I've been in intense therapy for nearly a decade now, tried multiple different medications, treatments, and recently spent time at a psychiatric unit in a voluntary program. Still taking medication, this time a mix of two different antidepressants, though it's been so long since I've been without anything that I can't even tell the difference anymore.
I think since the hospital I've lost most hope of ever being able to live rather than just survive. I mean, I've known of this site for nearly a year, but only just made an account. If I can't turn my life around, then I might as well CTB, right?
I think it has the potential to help, really. People have done so much for me, but it can't help if I don't bother to cooperate. Kind of sucks, but, like, whatever. That's life, and it's my own damn fault.
I have a lot more to say about how the mental health system is designed to fail us, but I'll try to keep the scope of my response limited to just me.
I was in therapy and on meds throughout my entire adolescence and gave up on all of it in 2022. I have been through 10+ different therapists, was on 5 different meds, and was hospitalized twice. None of it helped. I'm autistic, and very few therapists know how to handle that, even fewer who actually work with adults. The ones I talked to had a very surface level understanding of it, but was still guided by CBT/DBT (which are proven to be not effective or counter-effective for autistic people). You have to jump through so many hoops to even get a chance at getting help, and the chance of it being effective is considerably low.
It's painful. I wanted to get better. On some level, I still do. But I always end up back in the same place no matter what I try or who I talk to, so why even bother anymore? The statistics for mental illness and suicide don't indicate things getting better either...
I actually never knew that DBT wasn't very effective for autistic people, I just knew that I never liked it and it was practically shoved down my throat at the hospital I was at. I'm autistic, so this might actually help to look at other alternatives. Even now, people are trying to get me to look into DBT, and my grandmother (who I live with) suggested today we take a 6 week course my therapist is offering on DBT crap.
I've never liked it, and it's never been effective for me. I doubt that anything will change even if I research alternatives, since they all think I'm taking my autism too seriously, and that I'm just more sensitive, not that I think in completely different ways from others. But I'll still try.
Yeah, therapy is (still) really CBT-coded and I, as someone with autism, have never found it effective. I remember that I could never really do the exercises well because my thoughts weren't irrational (with more evidence in favour of them) or there was no way of proving them wrong with objective evidence.
Even for neurotypicals, CBT is overhyped and portrayed as a cure-all, when in fact it's just not super effective for most mental disorders, including depression.
I have tried a few other 'third wave' therapies myself (from books) such as ACT, Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) and Behavioural Activation (BA). There is a lot of overlap between them, and I found these more helpful because they don't focus on the content of thoughts. More helpful is relative though, a lot of (autism related) problems can't be fixed.
Yes, this actually explains it really well! I remember trying to explain to the psychologist that, no, my anxiety doesn't revolve around 'worries'. I don't think people are staring at me, I don't believe that everyone thinks I'm useless or that they're always judging me. My anxiety isn't irrational, but it's still debilitating, and it was so hard to convince her of that for some reason.
I'll also definitely look into those—they sound like they could help.
(Also, sorry if this doesn't get grouped up with my first reply. I am new to this, and I read the guide for this site, but it didn't say if it was manual or not. I didn't realize you could press reply on others posts and it'd group it all up before I sent my other post <3)
