Well, there was one guy I saw. Every time I saw him he'd just ask me about my day, or let me go on and on about something I was interested in. He didn't actually help me with anything. I don't remember how it came about but eventually he told me that he did that because he didn't think I had anyone else to talk to.
When I was really little there was the woman down the street my mom encouraged me to see. She was one of the parents of my sister's friend. I told her about the purple-skinned antennae'd alien guy from my imaginary world that I'd go on adventures as before bed. She suggested I draw him on her easel. I told her I can't draw and asked her to do it. She fought with me but then relented. Once she was finished I was unsatisfied with her portrayal and told her she drew him wrong. I didn't fight her too much though. Then she asked me how the picture she drew was feeling. I got annoyed and just shut down.
Then there was the one I went to see when I was first getting more into meditation. She asked me what technique I used and I told her that mostly I focused on my breath or the sensations in my body. So she basically told me that it wasn't a good technique because it doesn't do anything to slow and deepen the breath (which it does do) and that I should use another technique of seeing the colors change at the cusp of each breath because it'd been shown to be effective in studies. She had no experience with meditation herself.
I had a psychiatrist who wouldn't talk to me, put me on heavy medication, and checked for tardive diskenesia every time I saw him. At that time I was seeing a therapist who most weeks would let me fall asleep in his office and just observe me.
There was a good therapist I saw who really seemed to understand me. He realized that whatever book I was carrying was a form of symbolic communication. Sometimes in his office because of what we were talking about I'd start laughing and crying and I didn't understand why, but he'd just encourage it. He used to play chess with me and was one of the few adults who spoke to me at my level.
There was another good one who was really new agey and while I'm not, it meant she understood my own interest in spirituality and religion a bit better, and I could talk to her about meditation because she'd been a regular meditator in the past.
There was another I liked who may have done some damage to me. Usually I'd make snowflake cutouts at her office but she also encouraged me to come up with my own theory of the psyche and draw it. That led to the feelings box, a box inside me with all of the good feelings on the outside and the bad feelings on the inside. And the good feelings would guard to make sure the bad feelings didn't get out.
If we're speaking more generally, I also went to two therapeutic residential schools. The first was very militaristic, very structured but with cleaning instead of exercise. I really liked it there because of the structure, but none of the residents liked me because I always followed the rules. I was observing the Jewish dietary laws at that time which complicated things further. Most of the adults seemed to like me, except the ones who were suspicious that I was putting up a front. There was one guy who apologized when he poured maple syrup all over the fridge I was cleaning during a GI. With other kids it seemed like he took pleasure doing it.
The other one was a little less structured but had more individual responsibility. At the first place there was a type of group mentality. If one person slipped up the whole house could be held accountable. But at the second it was on each individual resident. It was smaller too, and it was easy to form connections because we lived pretty much like siblings. That was a benefit at the other place, enhanced by the group accountability, but it was also much larger, up to 20 residents or so at a time. At the second place I was also unliked a bit. I didn't fit into any of the cliques that formed during my 2 years there and I always seemed to be out of the loop. In general though they were both positive experiences.
Maybe my best overall experience with therapy has been co-counseling. When I spent three months living at a new agey jewish retreat center we did some co-counseling and some reflective and active listening too. I took a one week course on reflective listening as spiritual practice. It was nice to have my turn in the circle to just talk about whatever I wanted to for a set time, or otherwise to meet in much smaller groups or one-on-one. There are some people I couldn't relate to as well there though, or really they couldn't relate to me because they were so emotional. One guy got annoyed that I was partnered up with him for a co-counseling session. He was getting really emotional and I guess I wasn't simpathetic enough. So instead of continuing to talk he gave me a cushion and just punched it and just kinda gave a subdued hysterical laugh mixed with sobs. Most people seemed to think of me as an eccentric free spirit though, and they'd make space for me to tell a story or something. I love public speaking, long as I'm not part of the crowd I enjoy it a lot. Ideally, some day I'd like to be living in an intentional community or eco-village. I like that it feels like a big extended family. It's easier that way and feels more natural. And I like being away from all the noise pollution in the city, and being in nature. But the first month or so of my time there I barely talked at all. People thought I was a very intense contemplative, or at least one visiting rabbi told me he thought so.
There was a psychiatrist I used to see who said I'm definitely bipolar, and it's possible that I am, but most everyone else has said that I'm not. I originally got the diagnosis because my mom wrote letters to a psychiatrist I saw and called him and really pushed him to give it to me. He told me in therapy that he didn't want to. When I've gone over the criteria barely any of it fits me. My normal mood is probably somewhat comparable to hypomania (I get asked if I'm on drugs on occasion.) I never seem to get depressed. There doesn't seem to be any cyclical pattern to my moods except as connected to seasonal affective disorder. The psychiatrist who said bipolar disorder definitely fits me tried me a lot of different combinations of meds (I was first put on meds at the age of 8 and continued until about 5 months ago) and it never did anything. The side effects were really bad and when my explosive episodes didn't stop he'd just up the mood stabilizers and the antipsychotics. Because they were so infrequent and didn't follow a typical patterns of ups and downs I suggested to him and to my mom that it didn't really show anything if I did okay for the next few months or even longer. But he ignored that. One time I had an episode at my therapist's office and my psychiatrist (not affiliated with the therapist) dropped me because he said I was entering a very manic part of my cycle, but I was for a long period after that.
The best thing for me, it turned out, has been getting off my meds, owning my struggles and cutting out gluten, dairy, soy and most refined sugar. Lately I've been more stable, able to think more clearly, I've had more energy, improved ability to focus and I'm even considering looking for a job again.
I think it's probably more likely I have NLD than Asperger's. It's my cousin's diagnosis and as a child he behaved pretty much like I did at that age. There are some things typically found with NLD that I don't exhibit and some aspie traits I seem to have, but all in all I may be closer to NLD. New neuropsych testing can hopefully clear that up.
Anyway, that's a small non-linear taste of my wacky journeys through the wide world of therapy.
10 Aug 2007, 12:47 am
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She does a lot of couples counseling in which the man has AS, but she's had very few female AS patients. She's knowledgeable about AS, but her specialty is actually anxiety disorders and eating disorders. So as I have neither, I can tell she has to do some extra work to prevent herself from lapsing into relating to me the way she does her other female patients. She's even admitted it. I'd previously considered switching to an ASD specialist, but I decided against it for that very reason! Dealing with her is much better training for me than switching to an ASD specialist, because they would be better at understanding me! Staying with her is forcing me to work very hard on my communication skills and self-expression, and I can tell that this is actually helping me a great deal in relating to NTs in general. Of course I wouldn't recommend this for someone who had more serious AS-related difficulties, but for me this seems to be working out pretty well. 
