This thread is actually of really high interest to me and I'd love to pick your brains.
I was diagnosed with aspergers when I was in 2nd grade. I'm pretty high functioning due to early diagnosis and intervention. I've overcome a lot of the social issues associated with aspergers/high functioning autism, but it's more of a superficial thing. I'm well spoken, well mannered, and I give off the impression of being pretty normal. I can have quite a lot to say, if I want to talk about something or find a conversation interesting. I don't have any social anxieties from the autism anymore.
I still think very differently, though, and I do have some trouble reading people, among other issues. I still have involuntary stims that I do, but I only wind up doing them in private, because in public I keep my hands busy enough for it to not happen. There are plenty of other things about me that are pretty autistic, I just hide it well enough to seem normal to most people.
I can sympathize with you
@henamedmeowl : due to my aspergers I missed a lot of red flags in regards to becoming involved with my abuser and rapist. It has definitely influenced many aspects of the trip to where I'm at now.
It's interesting to read about the difficulty in therapy from more than one of you. My trauma ended only about a month and a half ago, so my PTSD diagnosis is fairly new. I've actually been having difficulty with therapy, too. I think my ability/well-ingrained-habit of hiding my autism symptoms has perhaps made it more difficult for my therapist to gauge me, and I think my autism also makes it harder for me to properly communicate with her. I have a lot of difficulty in expressing complex emotions, and I often don't show everything I'm feeling, both in speech and in body language.
I think she thinks I'm a lot further in progress than I am, but in reality I just hadn't focused much on my trauma yet - I was too busy feeling free as f*ck after having freed myself from that nightmare of a situation - I was focusing on how glad I was that I exited the psychosis that enabled me to get myself out of that situation, which is pretty freeing on its own, getting to know your brain is working in a much more normal manner again - I was focusing on things that weren't my trauma. But after last therapy session, that changed.
She tried starting me on EMDR last session by gathering information - she asked me to go into detail about what I considered to be the most difficult aspect of my trauma, set up imagery that has to do with it, etc. It didn't go well - I felt very triggered in the therapy session, and the imagery that came into my head was just outright repulsive, disgusting, and really violating feeling. It's all stuck with me too. I keep thinking about it, I keep getting triggered super easily. The "trigger intensity" of the most difficult aspect of my trauma has increased by a good margin, and it was already bad enough for me to avoid a whole lot of things before this session.
After that session, I had my first car ride home from the therapist feeling worse than when I went in, that whole car ride home was surreal. Since that session I've been having a hard time, my progress has regressed, and each day since that session has left me feeling more intense, having more dissociation, so on and so forth. Today my mother was suggesting I cut up an apple differently (already triggering enough because it involves holding a knife, which I'm trying not to be avoidant about), and she kept pressing her method for cutting apples, and I just snapped and yelled "quit trying to micromanage me!" (my abuser micromanaged the shit out of everything I did) Prior to that therapy session I had my emotions fairly under control and would generally avoid doing stuff like that and snapping, but now I've reverted back to having that happen much more easily.
It's nice to see this thread and read about other people on the spectrum having difficulty with therapy.
