Other Can we talk about the intersection of autism and trauma?

[Freddyt]

This is a interesting concept I’ve never thought of it but it makes sense. What’s your take on it?

There are many chronic illnesses tht share a lot of symptoms. And many of those are shared with PTSD.
Same thing for me. When it all blew up I was dealing with thyroid issues caused by my Addison's disease. With so many shared physical symptoms - it's not until you stick your hand up and say "something else is wrong here" that anyone starts diagnosing to see if something else shows up.

Sadly - one of the huge issues is that doctors think it's physical and don't look to see if there are mental health conditions that cause the same physical symptoms...

 

[MurphyLynnRose2021]

There are many chronic illnesses tht share a lot of symptoms. And many of those are shared with PTSD.
Same thing for me. When it all blew up I was dealing with thyroid issues caused by my Addison's disease. With so many shared physical symptoms - it's not until you stick your hand up and say "something else is wrong here" that anyone starts diagnosing to see if something else shows up.

Sadly - one of the huge issues is that doctors think it's physical and don't look to see if there are mental health conditions that cause the same physical symptoms...

I agree and it hurts I’m struggling so hard rn but since it’s inside no one takes me seriously but it’s everything now…

 

[Freddyt]

I agree and it hurts I’m struggling so hard rn but since it’s inside no one takes me seriously but it’s everything now…

In my case I took the bull by the horns so to speak and asked to talk to the mental health nurse, and it went from there to the psychiatrist for a general diagnoses, then therapy where it became PTSD once we found trauma, then CPTSD as the full events revealed themselves.

Hlpe you can do something similar....

 

[Weemie]

This is something that I've frequently thought about over the years. I'm diagnosed with both RAD-I and NVLD (now just RAD and ASD in the DSM-5) ADHD (which was my first ever diagnosis at 7, I had the typical male "run into traffic" presentation) as well as PTSD. But I suspect that I am not autistic. I am just asocial.

I understand social cues, I get and employ sarcasm and prosaic/figurative language just fine. I do fine with schedule shifts and change, and am not rigid in any way. I just struggle to "enter" social groups and react in a naturally "human" manner and sometimes miss the mark when it comes to information that I would otherwise possess if I had normal affective empathy. Whereas autism tends to have deficits in cognitive empathy (in my opinion, affective and cognitive definitely do share overlaps).

I also think there's an overlap in SZPD/SPD and autism/PTSD mostly when it comes to affect. I've also experienced an overlap of ASPD, in the sense that ASPD is commonly assumed to define a divergent neuropsychological profile and not merely a pattern of criminal behavior and violations of the rights of others that presents in otherwise neurotypical individuals.

Since the primary characteristic of autism is altered sociality and affect, it stands to reason that personality disorders, schizo-spectrum disorders, attachment disorders, PTSD and autism have an overlap in the diagnostic process and potentially are misdiagnosed as one another.

Another friend of mine, everybody assumes he is autistic when they first meet him. He was (much like me) solitary confined for significant chunks of his formative development. As was I, as I was majority locked in a room for about six years from infancy until 6-7 years of age. Things that are from my PTSD/RAD that others have attributed to autism: distinctions in empathy processing, sensory integration issues, and developmental delays (primarily linguistic acquisition).

I think it's important to recognize that there is a huge disparity of socialization when it comes to complex, developmental trauma especially trauma that occurs in infancy and can result in a very wide margin of asocial or even antisocial behavior. And where a clinician might see a flat affect, rigidity inherent to PTSD and divergences in empathy and conclude autism, when there is trauma, it's important to address these issues in the realm of trauma first.

This was the case for me and it is the case for a lot of individuals that I know who have been exposed to extreme trauma as children. As my forensic psych frequently likes to remind me, most people who were forced into violence at a young age end up in prison. I've turned it around over the years but still manage to get tripped up when I don't understand why a person is sad or angry because I simply wouldn't be.

You lost the family dog? I don't get it. OK, but they're upset, and that's important to honor. When I was a kid it didn't even get that far. You lost the family dog, get over it. I understand now, cognitively (because I have very intact cognitive empathy) that speaking like this to others will hurt them, and I don't desire to intentionally hurt people as an adult and so I don't speak like that to others.

They have normal affective empathy so of course they will be saddened when presented with such a significant loss, and there are scientific studies that show in some cases pet death causes more grief than human death. Do I get it from an emotional standpoint? Would I be upset in that situation? No, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and isn't important.

Like, shit like that. And it's easy to assume that derives from autism, but when you look at the internal dialogue it's fairly evident that it's not. Autistic people may not recognize that someone is sad, but once they do, normal affective functioning tends to kick in.