As a future therapist, I’m glad to have watched this.

@benphillips4081

Ай бұрын

I don't know if you are nerotypical, or autistic. However, if you are nerotypical there are some things you should know. The system, structures, and rules set up by nerotypical people are the direct cause of every mental health crisis on the planet. You don't create stable systems or structures, you don't follow your own rules in regards to your broken systems and structures. So every shred of anxiety and grief experienced by autistic people, is a direct result of nerotypical people's inability to create stable systems and stick to the rules. We follow rules presented to us. Nerotypical people have a infinite number of invalid reasons to break those rules. This is not okay with us, your inability to follow your own rules is a mental handicap. This inability to follow rules because you are incapable of controlling your own emotions is the cause of not only our, but your own mental health issues. So if your going to be a therapist, you need to get your own mind in order, otherwise your just going to cause more damage, with your ignorance.

Exposure therapy doesn't work. How exposure therapy works with an autistic person. It's the overwhelm. So it looks like I'm fine but I'm so overwhelmed then after I have nothing left for the rest of the day. That then causes anxiety. Then this is like jumping on an anxiety hamster wheel. That's what exposure therapy does. I'd rather accommodate myself. Go earlier or later when it's less busy. Use thing to limit sensory input like ear plugs. Build up supply of spoon, that can be done playing video game for few hours prior.

@Catlily5

Ай бұрын

Yes, I thought exposure therapy was for phobias not sensory overload!

Omg, I spent close to a decade, over and over again trying to expose myself out of - what I back then still thought of as - 'my anxiety around people'. And it always went like you'd expect with mounting overstimulation and autistic fatigue. So I thought I was just defective and my therapists all hought I was just doing it wrong. Nope, it was just the 'tism. For reference: I overcame my really very pronounced but also actual fear of spiders all on my own - using exposure therapy. And every single new exposure was a little easier than the last, so that now I love to pick up big hairy spiders and have them dart up my arms and stuff. Exposure might work for fears, but it does not work for autism. What helps with autism is better self-care and coping strategies and a sensory diet and staying the fuck away from stuff that's just too much.

@MagentaFerret-wd5vt

Ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing. I especially love the last paragraph!

@Sncex

4 күн бұрын

@@MagentaFerret-wd5vt same here.

I relate so much to this! I had to take busses and trains daily as a child and teenager and I still hate it. It is loud, often smelly and hot, there are too many people and I hate being perceived. Especially busses were such a challenge for me. I also hated going with other people because talking to them meant being perceived even more. Being stuck there and having no other choice didn't help either. As a teenager I developed chronic derealization on my way to school. It would happen every morning and one day it just didn't go away. Still have it. I struggle with having no choice. I can't work a full time job right now because the thought of having to show up every day is awful. I need to have options and choice. Otherwise I burn out very quickly.

hey Dana, DONT sell yourself short, YOU do know a lot, ESPECIALLY about yourself, and how you experience the world, it's called "lived experience", or PWLED {people with lived experience of disability}; one thing that IS known ONLY by us [asd] is the perspective of the neurodivergent brain, and how it sees the world, and that is what is our Legacies, to voice this sight, and allow people to accept it, and value it's contribution to society, and the solutions to problems such a skill can produce.

@robynmcsharry9611

Ай бұрын

That's so true.

@steveneardley7541

Ай бұрын

Smart, wise, honest

@Catlily5

Ай бұрын

I agree.

recently had a talk with a then colleague during a massive burnout phase and he was talking about how much I've been through universities etc etc and how we learn from those hard & trying experiences so we become better at the stuff life throws at us later etc. some 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' kind of wisdom essentially. this is not my life experience. i didn't even get what he was trying to tell me first. i've barely gained any confidence or sense of accomplishment from anything i've managed in life, even when stuff came together successfully somehow. and it keeps taking a lot out of me. i don't feel stronger afterwards even when i succeed. it's more like a 'what doesn't kill me will break me in the end' typa deal it feels like. ps: i Am able to feel accomplished or confident, but that's related to stuff i actually value and am aligned with, that is, unrelated to masking

@marleysoluna

Ай бұрын

❤ relate to this so much!

So, here's the thing about exposure therapy... It _does_ "work", much in the same way that yoga "works" or positive thinking "works," which is to say that they only "work" when you're the right kind of person who meets all the prerequisites. For exposure therapy you need to a) actually understand what you're exposing yourself to and how to handle it and b) already be in an otherwise comfortable environment, in an otherwise chill headspace, with the understanding that you can abort at any time. You didn't have any of that by the sounds of things, so it's really no surprise that you had such a bad time with it. Also, your therapist was definitely just straight up doing it wrong. You're supposed to expose yourself progressively and when you have the energy to cope, not throw yourself directly into the thing you can't handle every day. That's a recipe for panic attacks even with allistic folks. Basically, it kinda sounds like they didn't take you seriously, or that they didn't take learning about exposure therapy seriously. Oh, and please don't take this as advice to try again or anything of the sort. Just because it technically "works" doesn't mean it's a good idea for you.

@LilChuunosuke

Ай бұрын

Completely agree. I've been subjected to "exposure therapy" all my life and it has only ever worked when I have the freedom to flee if overwhelmed, if I have enough mental preparation time, and if I am able to look up or ask a friend "stupid" questions that help me develop a greater sense of understanding. As a kid, exposure therapy only made me more anxious and validated my fears. I dont think it would've even worked if it was done correctly because my sensory sensitivities were so high that the exposure to light and sound was sometimes all it took to trigger an anxiety attack. She may simply be too disabled for exposure therapy to work, but the way she was encouraged to do it is counterproductive. Exposure therapy often takes me months or even years for things that NTs can do in days or weeks because it takes us autistics so much more time and energy to get into that headspace. I remember when I was trying to overcome my agoraphobia, there were days I would wake up & decide that I wanted to challenge myself to visit the corner store, but by the time I was mentally prepared to confront the situation, the store had closed. If I had forced myself to go the moment I woke up instead, I wouldve simply had an anxiety attack that would further validate my fear of the public.

practice often sounds like some sort of self-inflicted ABA. That said - I think the more you do something, chances are you will gain experience of on all the contingencies. My problem is wondering what to do if something does not go per the plan I made in my head.

I completely switched from CBT to Systemic Therapy cuz it never worked or made it worse...Those who are privileged to get into therapy and struggle with the classic school might wanna try it out. Good luck homies

Dana, sometimes doing new things for asd's isn't itself about the 'doing', but about how to execute the whole thing, the lead up, mindset, capacity to endure this task, and having a planned reward for its completion, or attempt at it, to cool down, and reset.

If I'm going by my own experience the older I get the harder life gets, even if I have grasp of basic life stuff. I just hope it isn't a maxim for autistic people. I just hope society in the future will be a better place for autistic people.

@Fullspectrumly

Ай бұрын

Hey, i feel similarly, it's like the weight is increasing a teaspoon at a time

@releasethehounds9945

27 күн бұрын

Pretty much feel the same the more exposed i become to a world that never truly had us in mind the more my body just relapses as time goes by & essentially have to “keep up” with constantly showing up with “acceptable positive & productive energy”

the only time ive found exposure therapy work is when I get better at masking in certain situations

First day of college I had I took the bus, never took it again for the two years I was in college xD walked 40 mins there and back every day just to avoid that. I am a little better with it all now but anxiety is still there, so if I can avoid I do.

Very few people realise that treating psychological conditions is much harder than treating physical ones. Psychological problems are often years or a lifetime in the making yet people think they can be undone in a few weeks. That doesn't mean that therapy is pointless but that it needs to have much more realistic and modest aims - an acceptance that it will work slowly, or sometimes not at all and if the progress is slow or even non-existent that isn't the fault of the person receiving treatment. When these conditions occur with autism it's even harder to change things because autism is often the root cause and that can't be removed; techniques can still have some success with autistic people but more slowly and modestly.

Yes! I think the key with exposure therapy is that it needs to be an irrational or misappropriated fear, one that will be found to be unnecessary through increased experience. If however, the fear is linked to a neurological overwhelm, that is real, and will continue to manifest with every additional experience, the fear will only be reinforced. Accommodations (ways to reduce to the neurological overwhelm), rest/recovery time (feelings can dissipate and be processed/released), and supports (reduce one load to increase capacity elsewhere), seem like the only logical helpful things.

I relate so much. I can do public transit now without too much discomfort or anxiety (at least, where I live) because I know how it works and I was able to figure it out when I wasn't under any pressure. I can potentially do it elsewhere as well, if I take the time to figure it out in advance. Practice can help, but it has to be productive practice. Making the same "mistake" over and over again won't create mastery. What your therapist had you do was *not* proper exposure therapy. That was a recipe for retraumatization. What would have been better would be having someone assist you through the process, so that you could actually succeed. And repeated *success* can help. But if you're just getting overwhelmed every time, it's only going to make things worse.

8:30 or so in. Sometimes I can handle loud music at work and sometimes I can’t.

7:22 feeling called out 😂😅 I needed that, though, thank you❤️

i hate when people tell me this with my whole heart my dad always yells at me to just do it again im 15 and ive droped out of school 3 times and im not in right now but i can not go to puplic school it is so hard for me i have to take a bus a subway and walk down town and by the time im there i dont have anymore engry im failing every class beacase my needs are not being met.

I can relate to all this. For me exposure therapy or my failure at it was what led my therapist to suggesting I might have autism. It was awful trying the stuff that was giving me anxiety. I tried very hard at it too thinking it would finally "cure" me. It definitely didn't.

Thank you for sharing. Hearing your real lived experience and your opinions is much more meaningful than listening to statistics or being read a list of clickbaity items.

thank you for your videos, they seriously help me cope with the hell world we live in

thank you so much for your channel. you feel like a mirror to me and my life. you make me feel less alone. keep doing what you're doing! your voice is needed so badly.

Your story about getting the train to college reminds me of my time of my time at college. I had a half day on Mondays (I had the mornings to myself); and after lunch when it was time to get ready to go, some days I couldn't move, I just sat there. Looking back I think it was because I really hated that day's lesson, so didn't put any effort in & couldn't deal with the lecturer asking me why I hadn't done any work.

If you need any more evidence of how callous and irrational neurotypicals can be, just look at the extent to which the phrase "pull oneself up by their bootstraps" has been incorporated unironically as advice for anyone in a difficult situation. They've completely missed the point that it was meant to satirically refer to something that's physically impossible.

I dislike the mindset of "you can do it, just try, oh you did it that one time, oh you did it for this long so you can do it for longer" so much! Some parts of autism are genuinely like a disability. You can't tell a person who needs a wheelchair to just try to walk harder or if they can walk a little to "exposure" them into walking further. Some things we just can't do. Or we can do them but they will always be difficult and/or painful. And it feels awful to be congratulated for doing something because you know it comes as a packet with expectations of you always being able to do that something, because now you've "learned", when you know you won't always be able. I see it all the time on my dad's face and way he's talking to me. "See? I knew you could do it, I don't know why you're always putting yourself down". I'm not putting myself down, I'm genuinely having a hard time and I'm constantly pushing myself beyond the limit to do the simplest stuff and nobody even knows! Nobody believes it.

Thank you for this video. I can relate.

I got so upset I didn't leave my apartment without someone coming to get me for like a year or two. I still have trouble leaving by myself sometimes. I am not agoraphobic. It just seems overwhelming.

Strangely enough, feeling that I have to do something overwhelming can make it harder for me to do it. Often, when I allow myself to feel okay about not being able to leave the house, for instance, I find I’m able to do it in the end. I can see how exposure therapy could be highly damaging. NHS CBT is regularly meant to just treat anxiety. One of the problems with it is although it can be very helpful and I found it very useful in the past, a lot of experiences that affect anxiety like unemployment are often ignored or dismissed. To be told that you are catastrophising when you say you worry that you’ll never have regular full-time employment can come across as invalidating and also make you feel that if you had tried harder you could’ve just got a permanent job, so it’s your fault. I really think it’s vital to see a therapist who really understands neurodivergence if that’s at all possible. I’m using the DBT app and working through the activities in my in my own time. It’s been quite helpful so far. I hope that somebody listens to you because you’re right that there’s more than one way to get the same result and be successful without needing to get on trains every day or at all.

turns out that ensuring that i am as relaxed as possible is actually the way for me to get things done. who wouldve thought LOL

Regarding "practice makes perfect," at least in relation to physical skills, is at best about 50% true. If you are going to practise something, e.g. running, then you need to practise doing it the right way (or perhaps one of a number of right ways). I was no good at running as a child, and I am no good as an adult. I put in a _massive_ amount of effort and basically go hardly any faster than I would at a smart walking pace. My practice has resulted in my getting it perfectly wrong, not perfectly right. When it comes to social skills, like getting on a train, or going to a social gathering, etc, that's a whole different kettle of fish. As a non-psychologist, just a person with lived experience, I'd be (1) looking at what makes the experience so stressful for you and (2) designing any therapeutic plan by starting off with the thing you find least challenging, so that you can have a success doing that and therefore feel more confident about trying the next step along the way.

I held a tarantula as someone who is arachnophobic and I relaxed, felt a little bit better about tarantulas. Im still afraid of arachnids, but a little bit less. I'm not afraid if I have a moment of preparation and I know what I'm about to do. If one ran out in front of me suddenly, I would jump out of my skin. However, there's just so many things exposure doesn't help me on.. if anything it gets worse! I would get sick before going to school and during school every day for over a decade. Every day I'd come home exhausted and with severe pain in my back and shoulders. University was the same. Work was the same. I wasn't even bullied or anything.

@michaelfreydberg4619

Ай бұрын

I took an entomology class to try to get over my fear of large insects, then one day in 2003 I was in Vancouver BC, and I paid 7.00 to go to the Bug Zoo near downtown. Neither experience helped.

perhaps the word you are searching for at 6:47 is ' socialite ' someone, who makes friends, has parties, MC's events effortlessly. my way of defining these is extravert is someone who obsessively hugs or has physical contact with people, indifferent to the mental awkwardness they cause some people ; a socialite is someone not as evangelical, who respects peoples space, just is an 'expert' at social skills.

Hey! Can't find the video where you dyed your hair so i shall leave a comment here as it's been bugging me for days. Babe, Crazy Colur doesn’t take on natural hair, it's designed for bleached hair. However, Manic Panic does. It is twice as expensive and there is no point unless you leave it on for at least an hour. Two is better but it does hold if you are going darker than your natural shade. I can't remember whether Arctic Fox worked as well but I'd try that too. Directions colour is sh*t imo

I went to therapy for many years (including CBT), prior to my autism dx, and it didn’t help me at all. I read somewhere that CBT was made for NTs who don’t really have problems but want to feel sorry for themselves which I think makes sense. It is common to bring up that there is scientific evidence that CBT works, but here is where the science obviously can get skewed. If it works for zero percent of autists, since dx’d autists are just 1-2 percent of the general public, they will barely make a notch. It would need a more qualitative analysis.

❤️❤️

From personal experience, exposure "therapy" isn't therapeutic and DOESN'T WORK! Constantly re-exposing myself to or forcing myself to stay in situations or perform tasks that go against my natural abilities or capabilities doesn't lead to increased tolerance, skills or confidence. Instead, it leads to overwhelm, burnout, skill deterioration, reduced tolerance/more reactive to stressors, increased fear and anxiety, trauma, strained/broken relationships, reduced opportunities at work or even job loss, lack of hope for the future and even thoughts of unaliving. What does help? Rehearsing scenarios in my mind or writing them out on paper, researching as much as I can on a thing before taking part in it, limiting outside activities or social events to a certain duration and number of such things in a week, scheduling things with enough time in between to decompress from the last event and prepare for the next, having accommodations in place like ear plugs and dark glasses. explaining about difficulties I have/accommodations I need on a "need to know" basis, find opportunities to retreat/find private quiet spaces during events and having my own transport to leave when I've reached my limit.

I remember you talking in a video about water and chemicals in tap water. I don’t drink tap water but the cleanest natural water is highland spring water in the bottles, from a spring and ph balanced, tastes good and good way to stay hydrated without tap water

@Catlily5

Ай бұрын

Is the water in plastic bottles?

@Ashleigh6775

28 күн бұрын

@@Catlily5 yeah highland spring it’s the best water available in the UK, you can also buy it in glass and boxes

"socialite"

I probably annoyed the other person in that comment thread you're talking about. I think you covered everything they and I were saying and didn't contradict any of it, so I guess there was a misunderstanding.

World's #1 socialist 😂 That belongs on a t-shirt !