CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy)

I have to say, I tried CBT, and found it rather distressing where they constantly ask "why", and if you don't know the answer, they still aks why you don't know and it gets infuriating, so I can attest to its irritance, as I stopped engaging and said to the counselor, "listen, I don't think CBT is working, please can I try talking therapies" and for me, talking to someone and having a dialogue is MUCH better than "why" every 5 seconds, also with Talking therapies, you explore why you feel the way you do without all the questioning, instead its more like a discussion with someone who cant judge you :D

Personally I found that all the repeated prompts my CBT therapist used, as to getting me to think about all of the "whys" regarding the causes of my social anxiety and behaviour, was one of the things that nudged me towards looking towards considering Autism as the main root cause of most of my interpersonal issues and anxieties.

I found that  the only answer that completely fits, to the question of "why do I have social anxiety when XYZ happens" is "Because I am Autistic". I think it would be helpful to begin therapy all over again, but with being able to provide that answer from the outset, and  then asking the therapist "Now what?"

I didn't properly twig that I very seriously consider myself to be Autistic until my penultimate session, by which time it was too late to do anything else other than discuss my next steps for getting a diagnosis. I had raised the possibility many times previously that I though many of my issues were Autism related, but kept getting brushed off with "everybody is somewhere on the spectrum." To be fair, therapists aren't trained in Autism, although I bloody well think they should be, at least more trained in basic awareness of Autism!!

As others have said already on this thread, therapies specifically tailored for dealing with anxiety due to Autism could be much more beneficial than the 'off the shelf' untailored CBTs which didn't do much for me either. Ideally the therapy would be from someone who has Autism themselves, or someone who at least understands it properly, obviously is crucial. From what I have heard so far such a thing is very rare. If so, this is a diabolical state of affairs.

Dropping my safety behaviours and just being myself is just not going to work for me, in terms of reducing my anxiety. Understanding why other people react to me in the way they do, is already proving FAR more powerful. Not understanding the why behind all of my difficulties is what caused my anxiety in the first place.

There is a lot of good news since I have self diagnosed. Unfortunately though I have more than 30 years of social anxiety as a conditioned response, and it's not going to be easy to change that. Even with now finally being able to understand the why underlying the whole thing.

This is so important! There needs to be a whole new branch of therapy for this!  Or is it all just too niche, too unimportant, too few people struggling to get any attention, funding? I don't believe that it is. There needs to be more therapists trained in such a specialities.

Personally I found that all the repeated prompts my CBT therapist used, as to getting me to think about all of the "whys" regarding the causes of my social anxiety and behaviour, was one of the things that nudged me towards looking towards considering Autism as the main root cause of most of my interpersonal issues and anxieties.

I found that  the only answer that completely fits, to the question of "why do I have social anxiety when XYZ happens" is "Because I am Autistic". I think it would be helpful to begin therapy all over again, but with being able to provide that answer from the outset, and  then asking the therapist "Now what?"

I didn't properly twig that I very seriously consider myself to be Autistic until my penultimate session, by which time it was too late to do anything else other than discuss my next steps for getting a diagnosis. I had raised the possibility many times previously that I though many of my issues were Autism related, but kept getting brushed off with "everybody is somewhere on the spectrum." To be fair, therapists aren't trained in Autism, although I bloody well think they should be, at least more trained in basic awareness of Autism!!

As others have said already on this thread, therapies specifically tailored for dealing with anxiety due to Autism could be much more beneficial than the 'off the shelf' untailored CBTs which didn't do much for me either. Ideally the therapy would be from someone who has Autism themselves, or someone who at least understands it properly, obviously is crucial. From what I have heard so far such a thing is very rare. If so, this is a diabolical state of affairs.

Dropping my safety behaviours and just being myself is just not going to work for me, in terms of reducing my anxiety. Understanding why other people react to me in the way they do, is already proving FAR more powerful. Not understanding the why behind all of my difficulties is what caused my anxiety in the first place.

There is a lot of good news since I have self diagnosed. Unfortunately though I have more than 30 years of social anxiety as a conditioned response, and it's not going to be easy to change that. Even with now finally being able to understand the why underlying the whole thing.

This is so important! There needs to be a whole new branch of therapy for this!  Or is it all just too niche, too unimportant, too few people struggling to get any attention, funding? I don't believe that it is. There needs to be more therapists trained in such a specialities.