Frustration station

Hello everyone,

Welcome back to another vent session. I apologize that these posts have been getting further apart in time between them but I'm doing my best. I've had a bit of a draining week and I've been extremely exhausted. Starting off, I've just participated in a shit ton of softball. I played 6 games in 3 days- 3 on Monday, 2 on Tuesday, and 1 on Wednesday. I love playing and I'm glad to have opportunities to play more often but they have definitely caused me to go to bed later than I want and it's kicking my ass. I also had a therapy session on Wednesday and that was emotionally taxing to say the least. It was one of the first times I feel like I have been frustrated with my therapist. I really like her and she's very down to earth, similar in age, and speaks to me like a peer, but I am having a hard time with our last session. It also doesn't help that I have one more session with her and then she's transferring to a different Kaiser so I will be getting assigned my 5th therapist in 3.5-4 years. I start to make headway with someone and then I have to start over. I get a little further with the next one and then I have to start over again, and this process has kept happening and it's annoying and it's slightly traumatizing given my history of abandonment and rejection issues.

Now to add to that, the basis of our conversation was also off-putting. Before working with her, I never had a thought in my mind that I was Autistic. Given that my brother has a diagnosis, she was actually the first one to indicate that I could also have it as well. Once I researched more and found other people on Instagram with Autism, everything finally clicked. I never felt understood and I had no explanation to describe how I've felt in my body and my thought processes until looking into Autism. I understand that I have spent a life time of masking and learning to function at a sufficient level where no one would really suspect, and that I would just be considered a little quirky and moody, but it felt so validating to finally put words and descriptions and find others that felt how I felt in my body. There has been so much inner turmoil swirling in my brain and overanalyzing everything and stimming and repeating words and phrases in my head that people say and mimicking of behavior and all the things, that it felt good to know I wasn't broken. Well, I wasn't intending on talking about it in our session but she brought it up that I had mentioned previously in group and it was only one time that I did. I'm not ashamed of it at all, but I'm also not making it the first thing I mention to everyone and parade it around. I only really mention and talk about it out loud is to my parents and my brother. Since my therapist spends far too much time on TikTok, I guess there is a trend going around where people are self-diagnosing themselves as ADHD and what not when they really aren't and she's afraid I'm going to lean into the Autism too much and make it my identity. I understand that I am high-functioning and it would be hard to diagnose me based on the outdated criteria that was outlined in the DSM by white men however long ago in how it presents typically in boys, but it doesn't mean that I shouldn't feel valid in having an answer for my behaviors and thought-processes. I'm not "making it my whole identity," even if it is a big part of who I am, and she's afraid of it exacerbating my current symptoms. Since I am actually diagnosed with Bipolar 2, I know she wouldn't say the same thing about me if I were reading about other people's experiences with Bipolar and that I'm leaning into it too hard. So of course I started crying. I was feeling invalidated. I tried to explain to her why I have feelings of invalidation and abandonment based on experiences I had when I was younger, but she saw it more as me having a cognitive distortion of "core beliefs" when all I was really trying to do what explain why feelings of invalidation come up for me and why her saying what she was saying was invoking those emotions. No, I don't sit and wallow in a woe-is-me, I'm a terrible person and nothing I say matters, I was only just trying to say that this has been a common theme in my life and that this was adding to that experience. Also she said she wouldn't formally diagnose me since there isn't updated criteria that would scientifically back how a female would present. She also doesn't necessarily want to diagnose me as Autistic either because she doesn't want a new provider to handle me with "kitten gloves" or make any preconceived notions about me. Overall, I was just emotionally exhausted by the whole conversation and I didn't feel great about it. It fucking sucks that the science hasn't gotten up to date with how to better diagnose those who don't present as a typical boy with Autism would. There is a huge population of people who aren't able to get access to a diagnosis because we don't present appropriately or mask too well or function too well. I know there isn't much that can be done for adults receiving a diagnosis but it would make me feel better and make me feel validated.

Anyway, such is life and for right now, I'll just need to keep it to myself. Maybe my next provider will be more open to the possibility of a diagnosis. Who knows.

Sorry for the downer of a post. That's just how this week has shaped up.

-A