30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Day 16

Talk about treatment.  Have you been through any therapies?  What ones did you like?  Which ones didn’t you like?  Do you think autistic people need therapy for their autism?

As I was only diagnosed in 2014, I have not had and therapy specifically for my autism. I have been in therapy/treatment since the age of four when I got my ADHD diagnosis.  Since then a string of other disorders has been diagnosed, some of which I’m still being treated for.  I’ll talk more about my other diagnoses on the 21st.

I’m currently in counselling, which I like.  It’s nice to be able to talk to someone about my problems.  My therapist is good though I’m still not really used to her.  My previous therapist left about a year ago, I was with her for 10 years.  It was upsetting and I’ve still not really adjusted to this new person.  She’s good though, helping me work through some issues I have with my anxiety/depression and transness.  I also see a psychiatrist, who prescribes meds for dealing with my depression and anxiety.

When I was younger I had both play and art therapy, which I think were okay.  I’m not sure how much they helped but I didn’t have any negative experiences with it and it didn’t really feel like therapy, so I guess that’s good.  When I was in my early teens I went through a several sessions of group therapy for social skills training.  I don’t really remember much about it and I doubt it increased my social skills but it wasn’t bad or anything.  Right before I received my autism diagnosis I also attended I think like 2 sessions with a psychologist which I quickly realized was not for me.  All kinds of weird questions about how I was feeling and what made me sad.  It was pretty much the classic ‘and how does that make you feel’ situation.  I just found the whole thing kind of bizarre and didn’t go back.  

Overall I don’t really think autistic people need therapy for being autistic, we may however benefit from therapy for certain symptoms of our autism e.g. speech or occupational therapy.  Any therapy we get should be with the goal of helping us learn coping skills and how to succeed; therapy should not be forced assimilation to the neurotypical world such as with ABA.