Can one have CPTSD and Asperger's Syndrome?

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Lily Gabrielle
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21 Feb 2018, 5:01 am

I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD 25 yrs ago due to prolonged childhood abuse but therapy always made me feel worse. Last year I was very late diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome. There were various in utero problems and a difficult birth but my mother said I was a happy baby until I was 22 months old when I became withdrawn. This followed a 7 month separation from my mother as she was in hospital.

I suffered severe prolonged childhood trauma and a traumatic first marriage and this is understood to be the cause of the CPTSD. As a child I was painfully shy and growing up in a small town was a trial as I used to cross the road if I saw someone coming that I knew I would be expected to talk to. Mum was always asking me why I was rude to whoever I had avoided but I had no answer. I did not like other children and my friends tended to be middle or old aged people from my church.

I felt a great deal of relief upon receiving my AS diagnosis as it made sense of my life and both my husband and sister were 100% in agreement.
However, I have since read that if you have PTSD or CPTSD then you cannot be diagnosed with Autism. This has thrown me into some turmoil and I hope that other women who have received both diagnoses will help me to understand.

A lot of my CPTSD symptoms have either disappeared or greatly lessened since my AS diagnosis.



Embla
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21 Feb 2018, 7:25 am

Where did you read that? It seems highly unlikely that you can't have both. I'm pretty sure there's quite a bunch of people in here who has PTSD as well as ASD.
A lot of my depression and anxiety went away after I got my diagnosis, and it's not that strange. Before it, I had tried everything to cure my mental illnesses (everything that's supposed to work for normal people), and it all just made it worse. Finding out about my actual needs took care of everything. I couldn't figure out what those needs were on my own (darn alexithymia) so I needed to have them explained to me before I could accomodate them. That's what the diagnosis did, and that's how things started to get better. It doesn't mean that I don't still have a lot of anxiety, or sporadic bouts of depression, but it's waaaaay less now, and what's left of it, I know better how to handle.



plokijuh
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21 Feb 2018, 9:46 pm

I think sometimes they say people can't be diagnosed with two conditions if the two share very similar symptoms/it's difficult to work out what would be attributable to one or the other. In these cases, I think usually the more serious condition is the adopted label.

But purely from a logical point of view, there *must* be children born with Asperger's who then live through horrific experiences and develop PTSD. It seems like a no-brainer to me if one is neurobiological and the other is environmental then the two can't be mutually exclusive. Even just looking at the fact that so many women with ASD are abused, it seems strange to say you can't be diagnosed with both. I know a guy who was abandoned by his mother because he was 'too hard' (horrible excuse...news flash, parenting is hard). It seems like ASD would be a risk factor in PTSD.


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IsabellaLinton
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21 Apr 2018, 9:55 pm

I was diagnosed with severe CPTSD in 2015 because of several extremely traumatic experiences I've endured. I fit all of the descriptions for CPTSD and definitely agreed / still agree with the diagnosis.

I was not responding to any treatment, talk therapy or medication for CPTSD. I kept asking doctors to look at my life before the traumatic incidents to see what made me vulnerable. It was difficult to find anyone who would listen and look at me as a whole person instead of just a trauma victim. They wanted to attribute my entire personality to specific experiences instead of my organic self. I knew this was wrong. There had to be more. I had challenges and differences as far back as I can remember, years before the trauma. I surely wasn't "born" with CPTSD so something else needed to be assessed.

This year I was assessed by a specialist in Adult ASD (Psychology PhD), and after 15 hours of testing she confirmed that yes, I have both ASD and CPTSD. Of course a person can have both, just like you can be born with any other condition and have a good / average or traumatic life. You can be born with neurological differences and then develop PTSD because of your environment. Quite often ASD itself begets the CPTSD because it makes a person naive and easily exploited.

Yes, the symptoms of ASD and PTSD / CPTSD are similar in their social manifestations. It seems the difference or defining feature would be that CPTSD doesn't involve sensory challenges and obsessive interests. In your ASD assessment they must have looked for repetitive motor behaviours, interests and rigidity as well as hypo / hypersensitivity and problem solving or executive function challenges. None of those are specific to CPTSD because they are entirely independent.

PM me if you'd like to chat :D

Isabella



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22 Apr 2018, 2:19 am

As far as I can recall, there was some research that autistic people are more at likely to develop PTSD than the average population. If PTSD, then why not CPTSD?

I understand that it's important for a professional doing diagnosing to not get these things mixed up, as manifestations can be similar, particularly in the case of CPTSD and autism, but it should be possible to write a report mentioning that some things seem to be manifest from childhood and some after traumatic events, and that this may require looking into.


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slave
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22 Apr 2018, 10:58 pm

"However, I have since read that if you have PTSD or CPTSD then you cannot be diagnosed with Autism."

With 100% certainty, i can tell you that what you read is false. There is no question.



Kinme
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05 May 2018, 8:02 pm

I have both aspergers and C-PTSD.



TerraPsych
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20 May 2018, 12:48 pm

Hi, mental health expert with cPTSD and Asperger's, here. Yes, you can definitely have both, and it's actually more common for aspies (especially women) to have cPTSD than neurotypical people because in childhood they were often forced to be "normal" and punished, penalized, and invalidate for the duration of their youth. There is so much nuance and social pressure for girls (especially in the South and/or upper class backgrounds) to be more mature, polite, genteel, feminine, nurturing, social, submissive, quiet, graceful, complacent, academic, focused, patient, calm, and respectful. The old "boys will be boys" paradigm allows for ND boys to get away with much more as children than ND girls.

Your story is very similar to mine with the exception of shyness in childhood. Instead, I rebelled and fought.

I'm sorry you've experienced those things, and what you read is patently false and also contradicts professional consensus.



slave
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21 May 2018, 9:31 pm

TerraPsych wrote:
Hi, mental health expert with cPTSD and Asperger's, here. Yes, you can definitely have both, and it's actually more common for aspies (especially women) to have cPTSD than neurotypical people because in childhood they were often forced to be "normal" and punished, penalized, and invalidate for the duration of their youth. There is so much nuance and social pressure for girls (especially in the South and/or upper class backgrounds) to be more mature, polite, genteel, feminine, nurturing, social, submissive, quiet, graceful, complacent, academic, focused, patient, calm, and respectful. The old "boys will be boys" paradigm allows for ND boys to get away with much more as children than ND girls.

Your story is very similar to mine with the exception of shyness in childhood. Instead, I rebelled and fought.

I'm sorry you've experienced those things, and what you read is patently false and also contradicts professional consensus.


Hi, TerraPsych, would it be possible if I could ask you some brief academically orientated questions?

.....and welcome to WP :D



whatalala
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04 Jun 2018, 1:24 pm

You know, while I was hospitalized a psych brought up a C-PTSD diagnosis. To be honest, I'd never heard of it offline. I kinda assumed it was something that didn't apply to me, that I would be twisting circumstances to make it fit.

I'm... not happy, but maybe empowered? To see other people with this combination of stuff.


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