People let me fall on my own sword

Post Reply New Topic

I was studying a 10 week counselling course. In a counselling course, you learn to be open with your feelings which is one of the 3 core principles of counselling. It's called being congruent. The other two core principles are unconditional positive regard which means always seeing the best in people and not judging, and empathy which means recognizing feelings connected to what people are saying and doing and sharing in those feelings.

At the beginning of each lesson, we'd all be asked to make an introduction. I was the only person in my group who would be congruent. I'd say I felt nervous around other people and found it hard making eye contact. I told people I felt a need for people to like me. A few people said I was brave and some people said they didn't see certain disparaging aspects about myself I described.

Yet no one else ever said anything except that they were happy or intrigued about the lesson or made some joke. I made myself vulnerable and everyone else chose to stay behind the defence mechanisms of small talk and humour. I'm really disappointed about it because I have no friends and I thought of all places the one place I could have a chance of making friends would be in a counselling course, where I presumed people would be open minded.

I don't see how what you said could be wrong. It was how you felt. Maybe what other people said was actually how they felt. They may not have felt nervous or anything except happy and intrigued. I don't see how what you said could have hurt you at all.

You did not do anything wrong.

I'm sorry the counselling course didn't yield all you were hoping for. In truth, many (if not most) NTs will downplay or hide their feelings around people they don't know well to save face, as being emotional can be seen as sign of weakness to them (especially men)...it's regrettable that this mentality persisted through a counselling course, of all things. Anyway, I agree that it was very brave of you to open up the way you did - at least you understood the point to those sessions.

But they truly may not have had any negative feelings about the course. That is a possibility as well. Just because you, or I, or the guy down the street has negative feelings about something, does not automatically insure that anyone else has them.

I applaud you for being brave enough to show your true self/feelings.

But welcome to the realworld. Unfortunately, much of the world only wants to talk about how wonderful their lives are, even if they aren't.

You should try applying "unconditional positive regard" to the others in the course.
Rather than assuming they hid their feelings, assume they expressed their feelings as openly as they could. It's difficult to believe that everyone else had positive feelings through the entire 10 weeks, but it's possible. It's also possible that, even though the instructions were to be congruent, social cues caused them to do otherwise. Accept them for who they are.

You made yourself vulnerable, they sympathized and tried to support you. It sounds like things went well.

OliveOilMom, I'm not referring to whether or not the people in the counselling course liked the course, but to their refusal to talk about things in their life that would have prompted them to sign up for the course in the first place. According to ThePortraitPainter, being open with your feelings is one of the three core principles of counselling, and it was something that everyone in that course had agreed to learn about. If the other people who signed up had perfectly happy lives, I doubt they would have been there in the first place.

Having said that, it's more than possible that some of the other people in the course were pressured into joining by concerned parents, family members or friends, in which case their refusal to really open up makes a lot more sense.

Maybe the other people all were a lot happier than me. I know this though. I didn't feel supported that much by any of them. Though some friendly comments were made to me they didn't ring true to me in the end. Certain looks of disdain off people made that quite clear (and I may be Autistic but I'm not an idiot - I know what a look of disdain is).

I suspect the main problem is the other people weren't used to being around Autistic people, especially not ones who are open about their feelings. Anyway the counselling course wasn't without use. It made me reflect on myself and realise that what I really wanted to do was become a filmmaker. That's because like most autistic people reality doesn't make much sense to me.

In making a film I'm using all my strengths. My strengths are intelligence, imagination, a sense of humour and passionate emotion (which otherwise doesn't have enough outlet due to shyness and lack of social contact). In reality I struggle making all these great qualities of mine shine. In a film I can communicate so clearly.

I don't think it's an "NT" thing at all. Then again, there seems to be conflicting stereotypes of both those with and without an ASD. If someone with an ASD is guarded or seemingly cold, it's considered an autistic trait in contrast to overly effusive "NTs", and vice versa.

To the OP, I admire your candor, I really do. I sometimes wish I could be more open, but I think being disappointed in others for, assuming they really had no issues to address, being less candid demonstrates a lapse of empathy. It can be incredibly difficult for some people to share their emotions and personal struggles, especially to a group. I'm not suggesting it was particularly easy for you, but it's not unreasonable to consider that others may have even more difficulty with it than yourself. I'm not so sure I could do it, and it wouldn't have anything to do with wanting to appear manly or anything like that.

ThePortraitPainter wrote:

I can understand your disappointment then. That is one situation where you shouldn't be dealing with any negative feedback. The person teaching the course should have addressed that issue.
I'm glad you got something useful out of the course.

*Upon rereading my first post it appears to be critical. I didn't intend for it to be. I was just trying to offer advice and come up with alternate ways to look at the situation.

I've taken on board what you've said Aberro. I'll try to have more empathy for people in future.

If I can clarify my position, whenever I'm in a situation with more than one person I have difficulty communicating with people. No matter how I try I can't do much to change that. I'm simply overwhelmed with too many people and signs to look out for and respond to.

That's why I get nervous, confused and flustered and don't respond to people as well as I want to. That's why I think other people in the class didn't always get a good impression of me. I made a decent effort to be assertive but because of my communication issues I didn't always manage to join conversations at the right time or in the right way.

So I think it was hard for the other people to cope with me. They probably perceived me as being someone who was engaging well in the process of being open with my feelings but who wasn't always friendly, sociable and nice. It looked frustrating for other people who tried supporting me sometimes. They didn't feel they were getting a reaction they expected.

It makes me feel so depressed to keep on experiencing these situations when I join social groups and college courses where I can't develop any intimacy with anyone. Sometimes I think about never speaking again. Some Autistic people never do speak or only very rarely do. I can understand why. Sometimes opening your mouth at all is just a bad idea. Better to be thought of an idiot and keep it shut than open it and remove all doubt.

I appreciate you were coming up with an alternative way to look at the situation. It's good to be challenged sometimes. I will try to see the best in people more often. I wonder if the course would have gone better if in the first lesson I'd have said before anything began, "I'm Autistic. You might not know much about Autism. If you don't please read about it. I'm going to find it hard communicating with people but I'll try my best." I didn't do that. I was open with my feelings but not about the fact I'm Autistic. That might have been a major error.

True, I suppose I was speaking from personal experience...I have met a few other people with ASD, and they would often times be too open for the situation. Let's just call these other reserved behaviors a common human trait, shall we?

I need to thank you for this, it made me go back and reread some of my earlier posts. So, thanks!

OliveOilMom, after rereading my reply to you, it looks highly condescending. I'm so sorry, that was not my intent...I only meant to clarify what I was talking about.