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Understanding Autistic Identity Trauma
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PTSD/CPTSD

Trauma is everywhere, and once you learn to see it, you can't unsee it.
When you’re exposed to an event that’s so distressing that you can’t emotionally process, it you develop trauma. Untreated, unhealed trauma can turn into PTSD.
When you’re exposed to a prolonged period of feeling unsafe where you can’t control it, you develop complex trauma. Untreated, complex trauma can turn into CPTSD.
These conditions are slightly different in terms of how they present. With PTSD, exposure to a trigger can cause a flashback—this means your body feels like it did during the traumatic event. This flashback can be associated with memories of the event.
With CPTSD, the flashbacks are more nuanced. Because there’s not a specific concrete event to attach the memory to, your body is flashing back to the emotional state you lived in while you weren’t safe. This can be really scary.
In either case, flashbacks can inhibit your ability to utilize your higher brain functions. You may speak and act in ways that you’d never choose to speak and act. You may enter fight-or-flight(-or-freeze-or-fawn) mode, where your behavior and actions are dictated by your primary trauma response. Your heart speeds up, you sweat, you’re afraid and anxious and you can’t quite think straight. You have a vague sense of impending doom and nothing you do can stop it.
This experience is horrific, and the more you come to understand trauma the more you understand how many people in the world are simply living out their trauma and reacting to life rather than self actualizing and responding to it.
The good news is that most trauma can be healed. You can’t make it so that the bad things never happened, but you can take away the trauma’s ability to harm you. See some of these resources to learn how.
Trauma Resources
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Link
Notes
Type
1
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Complex PTSD: From Suriving to Thriving by Pete Walker
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This book put me on the path towards healing. Written in the early 90s, the author gets a few things wrong about neurodiversity (no, ADHD is NOT a trauma response, though avoidant behavior can be) but offers a rich and productive model for engaging with complex PTSD. Walker’s work has helped me to heal a ton of my damage.
Book
2
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On Trauma
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An essay I wrote talking about trauma and how to address it.
Essay
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Neurodiversity and Trauma
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An essay I wrote that talks about the ways that neurodivergent life can be actively traumatizing for neurodivergent people. This essay specifically comes from an Autistic/ADHD experience.
Essay
4
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myptsd.com
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This is a forum for people with PTSD.
Website
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https://dyslexia.ucsf.edu/ucsf-ucb-schwab
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A center that does research, education, advocacy and outreach, and clinical work.
Website
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https://www.uchastings.edu/people/andrea-lollini/
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Information on someone who is interested in the intersection of law and neurodiversity.
Website
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https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/neurodiversity-at-work_2018_tcm18-37852.pdf
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An (albeit flawed) introduction to neurodiversity in a professional context. PDF download.
Essay
8
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https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/8081
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Provides coping skills for feeling feelings and navigating overwhelming moments as well as with living everyday life.
Book
9
talk2mai.com
This is to connect online for peer support
Website
10
https://roseyrebecca.com
A blog written by Rebecca Rose, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman who shares firsthand experiences and resources for living with her brain and brains like hers.
Blog
11
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https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-Myself-Dark-Journal-Neurodivergent-ebook/dp/B0CLH6B5MP
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A guided shadow work journal with over 100 writing prompts specifically tailored for Neurodivergents, by a Neurodivergent author. Shadow work is the process of getting to know the hidden parts of yourself—thoughts, emotions, behaviours and parts of your personality that you’ve repressed because you were taught that they were undesirable or because of trauma. By bringing these hidden aspects to light, you get to understand yourself better and work towards self-acceptance.
Book
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Trauma Social Media Accounts
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Link
notes
platform
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@mykola
Yours truly! Twitter is a great place to find me, I’m active here every day.
Twitter
2
@ArtieCarden_
Writer with multiple neurodivergent dx, also trans/nonbinary, queer, and multiply disabled in other ways. Talking about the intersections of these realities and how they all connect and crash.
Twitter
3
@E_steinbach
Positive behavior intervention for neurodivergency, trauma and disability. Content for individuals and caregivers of individuals.
Twitter
4
@meghasomething
“I think I’m pretty great and have interesting thoughts and infodumps. More seriously, I am a late diagnosed AuDHDer [autistic and ADHD] who is trained as an ADHD coach. I Tweet a lot about my experiences and realizations. It’s not an option in the neurotypes, but I’m also dyspraxic. Sometimes I talk about being a dyspraxic aerialist and how I do movement things I like while being clinically uncoordinated.”
Twitter
5
@Adhd2epro
They write about neurodiversity from a scientific standpoint as well as from personal experience.
Twitter
6
@divergentemerge
Neurodivergent woman in tech designing access rider building tools to promote access and inclusion for neurokin in screen and media sector.
Twitter
7
@Vjapples
Neurodivergent artist, poet, and parent.
Twitter
8
@joshsusser
Editor of The Autistic Infodump
@autistic_info
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. Late-dx Autistic, ADHD, queer, compunerd. Tweets are eclectic but plenty of ND content. Sorry about the puns.
Twitter
9
@lediva
“I'm neurodivergent (diagnosed with cPTSD a year ago, on top of an existing diagnosis of severe depression). And also I've been spending a lot of time and effort lately thinking about the most efficient ways to accomplish clear and complete communication, including starting my own social media site dedicated to exploring and promoting that idea not just by cultural norms on my server, but by developing tech to help ‘nudge’ people towards generally good behavior with each other.”
Twitter
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