"I would say you don't have Asperger's..."

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That has to be amazing - having a therapist on the spectrum. I've noticed, quite to my dismay, that people will accept someone elses words, even if they match mine, much more readily than they will accept them from me. I'm glad someone is getting through to your wife. I'll bet that bit of understanding makes a world of difference.

Thank you for the offer but I'm not in the position to afford a good therapist at the moment. Not that my therapist isn't good - I get the impression that she probably is - just not for me.

I find its easier at work too simply because work is work. Everything is about the job, there is no need to infer personal commentary in a work situation. Although, I have been told I'm passive agressive for asking too many questions - questions I am 'too smart' not to know the answer to. And, at home, saying 'I don't understand' is interpretted as - I don't know - as something else. Asking me how I feel or what I want is a loaded question. I often don't know. It's percevied as evasive, passive-aggressive, as a stall tactic. I'm still not sure why people cannot accept the words for what they mean. Why do people assume that I MUST understand or must KNOW? Yes, I can explain all of the invasive non native plant species in the state and their country of origin but I do not know what I want for lunch. Do they have any idea what kind mental gymnastics have to happen to answer a question like that?

I do find situations like that confrontational and, by definition, they are. Simply because the person questioning you doesn't understand the nature of the disconection responsible for the misunderstanding does not make it any less confrontational. You still need to bear the weight of the 'blame' because you are the 'not normal' one. It's the reason so many on the spectrum end up with anxiety and depression problems. We ARE expected to bear the blame for our differences. Acceptance is the only thing that would change that and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Honestly, I think that kind of talk-therapy works because of that ‘empathy’ thing. I didn’t do well in my counseling classes, but I remember an entire lecture devoted to how you need to show ‘empathy’ to your clients without actually getting emotionally involved (what I would call ‘sympathy’).

The problem is being shown empathy by someone who obviously doesn’t have any sympathy for me just feels false. I feel patronized and it, to be honest, freaks me out. I can’t differentiate between that affect and obvious manipulation tactic such as would be found in a stereotypical used-car salesman or televangelist.

However, somehow being shown this ‘empathy’ is thought to be therapeutic to NT’s. Even if it is a kind of ‘white lie’. I have heard the theory, but I honestly don’t understand why this is supposed to work. The miscommunication may be that, where you want to talk about your problems and arrive at solutions, all the therapist is trying to do is provide you with ‘empathy’. Thus, you suggest AS and they, instead of considering it as a point to be talked about, attempt to empathize with you over it.

My issue isn’t with depression anymore, but with anxiety. For me, I could take meds to make the anxiety go away but it wouldn’t make things any better. My anxiety is logical because of how terribly social situations tend to go if I don’t give them my all. The anxiety forces me to consider everything I say to avoid misunderstanding, and think about my affect, and forces me to make eye contact so I don’t seem distant or passive… So for me the anxiety isn’t the problem, but my brain’s attempted solution to the problem. And despite the stress this causes, it does help me quite a bit. Not sure if that helps at all but…

I also wanted to suggest that maybe your therapist mistook you when you let them decide the date of your next appointment of not caring and therefore not putting forth your best effort. They may have suggested discontinuing therapy, not because they think you should discontinue therapy, but because they thought that it might motivate you if you thought you were going to loose it. Like a Significant Other who threatens a breakup, not because they want to break up, but because they think that if your worried about this it will give them some sort of power over you/motivate you to do what they want.

This is the biggest issue I just cannot get past. I can see that they are doing this - trying to be empathetic and understanding - giving the proverbial shoulder to cry on. I can see them doing it but it does nothing for me. Whatever comfort of relief or epiphanies other people get by doing this or being on the receiving end of this does not happen for me. When people do this I need to strongly resist the urge to tell them not to waste their emotional energy on me because I simply do not need it. I've learned that not only do they take it as an insult that you feel their emotions are 'wasted' but they have no concept of 'emotional energy'. Here I thought I was being helpful, letting them off the hook so they didn't exhaust themselves by providing unneeded emotional support only to realize - quite late in life - that they do not have the same limited reserves of emotional energy that I do. Extremely bad assumption on my part. And I still have this problem - of not always realizing that other people don't experience the world the way I do. Honestly, it's not as if that is a conversation that ever comes up. I think everyone just assumes that other people experience things the same way they do. And for most people that works just fine. Basically, I'm in my forties and just realizing the exact DEPTH of my misperceptions about people and the world and it's a tad overwhelming. Everything I thought I knew and understood about myself and the world is essentially askew.

I should have taken the blue pill... (Matrix reference... btw)




The only anxiety I've felt has been in the last two weeks. Even with turning my world upside down, I'm not anxious about it. Finding out that I and my therapist have been talking at completely crossed purposes for two months just threw me for a loop. Here I thought she was trying to talk me out of an Asperger's DX in the beginning, only to find out now that I really had no clue WHY I was in therapy and exactly how deeply my misperceptions of everything we had already done actually ran, to having her tell me that she wasn't trying to talk me out of my dx at all. In fact, she suggested Asperger's might be the problem. So, a small miscommunication about scheduling an appointment led to a near anxiety attack, an uncovering of a boatload of misperceptions that she had no clue existed, to me opting out of therapy because simply talking about my problems was useless. There was nothing in those two months that helped alleviate my depression (which is a chemical imbalance on my part but they do not believe that) except meds (which got me turned around in about two weeks). There was nothing in therapy that has helped me get back to work. And she had no suggestions to help me there other than career counceling.

And THIS is my problem. I'm not anxious about social interaction. Small talk and shallow contact is a breeze - because there is no expectation of deeper understanding or emotional connection. But, here I was, two months into therapy and my misperception about what was taking place and why was SO wrong that it all ended up crashing and burning. Other people have no way of knowing that I do not perceive a situation the same way as they do. I have no way of knowing that I am perceiving it incorrectly until something happens to make it clear. I will always be kind of stumbling in the dark and other people will never grow the patience or understanding to throw me a bone every now and then.

I'm not sure placing even more restrictions and self monitoring on myself will do much more than cause anxiety. I've been able to maintain myself without anxiety and I think that is worth maintaining, even if I need to give up on some other, more lofty social goals.



I did entertain that possibility. This past week we hashed out all the misconceptions and, quiet honestly, I think she was a bit taken aback by how badly I misinterpreted the entire situation because she had no clue I was laboring under so many and so many incorrect assumptions. She felt I had it pretty together up to that point. I'm articulate, I have good skills in self analyizing and problem solving. And then - THIS. At the end, in my frustration I blurted out something about not understanding how people could possibly need to just - talk - to solve their problems. (It really still is a foreign concept even though I logically understand it) She told me 'That was awful smug." I'm pretty sure she was a bit ticked - sure looked and sounded that way. I immediately backtracked with her expression and tried to explain myself - I don't assume people are incapable. It is their brain. I assume people actually use it. Of course, that just dug the hole deeper and she kinda marched me out of her office at that point. It took me twenty minutes to realize that I had personally insulted her - after all, she is a therapist that talks to people for a living... I inadvertantly pointed out that her job was useless. I didn't MEAN it that way but I'm pretty sure that was what she got from it.

Just another notch on my 'epic social failure' totem pole.

So, no more therapy - probably ever. Wait - I won't say ever because you never know what the future holds but... yeah, it's not looking like the thing for me...

I'm a young teen--my sister has Asperger's. I've been left assuming I'm the "normal" daughter. The other day my therapist finally told me she thinks I have Asperger's, but I'm actually afraid to tell other people about this because already my parents and my best friends are doubtful. After all, my sister's problems have always been more severe than mine. But I suffer from cyclical depression and my social skills suck. I finally told my therapist the other day, "I just want a diagnosis. There's something wrong with me, and people are always beating around the bush telling me what it is." So she pulled out her DSM, and just like that, she told me she thinks I have Asperger's. I'm left confused, though! [i]Do[/i] I have Asperger's? I'm already in my mid-teens--it's been so long and my social skills DO develop, just slowly. I obviously don't need the official diagnosis because I'm past the point where services are necessary--I'm smart enough to have figured out how to succeed in school and make friends here and there. But recently I've had scary breakdowns in front of friends and felt embarrassed about it afterward. I'm confused all the time and I don't think it's just because I'm a teenager. What's worse is I can't socialize my confusion--it's so hard to make words come out of my mouth right.

Dunno why I wrote all that; I obviously have more questions than answers. Just...sometimes I need to talk to someone, and I need to talk to someone for [i]awhile[/i], because I feel like I've totally messed up socially the past few weeks but I don't know [i]how[/i] I've messed up, I just know there's something I haven't done quite right.

You know what I like to think? I like to think that if you suppose you have Asperger's, you probably do. The lines are just so blurry. Or if it helps you (because I know I LOVE concrete information), just assume that because you have Asperger's traits, you're Asperger's. Give yourself something concrete to latch onto if no one else does.

oh..I just noticed the thread is year old

Well, you can think you have it and it not be the case. However, given your clinical diagnosis and sibling on the spectrum, I tend to think you probably do. In a way, I am envious since I wish I had a real diagnosis and not the self-diagnosis I have now. As to screwing up socially, well that all will depend on those you screwed up with. If they are true friends then it can be fixed. If not, then they are probably shallow people who you would lose touch with anyhow, so they don't really matter to begin with. Trust me on this one as I have screwed up more than a few times in my life and yet I still manage to have close friends, just not a lot of them. Heck, I screwed up today by being far too blunt with a close friend of mine who had just had to deal with a hateful tirade from his son's mother who would not let him have visitation! What did I do to fix what I had said? I called up and apologized after he had time to cool off. I explained to him that I tend to be too blunt at times, but also reminded him that it's something he already knew about me. This was so that he didn't take it too personally as it's just the way I am sometimes. I later went over to his house to let him vent his side of the story to me and all was well. The lesson here is to remember that most social mistakes can be fixed if you can talk them out sincerely and the other person is willing to listen.