Interpersonal Trauma and PTSD in Autistic Adults

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Hi everyone! Two years ago, I posted here to recruit participants for a research study on dissociation in autism spectrum disorders. I got a lot of interest and responses! I'm still analyzing some of the data, including the free response descriptions of how autistic adults experience dissociation. It turns out that we were right to think that dissociation is common in autism; the vast majority reported experiencing clinically elevated levels of psychoform dissociation (e.g., feeling unreal, feeling distanced from yourself, having trouble remembering stressful experiences, not knowing who you are, or feeling fragmented), and almost one-third reported elevated levels of somatoform dissociation (e.g., experiencing headaches, difficulty moving, or other physical symptoms as a response to emotional stress).

Another major thing that immediately stood out from the data collected was how many participants had experienced interpersonal trauma (IPT; physical assault, sexual assault, or other unwanted or uncomfortable sexual experiences). After analyzing data from the 687 participants who filled out the trauma or posttraumatic stress questionnaires in the survey, my co-authors and I found that 72% of participants reported at least one of these experiences. IPT not only drastically increased the risk of experiencing both psychoform dissociation and somatoform dissociation, it also almost doubled the risk of meeting criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; 50% vs 28%). Cisgender women and gender minorities were more likely to experience sexual IPT and meet the criteria for PTSD compared to cisgender men. There were no significant differences between autistic people with versus without a formal autism spectrum disorder diagnosis.

If these findings are of interest to you, please check out our article published in Autism in Adulthood! It's currently free to access and will be at least through the end of April.

Thank you again to everyone who trusted us with your responses! Please reach out to me if you have any questions!

Wow! Very impressive! Great work, and thank you for that research on behalf of autistic adults with trauma.

I'm curious to know if I participated. I can't remember, but if I saw the appeal I likely would have.

Great work, I think we need more recognition of the prevalence of PTSD or similar stress disorders amongst autistics.

I don't think anyone has yet pinned down whether or not autism itself is a risk factor for PTSD or whether the PTSD is secondary to the adverse experiences we tend to have due to our differences.

I find that usually people blame an increased likelihood of adverse life experiences. However my personal opinion, after reading a lot about autistic differences in brain regions such as the amygdala and in cortisol levels, together with experiences of meltdowns and burnout, is that our neurology may make us inherently susceptibility to anxiety / stress disorders, including PTSD.

But nobody seems to be studying that.

Thank you both! It's a personally relevant topic for me as well. Thankfully, it seems to be getting more attention in autism and trauma research communities! There actually are a handful of studies suggesting that autism makes one more susceptible to a) experiencing trauma, b) experiencing greater amounts of stress and less ability to cope following trauma, and c) developing posttraumatic stress disorder as a result. In addition to possible susceptibility to stress, other potential risk factors for PTSD that can be associated with autism include lack of social support, alexithymia, and difficulty adjusting to new situations. I cited some of these studies in the Background section of the article if you want to check them out!

Aspies are hard to understand, have a hard time cooperating, and have fewer friends. This makes us targets. Anything strange can seem threatening, or just not worth bothering with. Because I don't have typical reactions, especially when stressed, I have learned to never call the Police without advice from another professional first. Such encounters can go very, very badly, as they assume the oddball is the bad guy, and uncooperative. Then, after the trauma, we have trouble resolving it all.

I agree with you. I was once approached at a local pub by an off duty policeman because I avoided eye contact with others there. Everyone else was drinking and I was not. He assumed that I was guilty of a crime, when I was simply working on a project on a piece of paper while waiting for my food order. He gave me the twenty questions routine to sort me out. I explained that I am very likely on the spectrum but he did not understand and kept at it. It bothered me a lot, so I left before I could get my food. I stopped going to that pub because of that incident. Lesson learned: I am too different to be around others in their world.

I know that I have PTSD issues from my past bullying attacks. I sometimes will remember things that I purposely tried to forget, usually in the middle of the night when I am sleeping. It is not a good thing to wake up screaming/crying about things that happened over thirty years ago. It cannot be fixed no matter what I do. I will live with that until the end.

Thanks for this study. Very interesting.

That was really interesting.

I was surprised by the demographics of your sample. There seems to be a big gap in ethnic representation and age representation. (I was diagnosed at the age of 56. ASD had not been invented when I was young.)

I think it's the latter.