You need to have confidence in yourself. People can sense if you feel unworthy and they will steer clear of you. You need to feel confident and interact with people that that same confidence (not arrogant, or rude). Confidence in yourself will help out in those sort of social situations.

Hi Rose. I've felt left out before. It sucks. Unfortunately, Thor is right. It can turn into a self-perpetuating problem because feeling left out is both a cause and effect of being left out.

One thing I've heard is a good idea is to set a small manageable goal for yourself in one single setting or interaction.. Start with something you can certainly and even easily do. Then reward yourself for meeting your goal. This will help you build confidence, bit by bit. You can gradually increase what you goal is, but don't overwhelm yourself, only increase it when you feel comfortable with the way you are meeting your current goal.

This requires an honest and detailed look at you social performance across a variety of settings. Is your autism severe enough that you can get a "skills trainer" through your state/county/city? Maybe that person can help with "social skills", which are something you can learn. There are also a variety of books available online on this subject - for people and their caregivers across the entire spectrum. Both the autism and the CPTSD can be isolating, but improvement is possible.

Hugs and best wishes.

Hi thanks for both of your suggestions. I appreciate it.

Beryl, I have a case manager base on autism and she is trying to work on me engaging in ABA therapy. The problem so far is that I have a new insurance and I was diagnosed over the age of 21. I am waiting for a social worker from new insurance to call me which she should have from the first two weeks of July.

The goal for me according to my former therapist is to learn skills that I lack. It has been a challenge and I have made some improvements I was told. BUT now I have a new therapist that understands both autism and trauma BUT she is not able to engage me in ABA therapy with me according to insurance. Actually she cannot bill for ABA therapy.

My case manager said it is a process but having someone internal might help. The good thing is that I am new to Medicaire and FL blues so not all hope are lost BUT so far one good thing to rejoice about is my new therapist.

I am smart enough to learn I was told BUT there is struggles due trauma and LD (learning disability) BUT I was told what is favorite me is that I am resilient and I do not give up easily. I lack social skills and I want to learn therefore who knows maybe the change in insurance will be a blessing in disguise.

Thor, confidence is one thing I lack and that was why my former therapist had said a healthy environment is what I need in order to teach me and help. My case manager believes it will happen and that time will tell. But I will think about what both of you said and try alone with my therapist help.

Hi Rose,
Just a couple more things.

Social skills, like with a lot of other things, are something that no one is really perfect at, so totally be kind to yourself when you're thinking about how well you're doing in this area.

We used ABA with my son for something other than social skills. I guess I was remembering the kind of goals they write. I'm not an ABA person so the examples I'm about to give are not real ABA goals, but here are a couple of examples of how specific their goals are:
Example 1
- client walks calmly to social room
- client opens door
- client enters room

Or
Example 2
- client looks at other client
- client makes eye contact with other client

The place we went had a whole database of tasks and goals broken down into quite miniscule steps. They find out what parts of a skill the person routinely does and work on developing the rest of the parts. It can seem quite tedious in the beginning, but is a very effective way to learn all kinds of skills. They often start by having someone practice with a skills trainer before trying things out in real world situations.

One thing to be aware of upfront is that ABA relies almost exclusively on behavioral psychology. So, instead of addressing how you're feeling about certain skills or activities, they're more interested in the payoff/reward for completing those tasks/activities. The basic idea is that people's actions are maintained by the rewards they get for those actions. They're good at arranging concrete rewards, but when you start with them you may find yourself talking to your counselor/therapist about the ABA work if you have social anxiety or find the ABA activities stressful.

People who are counselor/therapists (like LPC, LMFT, etc) do not usually do ABA therapy because it's a different certification (BCBA), and vice versa. I have only ever met one person who had both certifications, so your therapist's situation is not unusual.

Anyway, ABA can be very useful, I hope you can get in with them soon.

Hi Berly.
Thank you so much. Thanks for letting me know what to except. I become overwhelmed easily and what you just informed me I am appreciative. Thanks for encouraging me to be kind to myself.... You bring tears to my eyes because my former therapist use to tell me the same thing. She wanted me to focus on what I can do and accomplished instead of my struggles and short comes. The new therapist that I just started to see can do both but insurance told my case manager that she can only do mental health. The good news is that a case manager from Medicare called me two days ago and she is going to reach my case manager (austim) in order to coordinate services for me. That case manager stated she willing to advocate from her end in order for me to get the health I need. My case manager from the agency of autism is on vacation until next week. It's as being long journey so I can wait until...

Yes you are right and I do forget all that I have accomplish etc. I hope that I am ready for ABA because I cry easily. Yet I desires to grow. I need to write. I miss my former therapist so so much.