Therapist Explains: When Trauma Masquerades as Symptoms of Autism

Therapist Explains: When Trauma Masquerades as Symptoms of Autism

Is it autism that’s the problem or is it the social trauma of having autism that’s the problem? One of the hardest parts of therapy with level one support adults is helping them sort through okay what’s autism and what are completely reasonable reactions to the mistreatment you’ve experienced because of your autism. And so something I look for in addition to the criteria of autism are the markers of trauma that surround autism because of the negative social reactions people have experienced and the armor they’ve had to put on to survive the world. The most common is masking. Autistic people do a lot of things to mask their symptoms in order to fit in and not experience rejection. And so when we think about executive dysfunction, is it executive dysfunction because of autism and rigidity? Or is it executive dysfunction because they’re exhausted and their working memory is spent because they’re spending all this time on masking. So burnout is a definite sign that the social trauma of autism, not autism itself. Related to that, related to masking is flat affect. Is flat affect for the autistic person sitting in front of me something that’s a condition of their disorder? Or is it that flat affect not expressing themselves was safer? So they learn to suppress emotions and present as hyperlogical because when they reacted to a sound or a sensation or a feeling or a social slight because of a social misperception, they were punished. And so being logical, having flat affect, not expressing emotion was far safer than having emotion. Flat affect ties into alexathia. Does the person in front of me have alexathyia because of autism itself or because of the trauma they’ve experienced having their emotions not believed? And alexia can be correlated with flat affect. It can be correlated with a hyper reactivity that’s very invested in other people’s emotions to the exclusion of one’s own and pervasive dissociation. splitting parts of oneself or not remembering certain hyper emotional instances because the social sanctioning they experienced, the punishment, the bullying, the trauma they experienced for being themselves was so great they learn to disconnect from themselves emotionally. Is the person in front of me intellectualizing and hyperlogical because they’re incapable of experiencing and expressing emotions because of autism? Or are they intellectualizing because that too is a form of dissociation of alexathyia that makes other people’s awful comments hurt less in the moment? And lastly, does the person struggle with addiction? Or is the person implementing a numbing solution because environments with over stimulation weren’t changed to support them? Or because the pain of rejection was so great that the only way they could dissociate and protect themselves was by using a substance? Is addiction correlated with autism? Or is addiction correlated with the social trauma of autism? When we equate behaviors that are because of the social trauma of having autism with autism itself when that’s not the case, we keep people from healing. We keep people from knowing their full selves. And so if you’re seeking treatment for autism, I encourage you to ask your clinician and yourself these questions around, am I experiencing something because of autism itself or am I experiencing it because of the social trauma related to autism?

Masking, burnout, alexathiamia, intellectualization, flat affect, dissociation, and addiction. All signs of the social trauma related to Autism, not necessarily Autism itself. #autism #autistic #therapy #trauma #mentalhealth