How are you feeling?

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by Elphenor

you can bring a, forgive me, PUNK energy to anything you do

[Elphenor]

raise ya

[teh b0lly!!1]

been having suicidal ideations at an increasing frequency lately

yay

[Cool As Ice Cream]

feeling feeling schmeeling!

[ilikeplanets]

I'm so damn tired but very productive to show for it. Worth it?

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

been having suicidal ideations at an increasing frequency lately

yay

hope you feel better

[slunken]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

been having suicidal ideations at an increasing frequency lately

yay

hell yea

[Ram27]

ya boi has finally been prescribed a controlled substance

i am now a concerta user. 27mg every morning. took it for the first time today, i feel actually fucking calm. this may or may not be a placebo but i feel so....steadfastedly driven. i'm just sitting and computing, like god intended

[Shallowed]

in the last couple of weeks I've been feeling a tiny little bit better than the baseline of abject depression I've been in for over a year

I've just started seeing a new therapist, who I've found to be good for me so far. In our last session I talked about my mild improvement in mood, and how I've been savouring the feeling while I'm experiencing it. It's unusual for me to properly appreciate taking small steps. Being able to appreciate a small step is a small step in itself. Which I also appreciate, in itself.

I related this to how I've always felt overwhelmed by large tasks, and instead of approaching them by breaking them down into smaller manageable tasks, I'd focus on the end point and the magnitude of how much had to be done to get there. So now the wisdom of focussing on small steps to achieve one's goals is a little clearer to me.

[reprise85]

my therapist had an epiphany and thinks i have aspberger's/high functioning autism. apparently there's some atypical female presentation and she really thinks it fits me very well.

kinda freaked me out. she appears to think she's done me a great disservice by not realizing this sooner.

not sure i believe it tbh but i can see it sort of too. she's trying to find someone to assess me.

it would change how we work on things i think and also what should be considered dysfunctional behavior and what is just a neurotypical difference, for example she keeps trying to get me to just go outside to be outside and she has thought it's avoidance/anxiety but if it's just a thing where i dislike non-goal directed behavior plus have a problem initiating things maybe there's no problem with it or there's some other way to approach it instead. as one example.

i have told her it feels like a get out of jail free card and i'm not really sure that is not what it is (for her and me tbh). but i am willing to get assessed

i don't have a lot of the core behaviors of what i considered indicative of the condition (no problems with feeling empathy or theory of mind for example) but apparently the field is moving away from that altogether. i do have a problem expressing empathy (in person) to people though, despite feeling it

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally Posted by reprise85

i do have a problem expressing empathy (in person) to people though, despite feeling it

i think half of the world population does.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Cool As Ice Cream

i think half of the world population does.

yeah, for sure lots of people have issues with it for different reasons

[run2pee]

Originally Posted by reprise85

my therapist had an epiphany and thinks i have aspberger's/high functioning autism. apparently there's some atypical female presentation and she really thinks it fits me very well.

kinda freaked me out. she appears to think she's done me a great disservice by not realizing this sooner.

not sure i believe it tbh but i can see it sort of too. she's trying to find someone to assess me.

it would change how we work on things i think and also what should be considered dysfunctional behavior and what is just a neurotypical difference, for example she keeps trying to get me to just go outside to be outside and she has thought it's avoidance/anxiety but if it's just a thing where i dislike non-goal directed behavior plus have a problem initiating things maybe there's no problem with it or there's some other way to approach it instead. as one example.

i have told her it feels like a get out of jail free card and i'm not really sure that is not what it is (for her and me tbh). but i am willing to get assessed

i don't have a lot of the core behaviors of what i considered indicative of the condition (no problems with feeling empathy or theory of mind for example) but apparently the field is moving away from that altogether. i do have a problem expressing empathy (in person) to people though, despite feeling it

Do therapists typically get that involved in dx? That’s kinda surprising to me but i guess they are well positioned to at least get u evaluated yeah

[run2pee]

There’s so much i don’t know about how to do therapy or how it should go. Done maybe like 7 sessions. So far it’s like 1/3 wow that was some helpful new perspective or insight. The other 2/3 is like me inside going “yeah yeah yeah actually i have a selfhelp library full of the rote BS lifetips you’re slinging (‘make a list to help with stress!’ ‘try to avoid situations that set u up to fail!’ ‘sometimes just taking a warm bath can be all u need!’) like fuck off with that weak shit i wanna go deeper

[run2pee]

Hi Zorgon

How r u feeling

[run2pee]

Guys did u know Zorgon was here

[Cool As Ice Cream]

Originally Posted by Run To Me

Guys did u know Zorgon was here

I did NOT!

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Run To Me

There’s so much i don’t know about how to do therapy or how it should go. Done maybe like 7 sessions. So far it’s like 1/3 wow that was some helpful new perspective or insight. The other 2/3 is like me inside going “yeah yeah yeah actually i have a selfhelp library full of the rote BS lifetips you’re slinging (‘make a list to help with stress!’ ‘try to avoid situations that set u up to fail!’ ‘sometimes just taking a warm bath can be all u need!’) like fuck off with that weak shit i wanna go deeper

in my experience, the rote self-help shit might just be because they don't know you well enough to realize you know that stuff. but I do hope you're seeing a trauma specialist, because also IME non-specialists don't deal with trauma well, and in some cases think avoiding thinking about it is better and that thinking/talking about it means there's a problem that needs fixing so you can stop talking about it rather than your whole life is based around the shit that happened to you and yes, you need to talk about it extensively. there is a fine line between obsessing and therapeutically talking but it doesn't sound like you're skirting it from what I can tell

i don't think I often feel like wow, my therapist made some great insight. it feels like we come to them at the same time, which maybe is just a testament to her being good at making me feel that way, lol. but she certainly doesn't give me a lot of advice (at least not directly), which it sounds like your therapist might be doing?

maybe even showing them this post could help? I tended to put a lot on the table in the beginning to give them an idea of what terrible things I had to discuss just to preview if they seemed prepared for it. not really testing them, but some people can just not handle some shit

sorry idk how helpful this is

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Run To Me

Do therapists typically get that involved in dx? That’s kinda surprising to me but i guess they are well positioned to at least get u evaluated yeah

yeah definitely not, but I think she's in the best position to have actually realized that I might have it and yeah she's definitely not saying she should diagnose it herself

[run2pee]

Originally Posted by reprise85

in my experience, the rote self-help shit might just be because they don't know you well enough to realize you know that stuff. but I do hope you're seeing a trauma specialist, because also IME non-specialists don't deal with trauma well, and in some cases think avoiding thinking about it is better and that thinking/talking about it means there's a problem that needs fixing so you can stop talking about it rather than your whole life is based around the shit that happened to you and yes, you need to talk about it extensively. there is a fine line between obsessing and therapeutically talking but it doesn't sound like you're skirting it from what I can tell

i don't think I often feel like wow, my therapist made some great insight. it feels like we come to them at the same time, which maybe is just a testament to her being good at making me feel that way, lol. but she certainly doesn't give me a lot of advice (at least not directly), which it sounds like your therapist might be doing?

maybe even showing them this post could help? I tended to put a lot on the table in the beginning to give them an idea of what terrible things I had to discuss just to preview if they seemed prepared for it. not really testing them, but some people can just not handle some shit

sorry idk how helpful this is

Thanks

Very helpful

As a person who only learned to even talk about feelings maybe 5 years ago, and who knows absolutely nothing about therapeutic healing or how it’s supposed to feel or how to tell if the therapist is right for u or if it’s “working” or even if it’s supposed to “work”

Y’know? i just dunno

[run2pee]

Wish there were some
Customer reviews i could read, yknow

To tell if this standing fan is right for my bedroom, what to look for in a standing fan, does
It whine, does it croak, is it push air, does we likes it

For e.g.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Run To Me

Thanks

Very helpful

As a person who only learned to even talk about feelings maybe 5 years ago, and who knows absolutely nothing about therapeutic healing or how it’s supposed to feel or how to tell if the therapist is right for u or if it’s “working” or even if it’s supposed to “work”

Y’know? i just dunno

I still have problems with feelings, and talking about them in particular I don't even have language for a lot of the time. I don't know if I'm the best person to give you "signs" that it's working because I required years and years to trust my therapist but early signs that we were compatible were things like obviously similar political views, feeling like in some other situation we could be friends because our values are similar enough (though she's much more into saving the earth and things like that), repeated instances that showed me she knew what she was doing (this is hard to qualify), and how she handled conflict within therapy.

Another sign that I think was important was that after a few months she gave me her cell phone number (I had just had the office number). It was nice to feel trusted and also like she was cautious enough to not give her number to every person right away in case they weren't safe enough to have it.

I really do feel like there's pretty much nothing I could tell her that she couldn't deal with. Not to say she's perfect, we have had some conflict, but that's normal.

I had an odd situation when I first started seeing her. I was living with my grandmother who had recently died, and I had a bunch of sensitive paperwork I had written for therapy that I couldn't leave there since my dad was around and selling the place, but I didn't really have anywhere to put it. I asked if she would hold it for me but not read it and she agreed and I was a little worried but she literally had that shit for years until I was ready to look at it with her and I have no doubt that she didn't look at it.

It's possible you found your perfect therapist on the first try, but it's very possible you didn't, but that doesn't mean sticking with it until you know for sure would be wasting time. There's something to be said for just getting oriented to therapy if you know you're in it for the long term.

[Ram27]

I've always been confused on how the relationship with a therapist is supposed to work - am I supposed to be warm and sort of be pseudo-friends with them? Should I have rigid boundaries? Like usually I just get into this very 'i am going to the doctor' mode and get guarded in terms of my...emotional range, even, which hurts the sessions I'm sure.

Sometimes they'll say to me like 'you can contact me if there's an emergency' but then like...what is an emergency, therapy wise?

~

I've been doing online text therapy and it's really helpful in terms of getting my thoughts out in a very easy, coherent, thorough way, and getting direct, written feedback. But then it's missing the part where i have to use my face and head and vocal chords which is the part i always fuck up at

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Ram27

I've always been confused on how the relationship with a therapist is supposed to work - am I supposed to be warm and sort of be pseudo-friends with them? Should I have rigid boundaries? Like usually I just get into this very 'i am going to the doctor' mode and get guarded in terms of my...emotional range, even, which hurts the sessions I'm sure.

Sometimes they'll say to me like 'you can contact me if there's an emergency' but then like...what is an emergency, therapy wise?

~

I've been doing online text therapy and it's really helpful in terms of getting my thoughts out in a very easy, coherent, thorough way, and getting direct, written feedback. But then it's missing the part where i have to use my face and head and vocal chords which is the part i always fuck up at

Emergency for me means I'm about to use drugs or hurt myself or have had something VERY stressful happen. Like for example when the police came to my door because someone reported something someone else did to me to them to question me about it, I freaked out hardcore. I actually called a therapist I hadn't seen in a very long time from a hospital I was once in because my actual therapist at the time sucked. I've probably called my therapist in an emergency about 5 times in 10 years. But some people do it way more often and that's okay as long as everyone is ok with it. I've also had a few times when my therapist specifically wanted me to call her, like after I came out of surgery. Sometimes she asks me to text her if I'm at risk for anything (like I recently used drugs) just to keep me accountable. Like when I had painkillers last time (for legit purposes) I had to ("had" to) text her every day, and I feel like I can't lie to her so it kept me straight.

I do think having a pseudo-friendship is good, but it can't become you paying someone to be your friend. But that's just my opinion. It is one-sided (with some therapists more than others) but being with someone who you could be friends with in other circumstances (notwithstanding generational differences) is IMO a good idea. Like, I couldn't have a politically conservative therapist. And I couldn't have a "blank wall" type therapist where I couldn't work out their general values. There are still some like that around.

I feel you with the using face/vocal cords thing, too. It can be helpful to write and in a similar way have teletherapy but nothing beats face-to-face. Teletherapy has been a godsend when face-to-face wasn't possible but it definitely has drawbacks. I can't imagine doing real work just over text, but I've been able to over video.

[reprise85]

I took the https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3134766/ today with my therapist. There is a very wide range between the mean scores between people with and without ASD, and my score is lower than the mean for ASD but way higher than people who don't have ASD (my score was 116 - mean for ASD is around 135 and for non-ASD is 25-30). However, the standard deviation is huge (around 40 points) so I am well within that for ASD.

In their study, everyone who scored above 65 had some ASD diagnosis, and there were no false positives with that cutoff. So, according to this test, it seems very likely I could be diagnosed. Still looking into that, though.