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Experienced a lack of understanding of my autism again

Cre8tiveDaniel

Hello everyone.

I have been feeling down this evening. 

Mid-conversation, a mental health helpline worker asked me to guide him on how he could best support me and my next concern. To help him understand how to support me best, I shared that I am autistic and that this impacts my communication. Despite my explicit disclosure, the volunteer responded by focusing on my perceived strengths. I know that I am not alone in my struggle, as it is a common experience among many autistic individuals. I am also aware that I have strengths.

While the intention might have been positive, it completely missed the point. I was not seeking validation of my strengths, which I already recognised. I was trying to articulate the very real struggles I encountered. The helpline worker’s response felt dismissive and invalidated my experience. It reinforced past experiences of being reminded about my strengths. It is as if my struggles were being minimised or erased because I possess other competencies. It shut down the conversation I tried to have about my difficulties.

I left the chat feeling worse than I felt.

I only want to talk about my feelings and feel validated. I am not looking for any solutions.

Parents

  • Oh, my goodness!  That would have been just horrible.  I am not comfortable that helpline person is in the right job at all 

    I think you did well to complete that chat.  I am not confident I would have stuck with it to the end.

    Your experience reminds me of having attended a course (6 hours duration) advertised as being about Mentalizing - taking feelings into account or tracking changes in feelings - (something, in common with some Autistic people, I know is not one of my strengths - but I was up for the challenge of trying to learn more on the subject) ...only to experience - a lot (I really do mean a lot) - of the content instead kept circling back to very personalised explorations of other people's examples of how borderline personality disorder - perhaps now better now known as emotionally unstable personality disorder - affects their lives.  (Not what I had signed up to attend and experience).  I hope the BPD / EUPD contingent got something out of the course.  What I got out of it: I went home and cancelled most of the remaining courses which I had booked with that training provider.  Thanks all the same, but no!

    I am still smarting and mulling over the best way to clean up my thoughts since that unexpected course experience.  I can only imagine you doing likewise with your experience of that dismissive individual.

Reply

  • Oh, my goodness!  That would have been just horrible.  I am not comfortable that helpline person is in the right job at all 

    I think you did well to complete that chat.  I am not confident I would have stuck with it to the end.

    Your experience reminds me of having attended a course (6 hours duration) advertised as being about Mentalizing - taking feelings into account or tracking changes in feelings - (something, in common with some Autistic people, I know is not one of my strengths - but I was up for the challenge of trying to learn more on the subject) ...only to experience - a lot (I really do mean a lot) - of the content instead kept circling back to very personalised explorations of other people's examples of how borderline personality disorder - perhaps now better now known as emotionally unstable personality disorder - affects their lives.  (Not what I had signed up to attend and experience).  I hope the BPD / EUPD contingent got something out of the course.  What I got out of it: I went home and cancelled most of the remaining courses which I had booked with that training provider.  Thanks all the same, but no!

    I am still smarting and mulling over the best way to clean up my thoughts since that unexpected course experience.  I can only imagine you doing likewise with your experience of that dismissive individual.

Children