My therapist doesn't believe i'm autistic

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If i tell you what my symptoms are, will you tell me if it's worth searching for an official diagnosis by an autism specialist?
My therapist said that I can't be autistic because autistic people don't respond to other people's emotions: they don't get sad if another person gets sad or they don't get pissed off if someone offends them.

1)When I was little i was diagnosed with some sensory disorders, including sensitivity to light, sound, touch and poor proprioception. When I was little my parents thought I was on the spectrum but my gp and other pediatricians (not specialized in autism) said that I didn't have autism, so my parents brought me to an ophthalmologist, to an earing specialist and other specialists to figure out if I had any sensory problem and they found some.

2)I have stereotyped movements like walking back and forth, touching everything I see, I move my legs up and down, rock my back left to right or back and forth and so on...

3)I need my routines and I'm pretty rigid about them. I always need to know what to expect. I'm mainly go through life by inertia and if there is something that I'd like to do, but is not a part of my normal routine, I can't do it. My routines can be pretty stupid. For example when I was in junior high every evening i had to go the same newsstand to by the same journals, at the same hour everyday. Even today I can't go to a different pharmacy than the one I usually go to, because I need to go the same route and I need to know what to expect and I already know and trust my pharmacist.
This doesn't stop me from doing new things when I'm not living a particularly stressful period: for example recently I started volunteering, but I just don't like surprises.

4)I also think in black and white terms according to my therapist. I have rigid thinking. If i'm doing something I have to do it the way I always do it, not the way other people want. Their way may be better, but I need to things my way.

5)I have and have had restricted interests. When I was in elementary school it was a book about dinasours. I didn't play with my barbies because I didn't know what to do with them so I read books, in particular one about dinasours, I read it everyday for hours at a time. Then I stopped because I wanted to know more about dinasaurs but my parents didn't have any money to buy me books. Then i liked astronomy, high school musical, twilight, harry potter and I knew all of these things by heart.

6)I have difficulty with eye contact, but this was more of a problem when I was little. My reasons for not giving eye contact are multiple. One is that seing a face in my visual field distracts me from what I'm trying to say, because if I start paying attention to what I see I can't think of what to say. Another one is that even if I look at the face I find it hard to interpret their emotions. A lot of time other people make a comment on someone elses facial expression saying for example that that person was angry and I can't see any sign of anger in that face.

7)I've always found it hard to integrate facial expressions with tone of voice, resulting in a lot of misunderstandings growing up. Because I couldn't understand other people's emotions I found it hard to adapt my behaviour to different situations, and I always found out too late that what I did was inappropriate.

I've always found it difficult to share my emotions. I remember that when I was in elementary school I realized that I didn't make as many facial expressions as my classmates and so I started to imitate them. The hard part was to use a particular facial expression with the correspondent emotion. For example if I felt angry inside I found it hard to show that I was angry, because i didn't even know that I was angry. There are many unexplained physical sensations in my body and I can't put a name to all of them. I confuse emotions with one another too. I've always felt a disconnection between my mind and my body because my facial expressions rarely correspond to what I feel inside and because I can't match the emotion that I'm feeling with a gesture or facial expression.

9)I have difficulty establishing or maintaining back-and-forth conversations and interactions. When I was little I dind't even know how to initiate an interaction because I did things that to others were stupid.

Your therapist is ignorant and knows nothing about Autism. Get another therapist. I think you are definitely a candidate for an assessment. I think it would be very worth it to you to find out.

It seems like you have many Aspie [or High Functioning Autistic (HFA)] characteristics.

You said, "My therapist said that I can't be autistic because autistic people don't respond to other people's emotions: they don't get sad if another person gets sad or they don't get pissed off if someone offends them."

I would find that statement to not be true. There are many on Wrong Planet that will disagree with your therapist on that point. We all feel but in a sense we are poor at projecting our feelings.

Anyways you are welcome on this site.

I didn't read your symptoms, b/c I suspect they are spot on. I will share my experience: My therapist (who I continue to adore) also said: "Nope, not you, you are too 'warm'." I am highly emotional and empathetic. I told her I had been well behaved with her. She relented a touch and said she had a colleague who knew more about AS and she would talk to her. (If she wasn't open to it, I would have stopped seeing her.)
I still see this counselor and she's great - we sort of get to discover AS together, and I don't mind doing that with her, and I also have an ASD counsellor now. I've been more myself around both counselors now. When I get my diagnosis (if I do, in a week), I'll ask my "regular" counselor what she thinks now.

Which reminds me, my husband's best friend is a psychiatrist and seemed near appalled that I would "label" myself and invalidated all my indicators ("you converse fine!"). Nor does my primary doctor. After months of going through childhood letters and situations and recent situations and my reactions, I figure I am AS and so that's their problem.

I feel a diagnosis would help me, so pursued it myself. After a few months my ASD counsellor herself said I certainly had a lot of traits and we would presume I am AS unless there was reason not to think so.

Last edited by SharonB on 23 Nov 2019, 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You may consider finding a different therapist.
Unless this one really helps you otherwise and you can live with the disagreement, but from what you wrote, it's unlikely.
She apparently knows very little about modern understanding of ASD.

Another point worth making is that Asperger's or High Functioning Autism traits are manifest differently between males and female. So even if you have a therapist who has some understanding of male traits (because there are more male with this condition); that therapist may be unfamiliar with how the traits are manifest in females and as a result provide an inaccurate assessment.

The thing with not having emotions if you are autistic is not true in my opinion. What I believe to be the challenge is that many of us have challenges showing our emotions (even though we feel sorrow, happiness, etc. for others).

You definitely seem like a worthwhile candidate for assessment; your therapist is wrong when she says we don't imitate or respond to other peoples' emotions. I don't do it for every emotion a person has, nor do I do it for every person I know, but for example, if someone is disappointed because they wanted to do something but couldn't, I get very upset for them. I've been diagnosed as level 2 or "moderate".

The big question concerning whether you're autistic or merely have traits is whether or not those traits impact your ability to function and live a normal life. For example, I'm on disability benefits because I can only work part-time at a very simple, straightforward job, despite being intelligent and having a degree, because I get overwhelmed and don't understand complex directions and tasks. I also struggle with things like cleaning and remembering to feed myself, and my sensory problems are such that they keep me from doing things I need or want to do, like going grocery shopping, being in crowds, trying new activities, etc. So ask yourself how well you're functioning in life, and if there aren't any areas you think you need help with, or you're otherwise doing fairly well at maintaining your well being, that suggests that you have traits, but they're not severe enough to impact your functioning, and subsequently, don't qualify for diagnosis. Good luck!

I agree with the other posters. Your therapist does not know about autism, especially autism in females. I've work in the field for 20 years, but it wasn't until I read articles about how autism expresses itself in women that I recognized myself. Learning about HFA or Aspergers has improved my life a lot, even though I have aged out of all the possible accommodations.

Good grief! Your therapist could not be more wrong about ASD and emotions. She does not know much about ASD. Find a Psychologist who specializes in ASD and get an assessment.

Consider also that women/girls can present differently from boys. It can be much harder to diagnose women.

Just because your therapist says you are not does not mean you shouldn't push for a diagnosis. My therapist really thought I didn't have it and so my mum had to really push to get me referred and even then she kept on saying of all the people she referred only one was diagnosed and she doesn't even think I have it. I had another therapist as well who, while very lovely, would repeatedly say in sessions she didn't think I could possibly have ASD because I could explain what I was feeling so well. I am eloquent, my anxiety makes me constantly analyse everything and it says in my report where I was diagnosed that yes, I am very good at saying how I feel but it seem to be coming from a learned plays and does not seem to be natural. That is because I miss bits of what I'm feeling or realise I'm sad but don't know why. However, after relentlessly analysing it I'll figure it out. Not all therapists are experts in autism and if you are female it is harder because we present differently to males, learning things in a way that we probably seem more normal ie. looking at the bridge of someone's nose to fake eye contact. Plus, a lot of new info and research has come out and if they do not specialise in that field they won't necessarily be aware of it.

Also, we can feel sad f others are sad. I myself am very sensitive to that sometimes even getting panic attacks if someone on a screen is and believe me, we are also very capable of getting mad.

How have you aged out of all the possible accommodations?

I was wondering about that b/c in my AS support group (US) the older members get healthcare coverage for aids (paperwork, chores, etc.) and even case workers to help identify resources - typically for Executive Function Disorder which I gather is common with AS and may worsen with age.

This is what I've always done too. For compensating for the lack of words for my emotions I adopted the emotions of other people that they so eloquently exposed. When I was little everybody was constantly asking how I felt, and I couldn't just shrug my shoulders evertime: I had to give them an answer. My answer isn't always appropriate A lot of time people were expecting to hear another emotion that for them would have been more logical.
Also I've read a lot of books where at lot of sentences corresponded an emotion. I learned to express my emotions verbally by reading books as well. So I know for example that if I don't have friends it means that logically I'm lonely, and that being lonely means I'm sad. I've cried for loneliness too, but that was after I learned that loneliness was a bad thing.
I don't get emotional about the things that other people get emotional about, I always have to learn their emotions so I can have emotions for the things that they get emotional about.

Does it make sense to you?

XSara, I find it fascinating how you logically identify what you should feel by what you read in books. I really find that interesting. I feel a tremendous amount of emotions and sometimes it takes me time to sort through them and identify them but I have no problems with feeling them to the nth degree.

My issue was more expressing them in the past on my face. So I would say a bunch of things with a deadpan expression and yes, like you I learnt how to be different from body language books etc. I also pick up people's habits very quickly so being around expressive people made me learn from them and I tend to analyse and learn from all my convos.

I do relate to your logical bit as sometimes I will know why I feel a certain way but others I have think over the whole month to think what this emotion matches up with. Do yours also sometimes hit you late because I get a lot of that and it is so confusing!