Support for adults

This forum is pretty much the only support out there for autistic adults.

All the professional support is mostly for kids, adults are forgotten about and left to fend for themselves.

This forum is the best support for adults. We support and look out for each other it's a good place to be. 

Oh I feel you as a parent of 2 kids and a recent diagnosis.

in response to some the comments - I’ve really never got on with CBT, I have had some good experiences with DBT therapy however with respect to tolerating distress and focusing on the dialectic nature of life.

i’m looking into access to work support at the moment to see if I might get some practical help to manage tasks etc that sit in some of my blind spots of behaviour.

but I agree with you , there is an astonishing lack of support for adults available. Mental health services on the NHS are just non existent at the moment. I can afford to pay for it sometimes but it’s tough to keep it as consistent support tool

NHS choose to adopt CBT just because it was the cheapest of all therapeutic options. 

I agree that CBT is not helpful, not in my experience anyway. Before I knew I was autistic I had a couple of courses of CBT for anxiety and actually ended up worse afterwards.

The NHS standard therapy is quite patronising and automatically assumes that all thoughts and fears must be faulty and irrational and need to be fixed. They seemed to think that I must be fearful of making a fool of myself or being judged but I didn't think like that at all. 

Also there can be a tendency for therapists to blame the client if their therapy isn't having the desired impact. I was led to believe that it was my fault in some way, that I wasn't trying or pushing myself hard enough. That I was being deliberately un-cooperative when I couldn't identify or adequately communicate my thoughts or emotions. 

I now understand that it was perfectly rational for me to feel anxious and avoid places and situations where I would experience sensory overload and trigger meltdowns. The key is understanding what is rational anxiety and what isn't. It is the sensory environment that needs adapting rather than the thoughts.

There is an interesting article here (co-authored by the well respected Tony Attwood)

https://attwoodandgarnettevents.com/can-cbt-be-helpful-for-autistic-adults-part-1/

https://attwoodandgarnettevents.com/can-cbt-be-helpful-for-autistic-adults-part-2/

A couple of relevant sections from the links above:

"Our clinical experience indicates that for many autistic clients, repeated exposure to the painful sensory experience does not lead to habituation. Any graduated exposure programme needs to accommodate the autistic person’s sensory profile, otherwise, there is a significant risk of increasing the person’s anxiety"

"We are increasingly recognising the potential for autistic burnout when demands exceed coping abilities or burnout as a response to stressful life events and long-term camouflaging (Higgins et al 2021; Mantzalas et al 2021).  Recovery is protracted and may last months or years.  Burnout affects mental health, energy levels and cognitive abilities. According to Higgins et al (2021), the degree of cognitive confusion and overload associated with autistic burnout could limit the effectiveness of conventional CBT. For example, many clinicians may treat depression using the traditional CBT methods of behavioural activation and increasing social contact. Both these methods are likely to increase burnout leading to a worsening of symptoms."

No. I did the assessment with PsychiatryUK for free, but I did not find anything for afterwards.

1. Is it more about talking to someone about the more practical things? Someone who gets it? To validate our experiences and thoughts etc? In the past i have had counseling, i have done all the talking, it was exhausting and of no benefit. 

Perhaps our best teacher is ourselves? We likely have better understanding than many professionals. 

I recently spoke to a clinical psychologist with experience of Autism and diagnosis, who didn't really rate CBD, but thought mindfulness is a better option. 

Yes, my experience of cbt has been similar. I've given up on therapy for the time being, because in every instance I knew it was pointless before the end of the first session. The practioner didn't get it, I was way ahead of them and they seemed unable to grasp what I was telling them. Maybe this was a double empathy thing in some cases, I don't know. 

In any case, none of it was remotely useful. 

I didn't know that I was autistic then and neither did they. It may well be better with a practioner who started from an understanding of neurodiverse people. 

Yes autistic people usually do have a very well developed negative intuition, I would say that we have too much baggage and safety behaviours for most practitioners to be skilful enough to break through with declaration alone, especially considering that they have 8 weeks to do there job and there organisation usually wants them to go for big results..

When I talk to the practitioners you can usually only riff with them for so many session before they start stick to the programmed responses..

DeSpereaux said:

Sure autistic people do develop and manifest behaviours over time, by the root-causes of that behaviour are often not considered, and we are seen as difficult or not trying

The therapists I have worked with have all recommended exploring whatever is the root cause then developing new coping techniques that are more acceptable.

There needs to be a degree of the CBT process involved in us changing the behaviour as most behaviours have been present since childhood and are deeply ingrained into our ways of living.

I have found that many autists are not willing to try to change their behaviour in a coping technique, even when it is detrimental to them. There is often a very black and white way of thinking for these people which makes it hard to show them a shade of grey that is a better alternative.

The only progess there was when they started to really want to change.

Complicated creatures we are.

A lot of the training surrounding CBT is psychological in nature and it seeks to train you out of your issues, it seeks to change your behaviour and have you believe that you should just do it, there isn’t a lot of consideration for the neurological aspects of autism. Sure autistic people do develop and manifest behaviours over time, by the root-causes of that behaviour are often not considered, and we are seen as difficult or not trying.  
But there are versions of CBT that are tailored to autism, I’ve not found a CBT autism practitioner, but I have found it helpful to research on my own and to challenge a practitioners thoughts. I think they it ultimately falls into the realm of counselling if the practitioner is not skilful enough.

Autism is a configuration of the nervous system Chloe, yes it means that you have a social impairment and yes it meaning that you use the cognitive functions you pave been spared to get by, but it doesn’t mean that you are weaker than others as your will have peaked those spared function in a way that a neurotypical would never need to. There is strength in autism, but you won’t find it by camouflaging yourself as a second-rate neurotypical, you’ll find it in using reasonable-adjustment to make up for the standards that neurotypical have set to suit their cognition. 
It is easy to get a low-mood when you are aware of your intelligence but cannot communicate, it is easy to be depressed after going through the self-deprecations that the process demands for screening, because no one got a diagnosis for their strengths. 
Here is an article on strengths..

xminds.org/.../aspie criteria by attwood.pdf

I've never had CBT but I've heard from some people it worked for them but not everyone finds that. I personally think rather than trying to cure aspects of our autism talking therapy and offering support and encouragement is much more worthwhile and better. When I was speaking with my doctor daily my life improved massively I felt heard and understood. But finding a good therapist who understands is difficult.

I have considered going private but I can only find private assessments for diagnosis, nothing for afterwards. Have you found anyone so far?

I don’t see how cbt helps people with autism when our brains are wired differently. It won’t rewire my brain. I don’t mean to sound rude I would love to know if I am wrong. I am willing to try anything, however having had cbt in the past through nhs for depression, I found it quite patronising and it didn’t help me. The lady who diagnosed me said this could be because they were communicating neurotypically and I didn’t have my diagnosis back then to tell them. Have you found it successful if they are aware of autism? I thought maybe this is a gap in the system

Thankyou DeSpereaux, I will look in to this. From a knowledge side as I do like learning, and taking different courses. Maybe what I was hoping for doesn’t exist and I just have to accept that then, I thought there would be people qualified in neurodiversity who could help somehow. I think I need to accept it’s something I’m going to have to do myself. It is hard after masking for so long to figure out what I do really like, what I am good at. I can list all my weaknesses but don’t know what strengths I have, don’t know how to answer a “tell me about yourself” question truthfully.

Thankyou Iain, I knew I was autistic but I guess I am struggling, I thought being given the diagnosis would lead to support with it. Now I somewhat regret having this label. I did consider not including it in applications but there is all talk now of disability confident employers and I didn’t want to mask anymore, so hoped if I was upfront about it I could find a supportive employer from the beginning. I feel like they view it as too much trouble, why would they employ a disabled person if they could take on someone else that they don’t need to make adjustments for. I don’t think I could disclose afterwards as I would have masked to get through and would feel embarrassed and judged to bring it up once in employment. The masking was making my mental health worse. Autism is so misunderstood, people assume you can’t communicate at all which isn’t the case with me personally. It is hard to accept me when it feels like the world doesn’t, however I’m very conscious of taking things the wrong way now too. I don’t think I know where to start, just feeling the job struggle at the moment

I think this says it all, the autism-informational world is quite fragmented and isn’t easy to connect to, so you really need a jumping-off point for discussions; because these rabbit-holes are many, multidisciplinary and weighty..

Hence why I asked you what link you wanted..:’D

mate, you are going off the rails