So here I am, pretty confident in what I am but diagnosis is upcoming but not yet done.

Still, for different reasons I am in therapy. It happens to revolve around generic stuff which might be useful for people who don't know themselves very well or have suppressed emotions or other stuff. All of which is definetly not me.

Mostly I know what he's getting at but I feel I am far ahead in my thoughts and out of his league.

I also know what some of the answers are going to be (both sides basically) but would like to ask for your experience with neurotypical therapists.

In short: I don't think they have any idea of our scope and can not apply their knowledge appropriately.

Edit: thanks for the answers (so far and maybe following)! The situation I stated left quite a bit out on details, especially the credit that I got on the right path due to the help of the therapy. Apologies for that. However, my focus was on the current state and that's where I was thinking of asking about your experiences.

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[–] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm a different flavor of neurospicy, but I had an extremely positive experience with a therapist who specialized in it. I think it's important for a therapist to have an understanding of your mindset, and knowledge of common maladaptive patterns that can be related to the unique ways neurodivergent people operate. I don't think good therapists are that rare, but finding one that's a good fit for you can take a few tries.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Let me give a counter argument: everything that annoys you about therapy can be part of therapy. Everything that happens in therapy can and should be part of it. So why not being up the topic of this post with your therapist? How does that make you feel?

    Therapy is not really about the therapist. They're just there to give you a surface to reflect off of.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    AuDHD who did ~3y in therapy. They specialized in ASD as well.

    Experience was great - she was a good fit. Imo therapy is 90% having someone give you another perspective on things (if your environment is fked up, they can tell you what's normal and what you can do or if you might be overlooking things they can point them out).

    Idk your situation but generally I think ppl are in therapy either for the diagnosis, or because you wanna learn and change. So if you only want the diagnosis, limit it to that. If you wanna have therapy for the rest, first make sure you are ready to take someone else's input and learn from that, but then if it doesn't work, look for other therapists. Some therapists suck, or sometimes you can get stuck with therapists who don't get you.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Only bad.

    One would just sit and stare at me for half an hour as I completely carried the conversation.
    Another tried to upsell me acupuncture at "her friend".

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    My opinion of therapists is generally low. The profession seems to attract a lot of people who "like talking with people and helping people" (and want to make a professional wage), but just don't have the temperament, intuition, and/or frankly, the intelligence to do the job well. I'm sure there's good ones out there, but the demand for good therapy I'm sure is high.

    I do think dealing with autistic clients only goes well if they are autistic or have a lot of experience in dealing specifically with them. It's not an easy mindset to work with if you only have a textbook definition in front of you.

    But if you say you have yourself figured out, it should be asked what sort of satisfaction or illumination you are looking for? And is it realistic to expect this stranger, however professional they may be, to be able to give that to you?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago

    Fair questions! The chronology was that when I started I didn't have everything figured out. But through therapy and his help I got there.

    So credit where credit is due - it was the whole progress I made over decades of breakdowns and with his help it hit me.

    Still, he is stuck with the classic how does it make you feel stuff which literally never was an issue. But the diagnosis will still take some time even though I am lucky it will be in the foreseeable months. And until then he has the (understandable) opinion that we proceed as if this wasn't the cause of fatigue and breakdowns.

    So I never expected him to help with autism to begin with. It just turned out that the missing piece was autism.

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