• Replies 5 replies
  • Subscribers 7 subscribers
  • Views 253 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

NHS Therapy struggles

Stevie

I’ve spent years masking, forcing eye contact, small talk, pretending I’m fine. Now CBT asks me to notice thoughts, change behaviour, practise responses. Even though they try to adapt it, it still feels like “act normal”, which for me = mask again. I'm struggling to understanding what they want me to do.

The scripts are hard to remember, my memory’s worse, and concentration’s gone. Instead of helping, therapy just makes me panic. They’re now talking about referring me to step 3.

Has anyone else been through this?

Parents

  • I have had several attempts at CBT, although not tailored for an autistic person as this has only been identified relatively recently, and I had very little success. Interestingly I've found that several NT friends also found it a "waste of time".


    For me it opened up more issues than it solved. First it felt like I was trying to lie to myself, and secondly brought up the question of who am I. Thirdly much of the focus for me was my perfectionism, so I was steered toward trying to settle for "good enough". This caused me so much distress that I had to stop the therapy. Having thought about it at length, I discovered that my perfectionism was not driven by worrying about how other were perceiving me and more by a warm feeling when things are just so and almost a mental itch when things weren't. This was true whether it was something I had produced, or something produced by others.

Reply

  • I have had several attempts at CBT, although not tailored for an autistic person as this has only been identified relatively recently, and I had very little success. Interestingly I've found that several NT friends also found it a "waste of time".


    For me it opened up more issues than it solved. First it felt like I was trying to lie to myself, and secondly brought up the question of who am I. Thirdly much of the focus for me was my perfectionism, so I was steered toward trying to settle for "good enough". This caused me so much distress that I had to stop the therapy. Having thought about it at length, I discovered that my perfectionism was not driven by worrying about how other were perceiving me and more by a warm feeling when things are just so and almost a mental itch when things weren't. This was true whether it was something I had produced, or something produced by others.

Children
No Data