Receiving strong emotional expressions/pressure from others..

[Matthias]

The problem I'm seeing is that the genetic effects of autism do affect our communication and relating, and can't be eradicated by therapy.

I agree. I may have worded things poorly earlier, but I agree 100%.

Anxiety and depression arise for many of us through the challenges of how we experience our difference, which are not easily understood by ourselves or others.

Many people have the opposite experience to you, that they were never diagnosed, no one noticed or helped much with their confusion and social distress, and many of us had many years in therapy or other attempts to understand or change ourselves, before we we heard about autism and realised it describes what we have experienced, and is why for some of us, many years of therapy haven't achieved some basic changes we thought were possible for us.

I suffered from major depression and anxiety my entire life until last year. I understand how difficult it is to relate to people and probably had more problems than most people on this forum.

Some of us are trying to respect who we are and find strategies to manage how we are around aspects of relating and communication that are not neurotypical and not understood by others, and which you seem unaware of and oblivious to. You don't know what you don't know, it seems, and your posts display that.

Anxiety and depression is not part of who you are. It's secondary. By addressing the causes of it, like I did, makes it much easier to understand people. I've updated my signature to better reflect what I'm trying to say.

Old belief - "Most of my problems aren't due to being autistic. They're caused by the way other people treat me."

New belief - Most of my problems aren't due to being autistic. They were caused by the way I thought about the way other people treat me."

I used to think everyone treated me poorly because I was different. I found out that wasn't true. It was I who misunderstood other people. Once I understood that and dealt with my problems, I overcame them. There are like hundreds of studies showing that other people don't cause our emotions. We cause them ourselves by what we choose to believe. No one can make you upset, sad, angry, or experience any other emotion. Only you can do that to yourself. That means that no matter how other people treat you, you don't have to be depressed or anxious. You have the power to control your own emotions and can be happy. If you do that, your stress should go away and you'll find socializing is much easier.

 

[SDRSpark]

Having autistic traits (aka broader autism phenotype) is a neurological difference. I have not cured or recovered from any neurological differences. Autism (as defined by the medical community) refers to a psychological disorder. It occurs when someone born with autistic traits develops psychological problems which may be related to having those autistic traits (such as poorly responding to the way they are treated by other people). I'm not trying to be insulting. It's just a fact. The D in ASD stands for disorder. If your autistic traits don't result in a disorder, then you aren't autistic (according to the medical community). Having a disorder doesn't make you less of a person nor does it mean someone doesn't accept you. I don't recall the exact statistics but I think almost half of Americans have a mental disorder.

This is true (that it's how it's defined my the medical community) and it's also a problem - just because something isn't currently causing harm (and if you wind up in front of a psychologist, psychiatrist or therapist, it probably is) doesn't mean that it hasn't in the past or won't in the future. Many people (myself included) have been told that our autistic traits aren't enough to get us diagnosed with autism, and then we're diagnosed with a bunch of other things (the root cause of which are most likely the autistic traits of course.)

The issue here is that it's really difficult, if not impossible, to treat the difficulties which ARE causing distress, such as anxiety and depression. Treating the issue without understanding the root cause is basically putting a bandaid on the problem. This is why many of us go through various treatments, therapies, medications etc. and don't have any good result - the root cause is ignored.

Add on to that the fact that many of us (adults who are good at masking, women especially) are pretty much prejudged as not being autistic and treated accordingly (which is a bit like replacing every single part on the car except for the engine, because we've already decided it couldn't be the engine) that we're basically barred from effective treatment or management by the idea that "you aren't autistic unless the clinician decides that's what's causing distress".

The problem with this, of course, is that there is a wealth of information available to help manage autism traits (sensory difficulties, social difficulties) but that information is only helpful if you have access to it and, while you can access this on your own (and many do) you first have to understand that you need the information in the first place. Without a diagnosis, that's a challenge, but having access to that information and community can prevent a crisis due to inappropriately managed autistic traits. You almost have to wind up in a crisis before you are given the tools to prevent one, and that does unnecessary and entirely preventable harm.

 

[Matthias]

This is true (that it's how it's defined my the medical community) and it's also a problem - just because something isn't currently causing harm (and if you wind up in front of a psychologist, psychiatrist or therapist, it probably is) doesn't mean that it hasn't in the past or won't in the future. Many people (myself included) have been told that our autistic traits aren't enough to get us diagnosed with autism, and then we're diagnosed with a bunch of other things (the root cause of which are most likely the autistic traits of course.)

The issue here is that it's really difficult, if not impossible, to treat the difficulties which ARE causing distress, such as anxiety and depression. Treating the issue without understanding the root cause is basically putting a bandaid on the problem. This is why many of us go through various treatments, therapies, medications etc. and don't have any good result - the root cause is ignored.

Numerous scientific studies show that, despite what many people think, anxiety and depression aren't caused by the way other people treat them. They are caused by the way people think about the way they are treated as well as how they think about themselves. For example, Jews in concentration camps were treated horribly yet while some succumbed to depression(and could have listed many reasons to justify why they were depressed), others did not get depressed. Think about the way African-Americans were treated in the US in the past. Do you think all of them were depressed, anxious, angry, and miserable because the majority of the population treated them poorly? Despite how they were treated, many of them were happy and enjoyed their life. It's not what happens to us that causes our problems but how we think about it. You can have autistic traits, be treated poorly, and constantly misunderstood yet still be happy and comfortable being yourself without any anxiety. That's not just my opinion. There is a ton of scientific evidence to confirm it and numerous examples of people thriving despite how they are treated.

Add on to that the fact that many of us (adults who are good at masking, women especially) are pretty much prejudged as not being autistic and treated accordingly (which is a bit like replacing every single part on the car except for the engine, because we've already decided it couldn't be the engine) that we're basically barred from effective treatment or management by the idea that "you aren't autistic unless the clinician decides that's what's causing distress".

I've found people like me more now than than they did when I masked my symptoms. If you check out my blog and learn how to change the way you think, you can be yourself and have less problems than you do now and more people will like you.

The problem with this, of course, is that there is a wealth of information available to help manage autism traits (sensory difficulties, social difficulties) but that information is only helpful if you have access to it and, while you can access this on your own (and many do) you first have to understand that you need the information in the first place. Without a diagnosis, that's a challenge, but having access to that information and community can prevent a crisis due to inappropriately managed autistic traits. You almost have to wind up in a crisis before you are given the tools to prevent one, and that does unnecessary and entirely preventable harm.

I agree there is definitely room for improvement in accurately assessing and treating people. I wish health care providers knew more about the broader autism phenotype and how to help people overcome problems associated with it.