7 Surprising Reasons Why Self-Help Fails For Autistic People

Not all of us know how to ‘just do it’

Image created on Canva by the author.

January is often the most annoying month of all because we are surrounded by hopeful theatrics, the annual event of self-help, and its favourite motto, ‘A new year, a new me’, as if magically, on the 1st of January, everything will change. As an autistic woman, this enrages me because I lack the executive function to commit to such swift changes, and I feel chronically stuck.

I’ve always known I have serious childhood issues to work through, PTSD from abusive relationships and the health trauma that comes with being autistic, but no matter how much I tried, self-help never seemed to work for me. I remember trying talking therapies and traditional CBT, and I struggled to see any changes in myself, and in fact, I left those sessions feeling worse off. I then turned to my trusty books, but I found that self-help books were rarely written with us in mind, and so I found much of the content, quite frankly, jarring. Self-help books generally address a lack of willpower, but you can’t will yourself out of an executive function deficit.

Here are seven reasons why self-help isn’t an option if you’re autistic:

1. We struggle to initiate and follow up on queries