late dx- did you think you were sexually abused?

Post Reply New Topic

I thought PD was supposed to be PDD - pervasive developmental disorder. That is, saying that sexual abuse is quite common in the autistic community (perhaps as we are more vulnerable).

I've never been sexually abused, and never thought I was. I've been abused in other ways and remember everything clearly from a very young age, so I trust my memory quite a bit. Also, I'm asexual. Most people I know who've been sexually abused become very sexually aware and sexually awakened at a young age. I've never had any sexual awareness or sexual awakening. I've had other symptoms of abuse - like the stuff that goes with post traumatic stress disorder - but I knew that was due to other abuse. For me, the hardest thing was separating out what was the result of abuse and what was part of my Asperger syndrome. Knowing that I was a bit 'odd' as a result of abuse made me not truly realise about the Asperger's until a lot later, when I started to become aware that a lot of my oddities had nothing to do with abuse and weren't shared by others who were abused.

I was...on a few occasions..and was late "diagnosed" (if it counted)

I did suffer from PTSD also.

I often wonder if I was for a variety of reasons, but I have no memory of actually being abused. So that either means these feelings are AS-related, or I have repressed memories.

I was sexually abused, and I was not diagnosed with autism until my 30s. But I knew I was autistic as a kid (the diagnosis was not available for people like me - quiet girls with high IQs - as a kid). I had amnesia for the abuse until my 20s, was "diagnosed" with PTSD then, and still don't remember much (just a few nightmares and flashes). I know it was both abuse and autism, and not one passing for the other. I was very careful when getting diagnosed with autism to go to a therapist (or perhaps just lucky to find one) who could tell the difference.

My mother was the one who said that if I was autistic then that's what really happened and of course I wasn't abused. That was only when I tried to talk about male relatives and being pregnant at age 12. I haven't bothered telling anyone in my family about things I've remembered since (worse stuff). No point. When people don't want to know, they really don't want to know.

Back in the 1990s sexual abuse was very fashionable. I met someone who did time (ankle bracelet) for stabbing her twin after he'd been beating her up for years. The authorities kept asking her if she'd been sexually abused (she wasn't), but no one told her her brother should have been charged with assault at the same time she was charged. She didn't find that out until the statute of limitations had run out. Sometimes a social obsession with sexual abuse does result in people missing the help they need with other things. Hope she's ok.

I thought about it and discarded the idea. I wasn't abused in early childhood; that didn't start until nine and wasn't very sexual except for the time my stepdad flashed me, for some weird reason. (Seriously immature thing to do, IMO, and not particularly traumatizing to someone who's already asexual and has been all her life.)

I was basically trying to figure out why I was asexual, and didn't know it was normal (well, abnormal as in "unusual" but not as in "pathological"). That was one of my theories. I threw it out pretty quickly, though, because I'm not the type to repress memories; nor are "recovered" memories even reliable in most cases; nor was there any physical evidence. If anything, bad memories stay in my consciousness until they're dealt with. Not that that's a good thing; sometimes if the memories stay around and don't fade, you end up with PTSD.

I was physically and sexually abused as a kid, and started in abuse recovery at 25 and was diagnosed with PTSD. At 50, I was diagnosed with AS. There are plenty of symptoms attributable to the abuse, but I always felt that there were missing pieces to the puzzle of who I am and why I respond to things as I do. When I discovered AS and got diagnosed, all the pieces came together.

The first time I started psychological counselling, the shrink seemed to think I'd been sexually abused as a child, and she managed to almost convince me that I had been. I remember crying for ages afterwards. I'm pretty sure now that those were false memories and that no abuse happened.

I once said something to a friend in high school, that I wondered if I had been abused sexually and had just blocked it out. My disinterest to physical relationships with boys was my concern. I had crushes on them, but that is as far as it went. When I was a kid, I used to wonder what french kissing was like, but as an older teen, I didn't. I didn't want to know. Then there was my aversion to being hugged, touched, etc by other people at an age where EVERYONE would hug everyone else. I'd awkwardly wave goodbye.

I'm seeking diagnosis, not official yet.

I was convinced I had been sexually abused as a child without knowing it as well. But I thought that because my sexuality is pretty weird. I get hormonal for about 20 minutes every few months but other than that I don't like sexual stuff. I love being hugged but not in a sexual way. But now I am pretty sure that I was not sexually abused as a child. I had an incident as an adult but not as a child.

I was sexually abused when I was four, and one more time when I was seven, both by the same person. I feel like my aversion to touch falls into separate categories. There's the AS category which includes things like light contact, especially around the shoulders, back and head, which is physically irritating and makes me angry, then there's the abuse category which includes any kind of contact at or below my waist from anyone who's not an immediate blood family member, and this makes me very uncomfortable, anxious and afraid, and I start having intrusive memories (not the same as flashbacks) of the abuse. I start worrying that the person who's touching me, even my boyfriend, will try to hurt me the way I was hurt before, even though I know such thoughts are irrational.

I was abused growing up but not sexually. My dad always suspected it but no doctor. It is strange how my AS symptoms and the symptoms of childhood sexual abuse are so similar. I relate on a deep level to women who had been molested. I find that they can relate to many of my issues when others can't even imagine.

I know that I was sexually abused, I am also hard of hearing and autistic.

That said, I know this from memories rather than guessing based on 'symptoms of abuse'.

I was not...my sister was though, and we shared a room at the time and it was my aunts boyfriend who did it. Of course she immediately broke it off when it was found out...cant remember if I witnessed anything or not but either way I know it effected me. I actually found that out in trauma therapy I was going to for a different reason...I mentioned that to them and we concluded that probably had a lot to do with certain issues and may be the root of some of the unfair self-blame I subject myself to at times.

I wish I could kill him, but I guess prison suffices if they don't let him out again....like they did after the initial six years he was charged with only to find him doing it again to someone else, ever recruited my family to testify if necessary to provide more evidence of him being a repeat offender.

Anyways I don't think its really the cause of any of my aspie traits....but it might make some more apparent. Like its hard for me to make eye contact due to autism and its hard for me to get to the point I trust someone enough for eye contact because of that.

Nope, I don't believe I've ever been sexually abused; I have such vivid memories from such an early age that I'm pretty sure I haven't suppressed any memories, including sexual trauma, as I haven't blanked other trauma such as sibling emotional abuse/bullying, for example.

I've had problems with relationships but never regarding sex, as I am welcoming of physical touch from someone I love and whom I know loves me. I'm not even too bad with touch in general -- I'm okay with hugging and stuff.

My relationship problems were only regarding communication issues, and also my social overloads, sensory overloads and shut downs and meltdowns following from those -- and neither I or my other half knowing why, which was the biggest problem of all!

pd = personality disorder. some of them, for example, borderline personality disorder, are thought to have been caused by early childhood abuse.

I was sexually abused in high school and experienced some PTSD.
That is long gone, having been dealt with almost 20 yrs ago.
I can clearly see the difference between PTSD and ASD, which is one of the reasons I continue to suspect I am on the spectrum. Also, my experiences in high school do not explain my ASD traits that have been there from early childhood on. I can remember having social problems as far back as preschool.
PTSD only *exacerbated* ASD traits. It did not cause them.