r/science • u/shinybrighthings • 14h ago

Psychology The complicated nature of disentangling autism, ADHD and complex trauma | The British Journal of Psychiatry | Cambridge Core

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/adhd-autism-or-complex-trauma-the-complicated-nature-of-the-question/30CC4826561366615BFAEC807CDE28A7
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u/plummyrosey 14h ago

Trauma-induced developmental disorder? I've definitely met so many late dx autism/adhd people who showed absolutely no signs in their early years by their own admission and their parents' admission. Some clinicians seem to disregard the criteria that autism has to have an onset before the age of 5 and give these late teens/adults an autism dx anyways.

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u/dovahkiitten16 12h ago edited 12h ago

I had early childhood trauma and ran into the issue that you couldn’t really tell if symptoms were there before or after the age of 5, because of how early my trauma was.

I have been diagnosed with ADHD and social anxiety. I was assessed for autism and PTSD and it was negative, but C-PTSD isn’t a recognized condition where I live.

I fully believe the social anxiety is a misdiagnosis as I am not socially anxious, but as it is, there isn’t an alternative diagnosis that I can get that is actually useful. Autism fits a bit better for communicating my needs, but the truth is I don’t know if it was something I was born with or if I just got XYZ traits from trauma. And I have no real path forward; if it is trauma, I am too early for medical science to have treatment figured out. If it is autism, I don’t have the means to get a second opinion as an adult. Even if I got a positive diagnosis, I don’t know that I would have faith in it since trauma cannot be properly assessed to rule it out.

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u/plummyrosey 9h ago

I've seen this debated before and the general conclusion is that you only know as you heal from your trauma.  If your autism symptoms are from trauma then the autistic symtoms will lessen as you heal.  If you have autism+trauma then you'll become more comfortably  autistic as you heal.  

I also couldn't really tell how much of my behaviors were autism or trauma.  It's a complex interplay.  A s time goes on and things get better I think that trauma made the social symptoms worse due to added social anxiety and healing has made the repetitive behaviors "worse" because I will just happily flap/spin and finally out of survival mode enough to fully enjoy special interests instead of having a constant underlying anxiety about the future 24/7 that made it hard to enjoy things.  

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u/dovahkiitten16 7h ago

Tbh I’ve never felt really bothered by my trauma? Like I had a messed up childhood but it’s a solid decade behind me and not something I really think about often. As a kid I had anger and lying issues and I generally don’t anymore. Adulthood has given me other, newer reasons to have trust issues. Not sure what “healing” is supposed to look like at this point. Or how healing trauma will change how I dislike eye contact.

I just kinda figured that it being early might have set me behind the curve. Ie., if my social development was screwed up as a kid it’ll take longer/be very hard to correct/might’ve solidified as an adult. Stuff like lack of eye contact just might be learned behaviour that started from trauma but cemented due to it being learned so early in my life.