In Therapy

I had my first therapy appointment today with a new therapist. Over the years, I've had many of them for various purposes. What makes this one significant is that it's the first time I've been in therapy since my professional and romantic life ended and I completely accepted that my autism is severe enough to prevent either from ever being possible for me. The resultant depression is something I've been battling for the last few months and I've been using Paxil to combat it. However, medication alone is not sufficient to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and figure out how to be as happy as I can be as a profoundly disabled man. For that, I'm going to require some professional help and I've sought out a therapist who specializes in autism so she will have a good grasp on all the issues involved.

In the first session, we talked about many things, most of which were about the demise of my professional and romantic life and which I have written about before on this very blog. We also talked about my atheism and how it allowed me to let go of an anger that had been building in me for years because of the limitations I seemed to have. What surprised me was that she told me that the depression I'm going through is actually healthier than the anger common to autistics regarding the effect their condition has on their lives. Truth be told, I've let go of most of my anger, including bitter grudges I'd held for most of life. All of the people, places, institutions, et cetera that I'd been angry with were really just relics of a time before my diagnosis when I'd been looking for someone to blame. Well, I know what's to blame. It is called autism.

As therapy continues, I hope for further insights like the one about anger. I look forward to telling my story to someone who can help me learn from it. Certainly, I've learned from talking to other autistics and people with other disabilities that it's not the same journey for all of us. There's a lot of variance in severity and functionality within and between disabilities. People with physical handicaps and/or chronic pain don't even consider my journey remotely similar to theirs, although I do. All disabled people are in for a little or a lot of a private Hell completely unique to them and that only they fully understand. My own is that I'll never be part of the world that neurotypicals and higher-functioning autistics live in. To go to work every day and feel you have contributed to society, to feel a loving touch in my bed at night telling me everything will be okay, to have my children experience family traditions I once did, and to feel whatever it is people feel when they truly grow up. These are the things I will miss and the things I must properly mourn with the guidance of therapy.

-Frank