Autism and CPTSD in adults: why they are often connected

This is for people trying to understand whether a child, partner, or loved one may be neurodivergent, and how certain patterns can overlap or be mistaken for something else.

Since a very young age, I have always been very curious. Well, I had to learn because my single mom, my brother and all the relatives around me were so busy with their own stuff. I had literally no one to show me the ropes, as they say. On the contrary, I was treated as if what I wanted to learn did not matter. What I was interested in had no significance.

All those confused and frustrated adults’ behaviors got me interested in why they were the way they were. By the age of 15, I had already gone through all the classic books by the world’s most famous authors. I spent every night contemplating why they were so angry, tired, hopeless, scared most of the time. I was comparing them to the characters of those books, finding similarities, trying to understand.

Then came young adulthood, several jobs I worked at, hundreds of co-workers I had by the age of 20. Then I joined the corporate life. Hiding my inner self. Still confused and clueless yet acting as if I got it all together. By that age and with that amount of complex people around me, figuring out human behavior became my lifeline.

I read whatever credible source I could get my hands on. I always had a very strong sense of knowing the truth about others, events, things to do or to avoid, before I colluded it with my thoughts and chose with my brain. Who I felt I was and how I wanted to act, talk, live was always hidden. I was taught the painful way that I should feel, act, talk and live in a way that would not bother others.

I understood that I was an annoyance and the cause of others’ suffering. Audacity to think, feel, say and do the things I wanted, had to be the biggest sin of all, the way an ungrateful, spoiled and selfish girl would act. I learned that I was to spend my life to make up to those I destroyed by mistakenly being born.

Heavy stuff, right? Now, fast forward to a time where all of these are left behind. All forgiven, including myself, seeing the value (or should I say the reason) of it all.

Living in survival mode forced me to observe and understand those around me because I did not have the luxury to keep getting hurt. I thought the way I felt pain was just like how everyone else felt it. Whenever I dared unmasked (or did not have the strength to do so) I was immediately put in my place, reminding me how sensitive and dramatic I was being. Only to learn 4 decades later that the way I was made did and does feel everything on a level that the majority cannot.

I lived in several different countries, met almost all sorts of human beings from all walks of life. Before a complete isolation hit me in my early 40s, I met and knew almost everyone wherever I had been, now try to contemplate this. I am not talking about saying “hi and bye”, I am talking about people being drawn to me and me ending up learning everything about them. From people who worked at stores I frequented to the neighbors I had. Spouse’s colleagues, friends of neighbors. When you live in different places and countries, especially in a military environment the diversity and the number of people really add up.

Do not get me wrong and also remember what I wrote in the previous paragraphs, I avoided my gut and went against it most of my life. This means, in most cases, it took me ages to understand most people’s true motives. Being someone who operates life completely differently and in a way that a 3-year-old does, I genuinely cared, trusted and loved others.

Throughout my life, among thousands of these people I knew inside and out, the only ones who did not take advantage of me in some way were the neurodivergent ones. Ones with down syndrome loved talking about a hobby they had or helped me with a chore. Autistic ones talked my ear off with facts about things I never even heard of. I was never asked for anything in return either. Regardless of their age, these individuals looked at me through their wide eyes which reflected aw, love and curiosity.

The Real Topic: Late/Misdiagnosed Autistic Women

Why have I been writing about myself here? Hang in there I am about to tie it all together. Well, the first reason is, to give you a background about me so have a general idea around what kind of a person I might be. Second, to give you a slight piece of mind to know, what I write does not come from someone who lived under a rock their entire life. Third, to reassure you that I am not a mental health professional who learned about human beings from books, is that ridiculous or what? Also, please know that I do respect the real mental health professionals who care and are curious and are always evolving. However, if you are a middle-aged person, who has lived in the western world and had your fair share of experiences with mental health pros, you damn sure know that the curious, evolving and deeply caring ones are unicorns.

The Misdiagnosis Epidemic

In the last decade, while almost all mental health pros were getting richer by the day, social media brought something to light. Gut-wrenching, terrible, heart-breaking fact that millions of women around the world spent their entire lives in excruciating agony without having a clue about the why.

If they were not gaslit by their families, partners, spouses, co-workers, those professionals took over and hit the last nail on countless wonderful women’s coffins.

I’ve gone through my quota. Most of my life, each agonizing day felt like a root canal without anesthetics.

Just as every good, useful thing has been abused by humans who have been searching for relief in places it exists the least, the frail voices of real women with real autism got taken over by the loud and attention-seeking ones.

The Overlap Between Autism and CPTSD

Meanwhile, the unicorn type of mental health professionals started sharing some invaluable research results and their own findings supporting their claim. The claim is that individuals with complex post-traumatic stress disorder display a shocking amount of similar behaviors and have overlapping traits with autistic people.

Having found out in my 40s that my own years of struggles and challenges were not because of insanity, a spoiled ungrateful girlyness or stupidity but because of a different pre-wiring in my brain, I went through the same levels of initiation as the rest of the fellow, late diagnosed women. Denial, an insatiable hunger for more information (and real proof since the official diagnoses still did not do it for many of us), a deep sadness and anger, seeing the traits in those who are in the closest circle and then days which feel semi-normal and the self-hatred subsided drastically.

The Crucial Difference

There is a major, easy to identify difference between a real autistic adult and someone with CPTSD. I should maybe say a trait. One important difference often discussed is intention and awareness. Autistic individuals may struggle socially or fail to read clues such as someone else’s distress. However, this does not come from a place of manipulation or deliberate harm. Trauma-related behaviors, however, can sometimes involve defensive or reactive patterns shaped by past experiences. If someone, regardless of your clear explanations and loving approach, shows no remorse, acts righteous and attacks back, that person is not autistic.

This may sound elusive and even dismissive to some, I understand that. In time, I strongly believe that science will prove this to be true. Individuals who display DARVO response (deny, attack, reverse victim then offender) when confronted hardly care about harmony and equality. Neurodivergent people also struggle with self regulation, show “extreme” reactions when warned, yelled at, accused or cornered. The key difference is, they are the ones who are fighting with themselves during those intense moments. They do not act from calculated responses. They do not “see” the other person/people as the “enemy” or the ones who need to get destroyed by personal attacks or manipulation. Differentiation and correct, as well as updated diagnosis tools are still not here. When mental health professional finally have a thorough personality test with some challenging scenarios to identify an individual’s true values as well as their core essence, we will then have more accurate diagnosis.

You might argue, saying nasty behavior standards/definition change and with that I agree but when a grown-up person, an adult after the age of 16 (someone’s core character is set by this age) still acts like a toddler, only cares about themselves, show no real interest in taking accountability for their hurtful, condescending, thoughtless and uncaring treatment of their closest ones and their behaviors (not shallow promises or an unwillingly uttered sorry) show no true intention in changing themselves, you have the internationally accepted description of a manipulator.

Depending on their level of trauma they experienced in childhood, the variety and methods of how they punish (basically lashing out and full-blown projection) their loved ones will depend and change from person to person. Culture, environment and their own lifestyle can also cause differences.

One thing will remain the same, if someone is consciously being a poison to have around, you’ve got yourself a person who keeps choosing themselves and do not care about reciprocity. But wait a minute, does this mean I am berating those with CPTSD? Yes and no. The ones who seek help and really work on it through their actions are off the radar here. I am talking about the ones who know very well that they have issues yet every single day, they choose to do nothing about it. It is always someone else or something else that makes them miserable. They have no clue why? They are helpless and oh so sad. These are all their disguised methods of seeking attention and their childish expectation of everything and everyone changing to cater their never satisfied minds. Autism and ADHD have others’ sympathy, well not really but compared to bipolar or schizophrenic or narcissist, it is a “tag” they are ready to hide behind.

Since they are after all the attention they can get while they now can have an excuse to hurt others, why not?

Spiritual Insights

Autistic individuals and individuals with Down syndrome are born with their connections to their true selves way less hidden than neurotypical ones. Neurotypicals are born with complete dementia, meaning, the truth about where they come from and who they really are is entirely erased from their minds. Autistic individuals, on the other hand, often retain a strong connection to their inner selves and the truth of their existence. A true neurodivergent person is childlike. Regardless of their age, they are naïve, caring and kind. They hate lies and they can not lie about important things.

Almost every single adult is capable of white lies. These white lies still makes an autistic adult cringe but they know the difference between lies that do not hurt others and the malicious ones. Autistic adults (mostly the ones who need less support to live independent lies) use white lies.

An ND’s “motives” are always different. They want to navigate life, not use other people as stepping stones. ND adults love harmony and peace. They despise confrontation, arguments, unkind and hurtful behaviors towards every single thing. ND people care about humans, animals, nature, science and love in a way that is foreign to the majority of human population. Individuals who are so very blessed not to have sensory issues and developmental challenges, for some reason, use lying to hurt, manipulate people for their own selfish gains. What is known as “mind fuckery” in slang is not in an ND person’s wheelhouse.

True neurodivergent people are the truth and harmony seekers of this world. While most people choose to be obnoxiously loud about how they want love, truth, kindness and lie under their breath about how much they care about this or that, they almost never take accountability. When given true love they abuse it. When shown kindness they demand more of it without even thinking about returning it. They only react to others’ lies which keep their greedy wants from them. They keep saying they want the truth but when ND’s give them the truth, they get angry and say “No! I want an alternative truth”. They are the oblivious ones, throwing the real tantrums.

When an ND gets overwhelmed by the piled up bullshit and cruelty thrown at them and have a meltdown, people with a different agenda, shamelessly call it a tantrum.

True neurodivergent people are created with their senses way more strong than an average neurotypical. And since every single thing on this planet earth is made mostly for a typical person, they do not want to adjust things for ND population and just make them the bad ones when they cannot deal with it.

Is this whole article and the facts I am sharing to create polarization or generate hatred? Absolutely not. Those who have been looking for a reason to express more hatred will definitely find it but they are so good at doing it with almost everything anyways.

This article is for the open minds and hearts. For those of you, who have been after the truth with the sole intention of learning and the motivation to do anything in your power to change the wrongs for the benefit of the whole.

The Science Behind Autism and CPTSD

Research shows that there is a significant overlap between the symptoms of autism and CPTSD. Both conditions can involve difficulties with social interaction, sensory sensitivities, and emotional regulation. However, it is essential to recognize the differences between the two to avoid misdiagnosis and ensure appropriate treatment.

According to a study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, approximately 50-70% of autistic individuals also have co-occurring mental health conditions, including PTSD. This overlap can make it challenging to differentiate between autism and CPTSD, leading to misdiagnosis and inadequate support for those affected.

The Path to Healing

How did I come to learn the difference? You offer them help, you do everything in your power to direct them to the right path yet you end up being called the “problem” (gaslighting at its best) and they pick up from where they exactly left it. Now, sleep with one eye open cause you have just entered their blacklist. They resent you for showing them where their wound is.

A person who honestly wants to heal a wound, a wound they could not find/see before your help, runs to the medicine cabinet without losing any more time to take care of it while being truly grateful and appreciative that you are in their life.

Conclusion

It is crucial for mental health professionals to accurately differentiate between autism and CPTSD to provide appropriate support and treatment. Misdiagnosis can lead to unnecessary suffering and prevent individuals from receiving the help they need. By raising awareness about the similarities and differences between these conditions, we can work towards a more inclusive and understanding society for all.

Just to summarize for a final mental clarity, you can refer to the list below;

• Autism: lifelong pattern, present since early childhood
• CPTSD: develops after prolonged trauma
• Autism: differences in communication and sensory processing
• CPTSD: hypervigilance, fear-based reactions, emotional flashbacks

Related: Why do I feel like a failure even when I try?

Humanity spent a ridiculous amount of time getting offended by reality and asking for alternative truths.

The answers are not only in labs and statistics. There is no more excuse now in the age of instantaneous communication.

True love is not a gas station bouquet. Kindness is not donating money while making sure that someone is recording. Truth is not your ego’s favorite sentence that you need to hear others say it.

If this resonates, you are not imagining it. These patterns are more common than people realize.