Autism and Maladaptive Coping

(when we learn to defend ourselves against life in unhealthy ways)

Ok, so first, what does “maladaptive” mean?
Maladaptive is a description which means “bad adaptive” and it refers to the unhealthy ways we may learn to cope with our life situations.

 Maladaptive behaviors are those which might have worked at one time to help us escape some of our struggles. 
We develop poor coping skills in self defense, especially when we must find ways ourselves with no guidance, input, insights or role modeling from others to help us. 

Maladaptive thoughts or beliefs may be ones that we used to explain our struggles and reasons for the conflicts, misunderstandings, or other troubles in our lives. 

Most of these behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs are learned when we are quite young.

 Maladaptive thoughts and behaviors are not exclusive to autism, anybody can develop them, but perhaps because of autism’s struggles with social interactions and communication, we may tend to develop such self protective thoughts and behaviors more frequently.

I just read a paper which polled psychologists working with autistic individuals and all of them said they had never met an autistic that did not have some degree of maladaptive behavior and/ or thinking.

  This would especially be true for those who did not have positive role models, explanations, and emotional support in our lives, or those of us who grew up in unhealthy situations where poor coping or unhealthy behavior was present to begin with. 

Examples of maladaptive behavior would be fearful or aggressive behaviors (meeting every life challenge with fear or anger), belief that we must always please others, that it is our job to see that everybody is happy, that we must strive to please, to make sure nobody gets angry with us, that we are always wrong.

We might think that others are always wrong or “against us”, that nobody is responding to us when we want them to or in ways we want them to, so therefore nobody cares!
 The list goes on. 
 Maladaptive behavior can be self injury or addictive behavior/substance abuse, enforcing and insisting on rituals or certain other ways to comfort or “protect” us. 
We might believe that certain people or groups of people are out to get us, hate us, or are otherwise the cause of our problems.
 We might think that if only we found a love partner, lived in a certain place, had a certain job or a certain possession, won the lottery, our lives would be changed and everything would be the way it is “supposed to be”. 

  You can see how complex and varied these maladaptive thoughts and behaviors can be.
 With nobody to advise, explain, guide, mentor, we have been left on our own to figure it all out and most of us simply did the best we could to survive. Most of us got some of it wrong!

 The good news is that once we are aware of our unhealthy thought and behavior patterns, we can work to replace our old thought and responses with newer and healthier ways.
 Like any habit, we can learn new ways to do it! 

I had a number of maladaptive thought patterns and behaviors that I had learned and used over my early life time. 
The family I grew up in had many poor coping skills and patterns of manipulative, shaming and blaming behaviors and thoughts.

 With the help of a counselor I learned to recognize unhealthy manipulative and coercive communication and replace it with healthy self assertive communication , and how to defend myself against such behavior and communication from others.

 I learned that many of my beliefs about my self, my life, the way others treated me, the things that happened to me, were unhealthy and simply not true. I had to learn about the actual nature of healthy relationships, healthy behavior, healthy self care and setting boundaries, and so much more. 
Many young people learn, or can see these things for themselves as they grow and mature, and many others may need help, guidance, explanations and coaching to find healthier and more productive, less emotionally painful ways to live life. 

Looking back on my early years, I can see how absolutely desolate of life skills and insights I was,  as autism, my unhealthy childhood ‘roots’, my unhealthy maladaptive beliefs and lack of the tools I needed to interact in healthy ways with the world around me was disabling and painful. 
  I could not find my way “out” without an outsider to help me understand and to see where the behaviors I relied on to survive were no longer working and that I could replace them with other more functional and effective tools which I could use every day to have a better life, better relationships, better understanding of my world. 

 If you are struggling constantly, are in emotional pain, if you can’t find a way out of your daily misery, anxiety, and emotional pain, I urge you to find a life coach/ therapist/ counselor or mentor to help you sort the coping tools you are using, discard the unhealthy, maladaptive ones, and replace them with better ways to move forward in life.

 If I could do it, I believe almost anybody can. It is emotionally scary. for many of us, it is almost impossible to see or say  “I was wrong” in my beliefs, in the way I tried to handle things, in the ways I learned to cope. 
I was wrong ,as in mistaken.. yes, not bad or shamefully wicked, not to blame : I had used the only tools I had available, that was not my fault, it is not yours if you are not coping well, either! 
   I got a new box of tools, and I haven’t regretted it for one moment. Life has been so much better! 
 Join me, won’t you?