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.
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?
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.