Has Anyone Found CBT Effective For Aspergers

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I am interested if anyone here has had CBT and found it effective.

I am still on a waiting list for an ASD assessment and have just been put on a waiting list for CBT for depression and I am a little concerned it will put me through a lot of stress & anxiety with little benefit.

I'm pretty sure my depression is caused by my anxiety but I don't know where my anxiety comes from , it could be ASD if I have it but I don't know.

I don't know if it works but I know it's common for psychologists to recommend it. Mine did. If you don't want to wait, it can be done online. https://moodgym.com.au/ It was developed at a University here in Aus but I believe anyone, anywhere can use it.
Let me know if you give it a go. I'm having trouble finding the motivation.

I had cbt for my self harm issues. It's been pretty affective for me in dealing with personal problems.

After I made an attempt to take my own life, I underwent CBT with two different therapists.

The first of which was quizzical as to why I was eerily quiet. She did mention that I could be on the autism spectrum, but I wouldn't be diagnosed for over three years after her suspicions were revealed. However, I must admit that I didn't help matters during some of our sessions together as I consumed copious amounts of 'space cake' before meeting with her sometimes.

The second of which was equally as ineffectual because I could never identify how I felt and refused to acknowledge that I had anything to live for in life. He eventually referred me to a group therapy programme design to help those with BPD, a diagnosis I never paid much attention to.

It was rather embarrassing because I could never recall with any great clarity what happened during my sessions. My Father would often ask me what we spoke about but I invariably would say "Not a lot".

@bunnyb Thanks for the link , yeah I understand the motivation thing , plus the motivation of opening your wallet

@EzraS That's good news , it gives me a bit of hope

@Jake What you described is exactly how I imagined CBT would be for me especially the 'Not a lot' comment

I had CBT for depression. I have to admit I hated it and actually called a premature halt to the sessions as I thought I was depriving a more worthy candidate of the resources.
But... I think you at least need to give it a go, it might be right thing for you... everyone is different.

A friend of mine had CBT and he was given a CD of dolphin sounds to listen to. We have a long history of shared music preferences listening to stuff a lot heavier than dolphins... had a good laugh about that one.

Depends on a lot of different factors. Including how skilled the practitioner is, how in touch with reality the practitioner is, and how open you are to changing the way you think.

It worked really, really well for me the first time. I ended up rearranging my thoughts all the way from, "I'm a freak and I can't even figure out HOW to bend myself into the right shape to please people and I should really just die" to "OK, I'm different, I process social information differently and have a different perspective on life, I'm a good person and I just need to find people who can accept that and there are billions of people on this rock, so f**k 'em if they can't take a joke."

Not so well the second time around. I'm much more resistant to changing my point of view now. It's "I'm different, I process social information differently and have a different perspective on life, and God may love me, but in peoples' eyes that's BAD so I AM BAD and I WILL ALWAYS BE BAD." I don't view it as an opinion or perception; I view it as a fact, based on experience, and it's not open to cognitive reframing.

In my experience, it really doesn't help much with social anxiety. We ARE different, people ARE going to react badly to that difference, being constantly "on-stage" to make sure to employ and interpret NT social behavior IS exhausting enough that no autistic (no matter how high-functioning) is going to do it for fun or can sustain doing it day in and day out. It is what it is.

It DOES help with task-oriented anxiety, though. I have learned not to think, "This job is so big and so complicated and so hard that I will never be able to do it. I'm just going to mess it up. I shouldn't even start." I have learned to think, "Well, I'll just start at the beginning and work in stages until I get it done. Everybody makes mistakes. I'll figure it out as I go and it will probably turn out OK, and then it will be done."

I've gotten quite a few things done that way, including getting myself midway through the process of raising kids (a much more difficult proposition than, say, fixing the plumbing or replacing insulation under my house, because it takes a very long time to find out if you screwed it up badly and meanwhile EVERYONE has opinions on how you're doing it wrong and always will because they are little humans and are not linear or perfect EVER).

And YES, I KNOW my depression (suffocating at times) is caused by my anxiety. If I could stop being scared all the time, I could stop being miserable. Unfortunately, I can't-- more in the sense of "MUST NOT" than in the sense of "not capable of."

Most of it revolves around autism-- fear I will make a social faux pas or communication error that hurts someone I care about, fear people will twist my words and assume I mean something I never even thought or did something I never even considered, fear that I will lose everything I care about because stuff got messed up in translation.

It's happened before. I've had my husband and his family, and for that matter my own family, assume terrible things (that I was sleeping around and that I was plotting murder spring to mind) that never even crossed my mind. No amount of "cognitive reframing" can change those fears-- I did that once and then watched it play out.

That's nuts! Why would anybody assume homicidal intentions based on autistic behaviors and social faux pas?