Processing emotions

Hi i hope you dont think i am hijacking your post but seeing as its title is Processing Emotions i wanted to add some of my own comments and am looking for advice.

Im not diagnosed but think i may have AS. i have had a very difficult year emotionally was diagnosed with general anxiwty disorder and was referred for CBT by my GP. 

I was sceptical about it but attended all 5 sessions. Its an evidenced based therapy where you fill out a questionnaire at the start of each session rating how you feel and how your condition is impacting on your life. You get about 5 minutes for this. I think the idea is that they can see you are getting better with the therapy as your score decreases.

I would fill the questionnaire in but because i had waited so long for the appointmenrs that by the time i had started i was in a relatively good place (the more severe elememtsof anxiety had subsided but there was still that non-specifuc underlying feeling) so it was hard for me to identify how anxiety was impacting on my life. I woukd fill the questionnaire in with a low score. 

It was only after the sessions and in particular the last that i would be able to dentify just how it really had affected my life. It was like there was a delay and i needed longer to reflect. Maybe i found it more difficult because other people were there for more specific problems like phobias whereas mine was more general. I feel this is something which has happened before to me. Its only later down the line that i can know or identify how i felt about something. Im not saying everytime but i do feel there is a delay.

In the end i felt i came away worse off. Why should i be led to believe my thoughts are wrong anyway? Its almost like you are supposed to invalidate your own thoughts as irrational which i disagree with.

Is this something others can relate to? What about others experience of CBT?

My experience of CBT was mixed. The first two times, I just didn't really get it, though to be fair, both of them said they felt there was an underlying condition beneath my depression (it only took another 15 years to find out that it is autism!)

The third time was good, though I did get rather lucky. Another worker had already suggested autism to me at this point, so I mentioned it and they realised that one of the counsellors had worked with autistic people before. With her, it was loads better - as Graham said, it really does depend on the counsellor. The main difference was that she didn't misinterpret my emotional delays or having trouble talking about them - a lot of counsellors think that it's denial or being uncooperative, when you're really just trying to be honest. Instead of seeing them as a problem, she made helping me with them the main point of the counselling.

So, don't be too quick to give up on counselling, but at the same time, if you see a counsellor that just doesn't "get it", don't be afraid to say so and tell them why; sometimes it'll make a difference, other times it's best to ask for another counsellor, or just walk away.

that sounds like a lazy, imprecise way to procure ‘evidence based outcomes.’ 

From what that counsellor said, and her irreverent attitude to them, I got the impression that they're as much for staff monitoring as they are patient monitoring - gotta justify the funding and all that. We used to have quite a laugh about how pointless some of the questions were, and she barely looked at them after the first couple of sessions. On a scale of zero to five what? Ounces? Miles? If I feel incredibly anxious all the time, how can I feel "more anxious than usual?". I used to wonder whether she was ever threatened with the sack for not managing to "cure" me of my autism because my stats looked dodgy.

My experience of CBT was mixed. The first two times, I just didn't really get it, though to be fair, both of them said they felt there was an underlying condition beneath my depression (it only took another 15 years to find out that it is autism!)

The third time was good, though I did get rather lucky. Another worker had already suggested autism to me at this point, so I mentioned it and they realised that one of the counsellors had worked with autistic people before. With her, it was loads better - as Graham said, it really does depend on the counsellor. The main difference was that she didn't misinterpret my emotional delays or having trouble talking about them - a lot of counsellors think that it's denial or being uncooperative, when you're really just trying to be honest. Instead of seeing them as a problem, she made helping me with them the main point of the counselling.

So, don't be too quick to give up on counselling, but at the same time, if you see a counsellor that just doesn't "get it", don't be afraid to say so and tell them why; sometimes it'll make a difference, other times it's best to ask for another counsellor, or just walk away.

that sounds like a lazy, imprecise way to procure ‘evidence based outcomes.’ 

From what that counsellor said, and her irreverent attitude to them, I got the impression that they're as much for staff monitoring as they are patient monitoring - gotta justify the funding and all that. We used to have quite a laugh about how pointless some of the questions were, and she barely looked at them after the first couple of sessions. On a scale of zero to five what? Ounces? Miles? If I feel incredibly anxious all the time, how can I feel "more anxious than usual?". I used to wonder whether she was ever threatened with the sack for not managing to "cure" me of my autism because my stats looked dodgy.

I agree about changing counsellor. After all it is what they usually say when you start therapy. If we don't match then you can change counsellor etc.

Thank you for both your comments. Regarding body language and facial expressions. I dont know if i have a problem with these or not. Altho i can think of examples where i have missed something because i didnt "decipher" the body language there and then. Cue embarrassment upon realisation. Ive always thought i have good eye contact but then i know of sometimes where it makes me uncomfortable or in a group situation  feel like theres something im supposed to know but dont.

I feel that 5 sessions of CBT wasnt enough. It was too basic and i feel like a lot of what they covered i was already doing (identifying thoughts and triggers etc). The questionnaires were just a tick box exercise to show evidence. With the questions though, it was always about how often you had the anxiety, not the severity of it. Id had a massive panic attack one day but was supposed to score myself low cos itd only happened the once? Silly.

Its difficult cos i dont know if i have these emotional delays or not but i think i do. But ive onlystarted pondering it since reading about AS. I will take the test on your link, Graham. Thanks