tl;dr: therapy is a mixed bag and depends on the therapist, it will probably not solve problems with girls but may help for emotional issues

I've tried not to talk too much about my own experiences in therapy up until now since my experience is likely not completely applicable to most of you guys; I'm autistic, chronically depressed, and had ABA therapy for a majority of my life. But I have seen a lot of people here talk about their experiences in therapy and feel like I could add something to the discourse.

When I was a kid, therapy really sucked. Imagine being called "socially restarted" openly by therapists and treated as if you're some kind of subhooman. I would be chastised in therapy because I would stim subconsciously by flapping my hands and rocking back and forth, stims I still subconsciously exhibit today.

While it wasn't as bad as getting beat up for stimming like my parents used to do, there also wasn't really any effort on the part of the therapist to stop the abuse at home.

I was diagnosed with autism and depression at 5 years old. That was fine, but no therapist ever told me what I had even when I asked. All I ever got was "you are very intelligent," but it felt condescending because I knew even at that age something was wrong. I was then chastised for "asking too many questions."

Visibly autistic kids were really treated like zoo animals in the mid 90s. We've truly come a long way.

After ABA therapy fell out of favor, I went to a CBT therapist. He prescribed me a battery of antidepressants over time. Each one had unfavorable side effects. When I took Xanax, I wasn't even able to walk because my balance became so bad.

I am not saying that antidepressants are useless. If they work for you and you have a prescription, take them. They just simply didn't work for me.

Despite the antidepressants, he did manage to talk me out of roping. At the time, I was literally obese and felt like I had nothing to live for.

Whenever I would tell him about my experiences with girls, such as how they used to clown me in college and randomly come up to me and call me creepy despite the fact that I'd never spoken to them or looked at them in my life, he would simply tell me to ignore them. Lotta good that did me.

Btw, that still happens today.

I then went to a therapist who specialized in autism. He was actually ok because he inspired me to meditate and lose weight. Those two things really did improve my life. Around that time, I started smoking weed, which did help me become more apathetic. Apathy was a massive improvement over despair.

He also encouraged me to date, which was comparatively altruistic, but my sex drive had pretty much been nuked by then. I made several attempts to date, but was rejected outright for being 5'7, Asian, "creepy," "restarted," etc. That really demoralized me, but smoking weed would make it better. It was around that time that I began watching faceandlms.

It was such a toxic cycle that I actually walked in to his office and said "bro your advice literally doesn't work, I have some studies that show it basically never began for me."

He chastised me for being "defeatist" and "nihilistic," but I said "look man, I'll literally give you 2 months to read these studies, and you tell me whether or not my 'nihilism' is warranted."

He agreed, and over the next 2 months, he actually became bpilled. But he constantly told me how I could be the "exception," which was extremely demoralizing.

I then went to a therapist who was basically a "talk therapist." He was already kinda bpilled and accepted the fact that I was extremely misanthropic. He encouraged me to find my own hobbies, which was laughable, and put more effort into moneymaxxing, which was actually good advice.

So it's been a mixed bag. AMA if you're still curious about shit.