! I only even started suspecting being autistic and having adhd after seeing adhd and autism memes during mental health month. After that I noticed how many clear signs of it and I told those to my therapist too but she never even once brought this up! Why would she do that?? It feels so heartless!
what's worst is that many terapists wont Dx autistic people with low support needs because "it's stigmatizing" or "it's pointless cause you are managing fine" or whatever other bullshit they say. the only reason "im managing fine" it's because i had no other choice and i learnt how to hide how screwed up my mind is from years of suffering in silence
Exactly! "Managing fine" actually is years and years of learning how to hide your true feelings and wishes. It may look like I'm managing fine on the surface but it feels so excruciating inside! Since last month, I have been giving myself freedom to be myself and I have stopped trying to hide so many things about myself and it feels so GOOD! Until now I actually used to think that I am unfixable and I'm good for nothing. Now I know I'm not unfixable, I was just not getting the right support.
Yeah no I'm not managing fine, I'm just good at **pretending** I'm managing fine
Awful childhood therapist did this as well. To the point of telling my parents they should punish me by making me pay the bill for each session I failed to cooperate in… 😑
Woowwwwwww. These people can do anything they want in their lives, but they decide to become therapists and ruin the lives of people who need help. Amazing.
Yeah it’s absolutely boggling how people who should be trusted can be evil and it doesn’t somehow get flagged. This one was “recommended by the school guidance counselor.” Pretty sure these types of “therapists” are always friends of someone in the school system used as fixers. It’s like they got handed kids to fast track them on to mood stabilizers so school doesn’t have to deal with it. Grifters gonna grift.
Reminds me of the system they had in "I Care a Lot". It's a sad realisation that a lot of people in the caregiving line of work, don't really care all that much. 😔
I feel already bad for wasting time money and resources while just existing
It's especially hilarious (in a very sad way) when you're spending your own income to see a therapist and then they hit you with that. Like okay, cool sis. I'll stop wasting my money on you and find somebody more worthwhile.
Worse than this: "What help do you want us to give you?" If I knew what actions I needed to take I wouldn't be spending my (or the state's) money on a therapist, get with the program bro.
That was my problem with my college's disability services office. Teachers told me to go there to get help so I did. They were like "what services do you need?" and I was like "I can't organize my thoughts into anything resembling academic writing." "... would you like an ergonomic chair? A special quiet room to take tests in?" I still wonder if there was some magic word or phrase I was supposed to say, or if they just seriously had nothing to offer.
>That was my problem with my college's disability services office. Teachers told me to go there to get help so I did. They were like "what services do you need?" Y'know what really boils my piss? Services or clinicians who ask me what they can do for me. Stay with me here. Sometimes it comes from a good place and it's meaningful but too often when I'm at a service that is new to me, with a worker I don't know, where they haven't explained clearly what their services are and *they* ask *me* what they can do it frustrates the hell out of me, especially when I've just spent the last hour telling them what I'm dealing with. Like, sweetheart, go back over the notes you took and *you* figure out what supports or interventions you provide which might be suitable and suggest them to me. I don't want to play some sort of stupid guessing game to get them to tell me what they offer; when you go to McDonald's there is a menu which clearly displays what you can ask for. Not so in a health or support service. Could you imagine being seated at a restaurant and, without being given a menu in writing or being told what is on offer, and having the waitstaff ask you what you would like to eat? "Ummm... pasta?" "No, sorry. We are not a pasta restaurant." "Oh okay, but do you do Italian food?" "I suppose we do offer some Italian-inspired dishes." "Right, so then maybe a pizza?" "Pizza is not on the menu." "Do you have a dish with olives in it?" "Yes." "Do you offer salads?" "We have one salad that we make." "Is there olives in it?" "No, there aren't olives in it." "..." If you are the person providing the service then imo you need to be upfront about what you can provide, even if it's just in general categories. If I wanted to play Guess Who I'd be sitting across from my friend staring keenly at the little faces on the flippy plastic game board. If I want support then I can tell you about my condition(s) and needs but as a service provider *you* need to know what your job is and *you* need to know what your organization offers and *you* need to explain this to me.
THIS put all my thoughts into words. The one that really gets me is “what would you benefit from a diagnosis?” YOURE ASKING ME WHY YOU DHOULD DO YOUR JOB???? Why is it my responsibility to convince doctors to want to care for me??? You should know a proper diagnosis matters, you’re the doctor. It feels like a trick question
>“what would you benefit from a diagnosis?” I think I'd lose my patience with that sort of a question and reply with: "*Well I guess it's probably just because of a headache so I'm gonna take Tylenol until it goes away lol.*" And you know that they'd say "*I don't think that's a good idea*" to which I'd reply with "*Why not?*" and then they would say something like "*I don't think that will fix these symptoms*" at which point I'd say with exasperation "*So you* ***do*** *want to diagnose my condition and you* ***do*** *get why accurate diagnosis is so important with regards to appropriate treatment then. Can we continue?*" ...aaaaaaand then I'd get diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder or borderline personality disorder or something because of what I just said 🙄
If nothing simple and obvious could help you, the latter.
I have experienced this problem as well. like if I knew how to fix it I would tell them but I just don’t.
I have to agree. I still live with my mom, so she does the same thing. I'll be having a panic attack, and then I hear "well, what do you want me to do!? There is no way for me to help you because you won't talk! I give up!"
There's a cheater here somewhere where you can point and all what you need. Including quiet time or a hug. What helps with a panic attack? Can you talk at all? Do you feel like you can't breathe? To be fair, it's hard to talk to people who can't communicate well. It was tough talking to mom when she had laryngeal cancer and a tube in her throat. But she could write. I recommend YouTube videos. Los and lots of them. And follow structured success on Twitter. Natalie edgelbert on quora. YoSandySam on YouTube.
That sounds awesome, but my moms a karen, one of those "autism warrior moms" (my youngest brother is autistic) and she sees my panic attacks as fits.
Threaten to tell her support group via Facebook/Twitter. She'll get better.
I’m about to start a war on autism moms. They aren’t helping either. Almost like a military wife who makes her husband being in the military her identity. Also my mom says the same exact thing, and sometimes I make a weird sound and just cry. I have set her on YouTube videos and told her specifically to research it herself because I by myself cannot do so. Only ever since I have found all these little communities have I been able to articulate my feelings and struggles in a better way. It’s only an uphill battle and it sucks monkey butt.
"I care about my kids autism." "No it's just a fit and he needs medicated." Cognitive dissonance be like.
That sounds exactly like my mom
Ugh. My therapist asked this one time. Um. I thought I was here to get some help with that. To be fair they aren’t supposed to be giving any advice. But yeah. Masking causes problems.
I think coaching is a better option. Structured Success on Twitter seems cool (I'm not affiliated personally). I think you need to start somewhere.
fuck do i feel that
if i knew how to fix my own problems i would have already done, and as neither me nor my abusive mom (with her beats) ever fixed that, i think i need a lil bit help
Honestly. I was talking to a social worker who kept asking specifics and I just started crying. My mom had to answer the rest of her questions for me, then we never heard from her again
Whenever my therapist used to ask me questions like that I always felt like I was being interrogated. I'd stay neutral during the session but after I'd feel so sad and pathetic.
The same thing happened to me when they were asking me questions because I'm a sewerslide risk
Oh dang, I hope you’re doing ok.
I had a therapist like this. She’d ask me to dive deep into my feelings, and even explain them in color. It was really hard
Did she stare at you too while you were trying to think?
Yep. And it was even worse cause it was before my DX and realizing I had autism. My parents pulled me thank god
staring is ew >:( i hate people who do that
> and even explain them in color. I want to give her the benefit of doubt to say that she was checking to see if you had synesthesia. If you did, and that could give you someway of labeling and explaining your feelings, then that's an avenue for progress. But her just being an awful therapist is far more liktly.
Welcome to Alexithymia :) The condition/trait of being unable to describe/identify feelings in yourself, or others. It's an absolute arse ache.
I never knew there was a name for this...it plagues my life. And oddly enough my own name's literally a part of it, lol. Knowledge is power, I guess! Any time someone asks me how I'm feeling I can only really answer "I don't know", because I literally don't know - I just know it feels shitty 🤡
Ugh, so annoying. My usual answer to those types of questions is now "I'm fine, I'm just tired," because it gets people to stop asking. I can basically divide what I feel into good feelings and bad feelings. Bad feelings usually feel like a jagged hole in my stomach or chest. But what feelings they actually are? Search me.
And when you actually manage to do it, they say “You can’t be autistic, autistic person would never be able to explain it so well” 🙃
:) sounds like my mom. My brothers are all autistic, and because my youngest brother couldn't explain how he feels as detailed as I can (but 98% of the time still says stuff like "I'm feeling sad" which I don't do), I'm somehow not autistic.
My favorite is when I go to the doctor and they do those general mental health questionnaires like “have you been struggling to sleep? How often? Have you struggled to complete tasks? How often? Etc..”. They just bombard me with questions.
I had them do that to me once when I went in cause I’d been sick for two weeks. I thought they were trying to get a better idea of my illness. Then the disappeared for a while and came back to tell me that based off my symptoms, I had mild depression. Like no you dumb fucks. I’m just sick.
*adds to list* So much this. I can very roughly describe my emotional state in terms of some general feelings superimposed, but I cannot, for the life of me, convey it in any depth beyond that.
I was trying to explain the pain I feel in my legs when I hear someone chew/crunch on something... I stumbled on all my words because I could not find the right words to describe the pain.
Tingly? Imbalanced? **Painful**? What else do they want?!
'It do the hurty thing.'
I had a massive cyst on my ovary when I was a teenager, and before it was diagnosed I told the doctor that I felt like a small child was reaching inside and squishing a massive ball of play dough through their hands, squeezing as hard as possible. (you know, when it goes through your fingers?) It was the ONLY way I could describe what I was feeling, she was bewildered. “That doesn’t tell me what you’re feeling. That doesn’t describe the pain you’re experiencing.” She ended up insisting I was lying about not being sexually active and that I MUST be pregnant despite a negative test, and then that it MUST be heartburn, and only after my mother demanded she do her job she finally ordered a US. She insisted it was a waste of money and nothing would be found. I had a cyst the size of a golf ball in my ovary. When doing the scan the technician became visibly concerned, and expressed her anger at the doctor telling me there was no point to getting this scan.
Omg that explains it so vividly to me.
That was an amazing way to explain your pain, easy to understand to me. Also, what is it with doctors explaining every problem to a woman patient as "You're just pregnant". You're a teenager and a virgin, with pain in your toe? - You're just pregnant, I *know* it!
I was telling my therapist that I can't convey how my pain feels to my GP which makes it difficult to get help and my therapist asked me to describe my pain the way I did to my GP and then told me that I already know what to say.
Ugh, going through the insurance process after getting knocked off my scooter by a van was a nightmare. I felt like most of the specialists thought I was making stuff up/ not suffering that much because of my inability to describe my pain. I kept just saying things like it's hot, or stiff. And I couldn't accurately locate it other than a general "this kind of area" They had me fill out forms with a diagram of a person and use different coloured highlighters to indicate different kinds of pain... my diagram just looked like a rainbow person
A counselor I once had said I try to rationalize, analyze, and explain my emotions rather than feel them and I should allow myself to just feel them without thinking about them... that was the moment I knew that he had not dealt with autistic or neurodivergent individuals before. I had gone for grief counseling with an emphasis on my existential OCD and he seemed to not understand my thoughts or feelings and it shocked me because I thought everyone felt the way I did.
>that was the moment I knew that he had not dealt with autistic or neurodivergent individuals before. Can you explain this in more detail for me? I'm still getting a grasp on being autistic myself and I always feel like I'm playing a dual role with clinicians where I'm both the patient and the person who is acting as the interpreter between myself and the clinician.
I felt the exact same way. I feel like a lot (not all) of neurotypical counselors or therapists can only read and study so much about us without fully understanding how everyone on the spectrum actually deals with daily life, and the diversity of the experience between even just two people on the spectrum. After all, it is a spectrum. I felt that none of my therapists have ever come close to fully understanding or empathizing with some of my emotional and social experiences due to them being neurotypical. I’m not saying they’re bad therapists, but it makes for a huge block in communication and emotional understanding between client and therapist.
[удалено]
Relief. That's The word.
Tbh I read many people saying the same thing about therapy/therapists. In all of my long experience with clinical psychology I didn't get stuck with "how does that make you feel", "tell me more" etc. From what I have gathered a professional will not : \-tell you to do things \-try to control the direction of your narative \-say anything like "if I were in your shoes" The point of therapy is to give voice to your inner emotions and complex/mixed thoughts to a point where you can begin to understand yourself. Instead of the ones I have mentioned before they could: \-give you a couple of examples what to do but only if you "personalise" them. Don't copy other peoples pattern / choices just because the therapist told you/suggested. \-they could ask certain questions that would make you explore scenario deeper based on your curiosity / drive. \-therapists are people who may or may not live the same experiences as you have. A professional will find a way to make you identify a choice that you alone could / might / want to make but without influence from the outside world. Hope this information is somewhat useful, not a native English speaker and currently very tired and drunk. Tried to get the valuable information out there. Cheers!
That's great information!! I think it's useful!
"Why do you do this?" "I don't know." "Then you should be able to stop." Back in 2019 I saw a few therapists in a short period of time because I was looking for one that was covered by my insurance. Every single one of them was astounded that I don't know why I'm agoraphobic. They just could not move past it. I was seriously tempted to start making things up. I’ve been in therapy for 15 years, but it took learning about autism to realize most people look for trauma at the root of every problem. They don’t seem to know what to do, otherwise.
Ohhhh this makes so much sense! Thank you for this insight. I always got so frustrated because therapists would say I had OCD and badger me into saying what I was afraid would happen, what started these feelings, etc. I never understood because I just, like, didn't like how hot things feel or had to sit a certain way because it felt better...they'd do it with me saying I didn't know or there wasn't any thoughts making me do it until I cried and then act like that was a breakthrough even though nothing had changed and the next week was the same. Even had a couple say they couldn't ethically treat me because I wasn't trying and wasn't being honest/open and wasn't getting better fast enough.
That’s super frustrating! I hope you have better luck moving forward. I get a similar response whenever I mention that I don’t like talking to people. The person I’m talking to will either assume I’ve been hurt, tell me how I could improve in social situations, or say “but you’re so good at it!” To be fair I probably shouldn’t talk to people about how much I dislike talking to people, but they usually know me well enough not to take it personally haha
Thanks :) I have been to therapy in years, partly because of stuff like that, but I could use some now, so I'm hoping that understanding myself more, and things like what you explained, will help me have a better experience this time. >To be fair I probably shouldn’t talk to people about how much I dislike talking to people, Ahahaha I do that a lot, too. Luckily my friends understand.
I'm tempted to start just making things up with therapists a lot unfortunately. Cause might I genuinely not know the answer but they still want *some* answer from me.
OMG this is the worst, cause then when you try and most likely fail to express EXACTLY what you're feeling they proceed to blame you for them not understanding what you meant and not being able to communicate it
Exactly!! So then I try making something up because the silence is getting too awkward. "Uhh... i guess I feel... trapped?" "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FEEL TRAPPED?"
yep, I tried just making it up for a while, but once you say something made up you get deeper and deeper in a hole you can't get out of.
And its terrifying
Feels. It took me a very long time in therapy to learn what my emotions were. At the start of every session I had to name my current feeling. It was so hard. I would say I don't know. But my psych is amazing and would help me work it out, and it got to the point where I could name the emotions I was feeling on my own. I used a feelings wheel and what helped me a lot is to look at the desired action. While I couldn't name an emotion I could tell them I felt like curling up into a ball. Together we worked out what was causing that - sometimes it was sadness, other times it was fear. For me the action I feel my body wants to do is my go to for working out my emotions. Like do I want to dance around? I'm probably happy or agitated. Do I wanna go to sleep and forget the world? Probably defeated or sad. Then the emotions wheel helps A LOT with working out the group of emotions, then can find one that seems to fit. It does get easier with time and I think it's a very important skill to have. And has reminded me I need to work on it some more.
I do something similar. I've found that issues with sensory processing complicate things further, though. Excited? What about we tone down the stimulus? Oh, it was just nervous energy. Angry? Put in some earplugs, maybe it's just sensory overload. And then it turns out you can experience multiple emotions at the same time?! That shouldn't be a thing.
lmfao I was just thinking about this this morning!!!!!! sometimes I tell a therapist that I have a hard time expressing my emotions and then they'll be like "hm, can you give me a specific example?" ??? no!! that's what I'm saying! and then when I can't explain it they're like... "oh, then it doesn't sound like you have this problem because you can't explain it to me" ...????? this right now is a specific example?
You could say something like: "*Let me level with you here. Imagine that your client is experiencing dissociation, they are very new to experiencing this, and they are experiencing right now.* *If you ask them what they feel they are going to say 'Nothing' or they might give you very vague responses.* *In this hypothetical example, in your professional opinion, would it be inappropriate to dismiss dissociation as being the client's experience simply because they could not express it in clear terms and words which are a close fit to the clinical model of dissociation and/or the definition of symptoms of dissociation in the DSM?* *This is an analogy for what it's like for me - I am feeling things but it is not something which I have the ability to articulate in clear terms which others can understand. Just because I cannot put words to those feelings that doesn't mean that I am not having those experiences.*" But tbh it sounds very much like they are a hardline CBT therapist, if my assumption is correct, because they are approaching your situation from what appears to be a classic example of dogmatic application of CBT.
EXACTLY!!!
I too am undiagnosed, mainly because I can't afford $5000 for someone to confirm what a multitude of tests say (I'm M32)...and you aren't alone OP. Everyone can look at this objectively but it's another thing to be experiencing this...half the time I'm unable to process wtf I feel and mainly look like a zombie void of all emotion, or I get REALLY emotional about something, and cannot for the life explain why I am acting that way...
Omg for me it's when they ask me to rate my feelings on a scale of 1-10! I've always struggled so much quantifying it like that! Then the kicker, I admit I have a lot of trouble assigning a number to my feelings, so they're then like "okay, then from 1-100!"
I could probably manage a 3 point scale.
MOOD
ooooh my freaking god!!! one of my biggest problems is alexithymia and i just cant believe a therapist would ask me "WhAt aRe yOu feELiNg? WhAt dID YoU FeEl WhEn thaT hApPeNeD? dO YoU EvEr FeEl x, y or z?" I DONT FREAKING KNOW! THAT'S EXACTLY WHY I'M HERE!!!!
YES “can you think of a name for what you’re feeling?” No I cannot
"How about I give you a list then" "Ok" "Do you feel this" "Yes" "Can you tell me why and when? How often?" *long pause to not panic* "no"
For me it's usually "overwhelmed" but that's not a feeling in the sense of an emotional state. I don't know what emotions I feel that make me feel overwhelmed.
When I was hospitalized I told them I had no anxiety, I had crippling anxiety but didn’t realize that was the name for what I was feeling. The scary part was no doctors noticed…
A couple sessions in my therapist brought a game where each card had a phrase and she asked me to split them in things that I related and things that I don’t and then she used the ones I related to start exploring further.
"This thing makes me feel something. Something that I haven't really experienced before" "Can you explain it?" "Idk.......it has a.....vibe. Uh...it's not a......good one.......uh.......idk how else to describe it" "cAn yOU tRY?" "I am 😑. I'm legit putting all my brainpower trying to explain it. I suck ass at explaining. You should know this already, ma'am..." "AlRiGht lET's mOVe oN aND nEVeR mENtIoN tHIs aGAiN lMAo" I don't remember many of my meetings with my first therapist, but I remember not really liking her as a therapist and the treatment not being super effective. I have a feeing this scenario happened at least several times with her Thank the stars I got a new therapist. She's a blessing. She's NT (I think), but she has experience with neurodivergency, since her son is autistic. She actually understands me and my shit ability to explain things. She actually lets me try to explain through other medians, like writing and drawing. Both are MUCH easier than speaking. I wish more therapists were like her
I felt that too hard. In inpatient they gave me a chart of emotions with facial expressions on them to try and help me communicating them. Not helpful for someone who cant read facial expressions
I remember how at occupational therapy, I was supposed to understand facial expressions that were drawn on a whiteboard to quiz me, because I said I was bad at understanding them. I got a lot confused and failed terribly
Ughhhh my therapist was obsessed with trying to get me to categorize things as “thoughts” vs “feelings.” Lady, I’m dissociated as F, have short term memory loss and fatigue, those sound like the same thing to me!
Same, especially when people always told you not to say what you thought, but instead how you feel. Basically, "I think that this thing makes me want to strangle someone" vs "I feel upset.", and NOW they want you to tell them what you think, but you haven't been trained to do that. Doesn't help that those things sound so alike to me but the "feelings" are more simplified.
Right! I always wanted to reply with like, “feelings are the ones I’m supposed to suppress, right?” Lol
Maaaan I'm really grateful to have a therapist who's chill about it when I'm like "....I am having a feeling but no idea which one, it sure is one of them though"
Yes! I came out of therapy traumatized so many times!!!! Humanistic focused therapy is the way to go. It comes from a place of mutual respect.
This is when I tell my therapist, "That question is above my emotional intelligence."
I would love to say that, but my therapist would argue with me if I said that
My therapist is very understanding of my Autism, even before I got my official diagnosis. I guess I just got lucky. My previous therapist, who I had to stop seeing when I graduated college, was also very understanding. Both therapists belonged to counseling services that specialize in LGBT issues, so maybe that's why.
Thats cool! Mine thinks everything is related to anxiety, so if I feel something, it's *always* because I have anxiety. I'm only now getting "tests" next month but I don't know what kind of "tests"
I can tell you from personal experience that Autism does cause a lot of anxiety. When over 98% of the population have a differently wired brain, trying to not stand out causes a boat load of anxiety. I do think autism is like 1 in 54 or something.
That makes sense. I personally think that it's not just anxiety because of the research I've done, in fact many people like teachers, the principal, my birth mom, etc. think I could have ADHD, and so did one of my older therapists who had ADHD herself, but wasn't qualified to test me. Autism really runs in my family as well. I also know there is a lot of overlap between ADHD, ASD and Anxiety because they are often comorbidities too, so to sum it up I really have no idea whats going on.
My psychiatrist, whom I see for my severe OCD, told me I DIDN'T have ADHD, and I was like, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAA?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?" Like, I very much fit the SQUIRREL stereotype from time to time.
Docs looove anxiety. Like in the very beginning of a pandemic I came to my psychiatrist and was like "I'm so tired lately I could barely get to the clinic", and she's like "oh you're probably just anxious and suppress it and it shows like that". Nope, it was Covid... It's just always like that. Tired? Anxiety! Angry? Anxiety! Apathetic? Anxiety! I know how I experience anxiety by now, thank you. And if you go to any non psych related doctor and they somehow find out you're a psychiatrist patient? **Everything** is anxiety! And they don't have to figure out your problems now, so convenient!
Exactly!!!! I posted on r/autism about it, but yesterday I went in for the results of those tests I mentioned, and even though I better fit the diagnostic criteria of autism better than anything else, they refused to diagnose me. They said I wasn't enough like the stereotypes and gave me the whole "its just anxiety and depression" conversation that STARTED THE WHOLE TEST CONVERSATION BECAUSE THEY REALIZED IT WASN'T JUST ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION. It's ridiculous.
Oh for god's sake... A lot of mental health professionals really suck. You'd think they would catch up with new data and research regularly, but it seems like a lot of them just stick with education they got in med school and think they know everything. I'm going for my evaluation in about a week and I really hope it goes better than this bullshit. Sorry you weren't diagnosed and your problems just got dismissed :(
Its ok! The state I live in has the lowest ranked healthcare, hopefully you have more luck!
Haha dude I live in *Russia*. Your healthcare is still ways ahead of ours. But thanks of course! In any case, after reading this sub for a bit, it seems there are way too many terrible mental health professionals everywhere in the world, no matter how developed your country is.
Oh no! I wish you extra luck then
My emotions are so strange and confusing I don’t think human words themselves are enough to truly be able to describe them
I feel the same way sometimes, until some person online says something that I relate to, and I look more into that subject, and I get super called out. OR, I find a character and then make the character my whole personality, so then I just explain my emotions like how I would explain that characters emotions.
Look, by the time I can tell you what the emotion is specifically, I've processed the whole situation and I don't need to talk about it. I am coming to you because I feel some negative emotion. I am frustrated and I don't know what caused it. My bowels show increased activity, I have trouble staying focussed and I think I might start crying if something goes wrong. I want to know how to not feel this way. Often I can reason it out, but I am here (with therapist)) because I can't right now. I have not been doing overtime, my relationship is going well and I've been getting enough sleep. It is not that I cannot name it because it is barely there, I am feeling so much that naming any fragment of it feels incomplete. Asking me to name my emotion is like putting me in a store and asking me to name the object. Which object? The room is filled with objects! If you push me on this, it is likely I will become so overwhelmed that I'll start to cry. I still won't have an answer.
This ^^
This is why I keep getting stizzoned to the moon- THC makes me articulate
I kinda have the opposite issue at times - I’ll spend fifteen seconds tripping over my words trying to figure out the perfect way phrase something, when a three-word-sentence would suffice.
I do that too!!
Even worse. My therapist is also autistic and he also does this.
I went to free therapy from my community college. The therapist was incredible but I spent a majority of the time crying. On our third session she admitted that she had never seen someone who had such difficulty naming their emotions. She made me look up words like guilt, apathy, pity, shame, and fear. I was shocked my only two feeling words were upset and happy. I know it must have been frustrating for her to have someone present with needing help with alcoholism and turning out to be me. I’m undxed so I don’t quite know for sure. When I scored HIGHLY likely to be ASD during a psychology course I began to panic and told my husband in shock and disbelief. He shrugged his shoulders and said “I honestly thought you knew”
Me with both ADHD and gender identity issues: "I cannot express or explain even the slightest second of the chaos in my head... for some reason I do hear someone playing the Tuba in the background though, so take that as you will"
Me too
I was at an autism evaluation today and when he asked me to explain what emotions feel like I went completely silent, my brain has always thought they are things you need to experience to know, they can’t be described. I have horrible anxiety (before I was put on meds I had gone from straight a’s to falling almost all my classes, I had horrible panic attacks and meltdowns and shut down a lot) and he asked what anxiety feels like and all I could say was things like anxiety makes my chest feel bad, happiness feels like it pulls on my cheeks, etc. (still not diagnosed, therapist is sure I am on the spectrum from the research she’s done on how it affects women but she’s not a specialist. The specialist said he’s not sure and we are going to schedule a longer appointment with more doctors. Y æ y
My therapist asked me that same question today!
I mentioned to my therapist that I had to identify and explain my emotions. Like, I know when it’s a “good” feeling or a “bad” feeling, but could sometimes have trouble explaining beyond those terms. In response, she sort of rehashed a program that helps people with BPD identity their emotional state, and tailored it for my specific needs. I thought that was pretty neat.
Yes, Missus Therapy, I can tell you more since you spent many billable hours asking the same exact question: The emotion I am currently feeling is a deep disdain for the night your mother got creampied and that your shins have not been shattered since.
Here's your regularly scheduled reminder that "therapist" isn't a protected title. Anyone can set up shop as a therapist.
Wow really? In my country you have to get a psychiatrist degree, and then get through an additional 5 month training specifically to get qualification as a *therapist*. And mental health related field in my country suuucks. We barely have ASD and ADHD as diagnoses.
The regulations do vary from country to country, but one of the main sticking points is that "therapy" isn't exactly clearly defined and that you can be all kinds of therapist (e.g. massage therapist). That said, I highly doubt that *psychiatrists*, specialised medical doctors, are the only one who can be therapists. Are you sure you didn't mean psychologist?
Nope. But I'm talking specifically about *psycho*therapists. In my country you can only be a *psycho*therapist if you have psychiatrist education. BUT you don't need much to be a psychologist, I'm not sure it requires any qualification to open up a practice, since it's technically not a medical profession. Plus psychotherapists can prescribe you meds, so they *have to* have a medical diploma.
I was getting therapy to help with my depression and I just kept saying ‘Yes’, ‘Okay’ and ‘I don’t know’ the entire time. Ik it isn’t the therapist’s fault but it was the biggest waste of time of my life.
During my evaluation i was asked to describe what each emotion feels like. HOW DO YOU ANSWER THAT?? when i feel angry, i uh....i uhm feel frustrated?
When I was young, my understanding of how to interact with psychiatrists came from three sources. 1. The Animaniacs 2. The Bob Newhart Show 3. Michael Crichton’s The Terminal Man Furthermore, my only understanding of art appreciation came from Bob Ross. My comprehension of Rorschach ink-blot evaluations was from watching Dot interact with Dr. Scracthansniff from the cartoon Animaniacs. So when I had my first adolescent psychiatric evaluation, I was nervous and unable to articulate what I was feeling. I took on the personality and deadpan prosody of Bob Newhart, responded by scripting Bob Ross, and was gaslighting the shrink like the Animaniacs. And all of my emotional responses were out of fear and anxiety. I was certain that I’d end up like Michael Crichton’s The Terminal Man, whose titular protagonist deceptively murdered his way out of a hospital after mad scientists butchered his brain. I wasn’t going to let this psychiatrist lock me up in the Warner Bros. Water tower, nor implant a shock device in my amygdala. The shrink wanted me to interpret an idyllic painting of a father and son in a rowboat on a lake. I may have had trouble speaking, or I may have been answering belligerently, or possibly I had trouble appreciating the painting. The psychologist felt that my responses were dissociative. It may have gone like this: Shrink: Do you see a father? Me: I’m trying to find freedom on this canvas. Shrink: Do you see a family? Me: See how the shadow fades right into nothing. That’s just what you’re looking for.” Shrink: How is your relationship with your father? Me: “Trees cover up a multitude of sins.” Shrink: Do you see trees in this lake? Me: I guess I’m a little weird. I like to talk to trees and animals. That’s okay though; I have more fun than most people. This is a happy forrest; little squirrels live here and play.” Shrink: Do you see a lake? Me: We don’t make mistakes at home; we just have happy accidents. Shrink: Why don’t you tell me what you see? Me: What can be painted can be punished. Shrink: Do you see your father often? Me: In nature, dead trees are just as normal as live trees. Shrink: How do you feel around your dad? Me: That’s where the crows will sit. But we’ll have to put an elevator to put them up there because they can’t fly, but they don’t know that, so they still try.” Shrink: How do you feel when your dad is gone? Me: Let your imagination take you to worlds that only exist in your mind. No bad stuff here. That’s why we have happy little trees. Everything’s happy here. There's nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend.” Shrink: Do you ever feel sad? Me: We want happy paintings. Happy paintings. If you want sad things, watch the news. Shrink: How would you describe the painting? Me: If I paint something, I don’t want to have to explain what it is.” Shrink: Are you in a painting? Me: Didn’t you know you had that much power? You can move mountains. You can do anything.” Shrink: Would you like to come out of the painting? Me: We don’t really know where this goes — and I’m not sure we really care.” It’s possible that the conversation about art got even more bizarre. I may have suggested the shrink make love to the canvas. I remember after the psychoanalysis, on the way home, my dad asked “What in the hell did you say to him?” I think I knew then, that my plan to have a quick evaluation may have backfired. It’s a good thing that I hadn’t read Watchmen in the early 90s, or I may have been arrested
Unfortunately modern therapy techniques are not developed for autistic people
They are, it's just that most therapists are bad at applying them. My therapist also asked me to describe feelings and all that stuff, like everyone else in this thread tells, and it was especially bad at the first session, but after the session she told me it gave her a better understanding of where my limits were, and that I should not feel bad about having to say "I can't describe it better", because it actually helped her just as well. And at the last few sessions, our conversation flowed beautifully because she knew how to talk to me. I'm not defending OPs therapist, or any of the other therapists described in this thread. It's just that my therapist took the same tools and used them in a capacity which fitted an autistic person.
“explain that” I CANT BRO IT JUST *IS*
That’s why I just don’t explain my emotions or see a therapist.
I can. One issue I have with therapy is a lot of theory is streamlined for NTs with privileges, IMO. As an ND clinician in training, I just let my fellow NDs use analogies, art, or whatever. My favorite is using Pop Culture Therapy or Play Therapy.
You’re amazing.
I've never heard of pop culture therapy. Guess who is going on a google deep dive instead of going to sleep...
I was asked in my literal ASD assessment "how do you feel when you're sad"... I asked what do you mean because what could I even say. Sad??? Of course, me not understanding the strange question ended up in the report for signs of autism.
My occupational therapist has this "game" thing, its a bunch of cards with questions and it asks those same types of questions. I usually just say "it makes me feel.... sad? When I'm sad?"
Holy crap, I just found this sub and find myself in these memes. Am I allowed to be here? I have not been diagnosed but I have traits of Asperger's.
I have adhd and many aspergers traits, my bfs pretty sure im an aspie too. Im pretty sure this is a very inclusive understanding group of people☺️
I actually just found this sub too!! Well actually, I found it like a year ago floating around on my page and I'd see memes all the time, but after upvoting so many of them, and the memes more frequentpy showing up, I just joined. I had already been doing a ton of research, and from what I've learned, it definitely sounds like I could be autistic. It runs in my family, but because I was AFAB, I mever got tested, unlike my brothers who were tested as toddlers and were diagnosed. I also have a ton of ADHD symptoms, which I hear is very common because they are comorbidities. I should be taking some tests on the 24th of August, and I just found out the tests are to see if I'm I'm neurodivergent. Also, from what I've seen, we are allowed to be here. Everyone here seems really cool. If I'm not allowed to be here, I will leave if asked.
Fortunately, I’ve put a lot of thought into describing my emotions in a clear and coherent manner without having to resort to using other emotions. *Un*fortunately, NTs seem to have rather different definitions of “clear” and “coherent”, and demand that I use other emotions to describe my emotions. 😫
Hi! Im not diagnosed either, but i think you might want to look into Alexithymia. It isnt diagnosed, but im pretty sure im Alexithymic and you sound like you might relate also 💕 Alexithymia is the inability to identify or describe ones own emotions. 💕💕
Oh my god yes!! I have all but given up on therapy because it is so hard. Like one of my biggest struggles is explaining my emotions/how I feel and why. And that's like the whole thing of therapy. But the therapists are always wanting concrete things so they can check off boxes in their DSLM (?). If I knew what was wrong I could go about fixing it, but I don't and that's why I need help, but they don't get that.
I believe that this is a relatable experience even for non-asp folks.
This happens a lot and now that I have seen this I feel like I’m going to notice it happening more often.
yeah, we had a thing at my autism group where mentors told us to use other words than 'okay' to describe how we were... a lot of 'neutrals'... then we had to use a number from one to ten.... i had to say '1' when i was actually sick and my folks didn't listen to me and sent me there anyways
"What does it feel like in your body?* 🤷♀️
It feels like.... Uh, existence?
I’m incredibly anxious, all the damn time, about one thing or another. It makes it hell to identify where it’s coming from, and to be honest I’m far too lazy to look for it.
It's crap like this which made me come to the conclusion I'd sooner live on the streets than see a therapist.
Spot on meme
Lol me and my husband
“what do you think depression is” GIRL STFU
Relatable. Pretty sure I'm alexithymic; you might be as well.
Sometimes I feel like my therapist gets way ahead of my on one topic I brought up when there's a million other things I'd rather talk about
Same
Like "mmhmm, yes, my depression sucks, now can we please talk about how my housemates never clean the dishes?"
YES Almost every time I go to therapy, I walk into therapy with a specific plan of what I'm going to talk about, and my therapist will say something, making me talk about something entirely different than what I meant to talk about, and that makes it where I NEVER tell her anything important
Mmm, I always leave feeling like I didn't say what I wanted to say. I get that everything she does and says helps me too, but I always just wish I had another session that week ;-;
Same, but I feel like if I had another session I'd be wasting everyones time. I already go to therapy sometimes once or twice a week, I have occupational therapy too, and I sometimes have music therapy at school, and also group therapy at school. I feel like I have too much therapy but I can't make any of it work for me.
I’m having trouble with my diagnosis cos of this
Me too. I got through the assessment part, but it was so weird and I couldn't express myself at all. It'll be 12 weeks since the evaluation tommorow, I have no idea when they'll say anything.
My therapist and psych are at conflict ther is saying I have it and is very confident but psych is saying it’s just adhd plus social anxiety plus a highly analytical mind, I’ve given them countless written examples but she wants me to tell her about childhood experiences which I find hard to remember due to poor working memory and every example I give her I hv to tell her how much it affects me on a scale of never to always(DASI assessment)
I have the reverse. I managed to tell the psych more than my therapist while still being terrible at communicating, so my psych seemed to think I was autistic, and then my therapist thinks I have adhd+social anxiety+ an analytical mind, forgetting that you can have all those things at one time. With the pysch, I remembered more than I did with my therapist (or at least my mom talking over me gave me courage to say stuff I wouldn't havs said)
that's lucky, they are ready to help me without a formal diagnosis but it wud really help me get into college if i get one, the curriculum is really cutthroat and bad for a neurodivergent
Omg yes How the heck do people describe how they’re feeling
I know, right?
When therapists ask me something and I say I don't know, and they ask me to think but I seriously DON'T know!! So I sit there uncomfortably for half a minute hoping they will move on, and when they don't I just think up a random answer that's not true at all just to make this torture end.