Tendency to lose my own perspective

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I discussed my issues with processing speed I had my whole life, even coming up with examples I had written down, and he was like, No, I don't think you exhibit problems with your processing speed. Immediately, I had no response to him. I told him about the results of test when I was a kid, but he dismissed it and I felt unprepared to argue further. Even though I had read and seen I matched with signs of processing issues, like here:

http://www.slideshare.net/brodin/proces ... -disorders

I was completely unable to muster them in conversation despite seeing them lots and lots of times before. For some reason, I can do therapy really well, but have trouble in real life, and I have a hard time getting that across to my therapist and psychiatrist. It's like I'm a professional therapy-taker, or something. I now feel violated by his objection, because in doing so he made me forget all why I thought that was the case. Later, after ruminating on the conversation, I am able to regain my perspective and to remember why it is I hold it.

This happens in political debates as well, where in the face of tremendous pressure from the opposition, I will often forget the whole of why I think something and I will start perseverating on one or two points, which makes me look stupid. That is, I will keep on and hammer one or two points, because I will forget the other points. This I think is similar to my problems with brainstorming, where I have difficulty coming up with beyond one or two (or possibly three) ideas. Again, later, after the conversation, I can regain my perspective and I will kick myself for not being able to think up the other ideas.

This kind of thing can happen even where there isn't opposition. Like when I was staying with an older lady who aloud me to rent a room in her house for cheap. She trusted me implicitly, as shown by never taking precautions around me, such as leaving her bedroom door open at night. Of course, I had no intent to harm or rip her off. Nevertheless, I felt incredible anxiety around her. It caused me to forget I had no intent to harm her and I kept thinking that OMG, she is vulnerable to me! OMG, as far as she knows, I could harm her! I lost my perspective and her perspective (that she implicitly trusted me) as well in a haze of incredible anxiety. The anxiety caused me to shut myself away from her in my room, and for me to often go without eating or even without using the bathroom for a while or showering for days; coming in and out only for work. Later, after moving out, when I ran across her again in a public group, I did not feel nearly that level of anxiety as I did--hardly any at all--when I kept thinking that she's vulnerable to me.

Often times, I feel I have to fight to not lose my own perspective.

And this is a significant problem I have with therapy as well as social situations in general. I have scripts that I use to explain my difficulties. I can get derailed from these scripts very easily, usually by someone bringing something up in a novel way, even if it's something I have previously considered. It's like I can only access certain information in a certain context, and interruptions like that change the context so much that I am unable to react, or effectively recall or "know" the information I need to respond.

This made it virtually impossible for me to get anywhere with my disability attorney for my SSI hearing. The problem was he kept interrupting me instead of allowing me to answer his questions, and then telling me he needed a different answer but not what the answer was. I even said "I am not communicating what I want to communicate here" and he just said "you're doing fine" without taking a moment to listen. Maybe if I'd said, "I don't think I'm being heard right now. You're not the judge, and I am not at the hearing. You are asking me questions and giving me no context in which to answer them the way you want me to do. Please let me explain my limitations so we can work out how to present them to the judge."

But I couldn't come up with that right then, because I hadn't prepared for the eventuality.

"I don't think I'm being heard right now" seems like a good statement. Otherwise, do you have any tips to get a therapist to look deeper than the surface of what he sees? For some reason, all my clinicians get this perspective that I'm this brilliant person who can absolutely adapt in any way she wants to and they all effing miss the gaps that I have, like in processing speed. And then when I tell them about it, it's like they don't wanna hear it; they think I'm just being "too hard" on myself, when in reality their refusal to hear and their opposition make me feel violated. It makes me want to fire the lot of them and go back to a child/adolescent clinician, who at least can understand that people on the spectrum often have very uneven skills.

BTW, how did that end up going?

"I don't think I'm being heard" is something I came up with when I wrote my response here, and did not think to connect it to that interaction before that point - which at this point is over a year ago.

I was denied SSI due to getting a judge who has an extremely low approval rate.

For therapists, I'm not sure. I've run into professionals who do not listen to me about various things and I find that in the conversation I feel trapped and can't bring what I know to bear.

I do think finding a new therapist might be a good move. Find someone who will listen to you and not minimize your issues.

Who can I go to? Do I contact that child psychologist again for another consultation?

After thinking about it, I'm going to read off exactly why I think I have a processing speed issue. Granted, it's not particularly severe, but at last testing my processing speed index was about a standard deviation below normal. I think I know how to explain it, including explaining how I have uneven abilities.

Nevertheless, he does make one good observation. I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies with my stuff and I'm a bit of a hoarder, mainly because I don't know if I should throw it out, sell it, or what. He taught me that there is no right answer sometimes and so I should just pick one. So I will be doing that more often when cleaning.

Because of that observation, I'll keep him on, for now.

Maybe as a neurotypical he has judged your processing speed to be normalish-enough so as to be a non-issue. To him, maybe processing speed should be the least of your worries and he has higher priorities for your therapy? Kinda makes me wonder what he would say are his #1 priorities for your therapy...but a better question might be - what are your #1 goals for therapy w/him (and can he deliver?). Seems like a therapist working w/someone on the spectrum should welcome discussion about this subject and never dismiss it out of hand. Many neurotypicals though, would NEVER fathom to guess how big an impact that being a touch slower can have on every waking hour of every day. You should not have to feel like you are not being heard by your therapist or have to argue with him or explain /educate him, IMHO. I say, take a tip from Donald Trump.

True. I'll read off the signs and symptoms and explain how I fit most of them. I'll give him that chance.

I would probably do the same thing. That is more than fair. Though it still seems like anyone qualified to counsel someone w/Asperger's should know that already, right???

To be fair, I should say I haven't been tested yet for ASD, so I am not necessarily an expert. However....I am pretty sure I can safely say I have every auditory symptom of CAPD in the article you shared, except mixing up spoken words (ie, Job/Jab). Thanks for sharing that article and to the right people, the subject of information processing is vastly interesting.

This might help.

I often find I need to write things out so I can explain them better later on. As long as I don't get derailed again.