In this episode I talk about trauma and post traumatic stress (PTSD) and explore the different ways they may overlap with autism. This is Part 1 of a series where I will cover a variety of topics that can fall under this umbrella.
In this episode I talk about trauma and post traumatic stress (PTSD) and explore the different ways they may overlap with autism. This is Part 1 of a series where I will cover a variety of topics that can fall under this umbrella.
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Hello, and welcome to the autism in real life podcast. In each episode, you'll get practical strategies by taking your journey into the joys and challenges of life with autism. I'm your host, Ilia Walsh, and I'm an educator and the parent of two young adults, one of which is on the autism spectrum. Join me as I share my experience and the experiences of others. So that we may see the unique gifts and talents of individuals on the autism spectrum, fully recognized.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome. This is Ilia with the spectrum Strategy Group again, and I wanted to talk a little bit today about trauma and autism. And so this is a topic that seems to be coming up often, in a lot of conversations that I'm having. And, you know, it's interesting, I am currently taking a yoga teacher training that is trauma informed yoga. So, and in my training there, I was starting to see so many overlaps. And, and my interest in taking the teacher training was because I was listening and talking to so many adults who talk about some of their experiences, especially during childhood, in school, and in their in family settings, and in social situations, where they are events that have you been in and have had a huge impact in their lives. And so, you know, really are traumatic events for them. And I think we all can resonate with some of that, I think for sure. But as I was taking my mic course, one of the things we talked about, just like I kind of do the breakdown of the diagnostic criteria for autism in in an earlier podcast during my mini course. They, they in my vein, meaning my teachers had a sort of a breakdown of a PTSD diagnosis. And so that's, you know, the post traumatic stress disorder diagnosis, as most of you know, I don't like the word disorder, but that is how it is listed in in the box for the purposes of assessment. But you know, and again, I want to preface this by saying I am not a clinician, but again, my interest and my experience in working with people has led me down the path of sort of the studies. And so I like to try and share them in the best way that I can. But what's great is I will have some clinicians podcasting with me in the next week, and so I'll be able to bring you a clinicians perspective, and some people who have been working specifically with trauma and, and autism, and particularly PTSD and autism, so, but I just want to kind of set that conversation up a little bit. And, you know, so if I go, when I when I was learning in my class, the, the diagnosis criteria, so there's, it seems like there's four different parts, actually five different parts to it, so A through E. But if we look at each of them, you know, I'm curious, as you're listening to this, if you had the same experience that I had, which, you know, exposure to trauma is the first criteria. So criteria a, and that is, you know, exposure to actual or threatened death or serious injury or sexual violence. So that is by and here's sort of a subset again, there's always the subsets, exposure to these things by directly experiencing the traumatic event witnessing the traumatic event to someone else, learning of a violent or accidental trauma occurring to a family member or friend, experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to traumatic events other than media exposure. And so when I when I think about that, and then I know it says other than media exposure, but I think that has its own component as well, just in my experience, personally. And also just from what we're seeing, I think now during this time, so if I look at just those pieces, you know, we start looking at Wow, that's that's, that's a pretty wide audience of people who you know, I would say meet criteria a for exposure to trauma. And then if we move into criteria B, which is intrusion symptoms, so this is where it starts to create into your day to day life as I, as I have, I have I come to understand it. Um, so in the this subset here is recurring distressing memories of, of the trauma, recurring distressing trauma, nightmares, dissociative reactions, and that is feeling or acting as if trauma is recurring, you know, so having flashbacks, intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that represent the traumatic event. So, you know, here I feel like we're talking about, it could be a smell, it could be an image,
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you know, it could be a sound, you know, and then the last kind of sub bullet here is psychological reactions to internal or external cues that represent the traumatic event. So it's not just the external ones, but also what's happening internally as well. So memories, again, maybe, you know, triggered by a smell, or a sight, or sound. And, you know, so if we put all of these together, again, it's not that you have to have, you know, all of them, you have to have at least one or more of these. And then if we keep going, and again, as you're listening to this, if you've experienced or are experiencing some of this, or have students or children that are experiencing some of this, you know, I'm going to talk a little bit about that in a minute. But again, so here's criteria C, and this is avoidance symptoms. And again, you need to have, you know, one, or both. So this is persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, including efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, feelings, about the traumatic event, and efforts to avoid external reminders such as people, places, conversations, activities, objects, situations that arouse distressing memories, thoughts or feelings associated with the traumatic event. So I get this avoidance piece. So, you know, again, you know, as I'm gonna pause here, before I get to criteria D, and E. But as we look at just these couple of things, I'm have one strong feeling about those who have school anxiety, where we might call it school anxiety, or school avoidance. But if something has happened at school that is traumatic for a student. And now we have all of these pieces falling into place. Right? And, and it feels like, yeah, so if there was a traumatic event that happened at school, and then a particular sound or a particular item, you know, maybe it's a homework assignment, maybe it's a notebook, maybe it's a tool that's used during class now creates a heightened sense of anxiety, and maybe there's nightmares involved. And then we move into that last piece where it's, well, now I'm just going to avoid any of that, I don't want to go to school, I don't want to be with that teacher, I don't want anything to do with that particular tool I use for learning. So, you know, I find that this is this is having a very strong impact for me in some of what we might see with our kids at school, and that's just one component here. And I haven't gotten into some of the others but but let's look at the other criteria here for PTSD. criteria, D is negative changes in thoughts and moods. So have to have at least two of these, these particular sub bullets here, so it's the inability to remember important aspects of the trauma. So maybe you can't completely explain, you know, important pieces of it. And or any pieces of it, exaggerated negative beliefs about yourself, or others, or the world in general. So I'm a bad person, no one can be trusted, the world is a very dangerous place. And so those are kind of the thoughts and beliefs that might go with this. The other is distorted thoughts about the cause or consequences of the trauma so there's self blame or blaming others, persistent negative emotions, so there's a lot of fear or horror or anger, guilt, shame, and then diminished interest or participation in significant events. So, you know, sometimes we see some of this and it also could look a little bit like anxiety or depression. And of course, these all go hand in hand, sometimes. So, um, so diminished interest or participation in significant event. It could be because all of the things that we just talked about before that right In all the other criteria, and then the last couple here is feeling detached or strange from others feeling like you don't belong or fit in, and then inability to experience positive emotions like happiness, satisfaction, or love, or loving feelings, and joy. So, if we think, again, let's layer this over, what some of our, our kids or our self experience, experiences are, this can be significantly, you know, challenging. And so we might see I, you know, thinking about people that I've worked with,
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and you might hear some of this language, you know, so I'm bad, I can't, no one can be trusted out there. The world is a dangerous place, you know, always blaming myself for maybe blaming others. So all of these pieces here, I have firsthand witnessed with people that I've worked with, whether it's a student or an adult. And so, you know, it's really hitting home for me that many of our folks with autism experience pts, you know, post traumatic stress on a on a very regular basis. And then, you know, the last criteria here is hyper arousal. And so the category is arousal and reactivity. And, you know, so what we might see is irritable behavior, angry outbursts, reckless or self destructive behavior, hyper vigilance. I also, you know, that's, that's a new word. For me, I tend to do this a little bit myself. But I would say it's sort of being always on alert. So always kind of being very aware of your surroundings, and sometimes over trying to pre anticipate what might be happening. Another piece is a exaggerated startle response, and then problems with concentration. And then we have sleep disturbance, so trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or restless sleep. So when we look at, and I know when I first looked at that, and I'm thankful to my, my teacher training teachers, so I'm attending my class at the mindful yoga therapy school, and they have kind of did these, these, this outline of the DSM criteria for PTSD. So I'm thankful to them for that information in this much simplified way. So I figured I wanted to share it with you all, because if we look at all of those pieces, I was very struck by how much this this can, you know, helps, I don't wanna say define, because I think that's to generalize of a statement. But you know, when I hear all of these pieces, I, I've experienced, again, working with so many students who demonstrate some of these behaviors, or have told me a lot of these pieces. And so now, it makes me really curious as to why and I don't, I don't necessarily think it's just about, you know, a particular traumatic event, necessarily, while I do think that that can happen. So is there a particular traumatic event that happens in school, you know, maybe something happened with a particular teacher, or maybe there was bullying involved. Maybe there was, you know, pushing and so therefore, there's some sort of assault involved. So yes, all of those things, we would see as maybe a direct, you know, a direct exposure. But when we talk about the piece of criteria, where it can be something that is witnessed that is happening to someone else, or learning of a particular event, or that happened to someone else that they know, or in their family, or that they care about, you know, this, this is a super interesting concept, because we also know that many people with autism have some challenges and struggles with social cues and social, you know, what's happening around them socially, we also know that there are some sensory sensitivities around their environment. And then if we talk about that other sense, which is the interoception piece about their internal kind of workings and being able to recognize what their bodily needs are, and again, I kind of talked about some of this stuff in previous podcasts. If some of those things are you know, particularly heightened, and, you know, really hyper aware. I mean, Clint those things, you know, I'm wondering, could those things be considered, you know, traumatic events for many people. And again, I'm I've say this in the content context of working with an autistic community, but that doesn't necessarily fall just for people who have autism. So,
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you know, I really think about what what the implications there are, and how we need to, you know, think about how some of the responses those we work with may have, or our children might have, if, again, if we go into those last ones with, you know, sleep issues, and outbursts, and irritable behavior, and, you know, being self destructive, I wonder if some of that is because they're having, what, what it is basically post traumatic stress. And I don't think we know for certain, and what I'm hoping to gain from my conversation in the, you know, this week in the future with a couple folks who have written a book on autism, and PTSD, that they can help shed some light on that. And, and I think, you know, some of my work with taking this particular program that I'm in now, I am learning how important developing that toolkit that I keep talking about, I call it that dynamic toolkit, how developing that toolkit can be so important. And so the areas that we are focusing on in that program is, you know, breath. And so I've started as if some of you can find it on Facebook, or Instagram, some breathwork exercises, and then meditation, and then movement. And so really using those three tools, that we can really help to settle the nervous system a little bit, and balance it out. And, and if we can mitigate a lot of that, or lessen a lot of that, you know, then we can kind of improve that sleep, improve that hyper responsivity, and the hyper vigilance piece and a lot of these other things that, you know, I've talked about already. So I am very excited to continue my own training and my own work, so I can bring that all to you. But I am also curious about what your thoughts are around, you know, trauma and autism and what your experiences have been, whether they're personal, as an educator, as a parent, or clinician, I'd really love to start a dialogue around that. So feel free to email me, message me. And, you know, definitely I want to get this conversation started. And continued, because I think if we can help with some of these pieces, and you know, the other thing I think about is a couple things. One, as parents, you know, we do, experience, you know, I i've talked generically about anxiety and stress, but, but again, we experience a lot of these things ourselves, as parents, as educators, we may experience some of these things, especially working with students who have particularly heightened needs. So again, we have to think about that. And also, during this time of, you know, uncertainty, I know that's a really overused phrase, and I apologize for it, but it's true. It we are in a place right now of a lot of anxiety and heightened anxiety. And also, you know, depending on how much media we consume, though, not necessarily part of his criteria. Again, are we experiencing a lot of, you know, this negative feedback and input. And so we need to think about how that might also be affecting our well being. And I think, you know, these tools of breath, and meditation, and movement can be really helpful. And I actually saw
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another piece the other day on LinkedIn, and maybe I will repost it if I can find it. And it talked about all of the ways that we can increase all of the feel good hormones and build our endorphins and dopamine and serotonin levels. And almost all of them included, all of the different strategies included exercise, and included meditation. And so when we look at that, again, we go, oh, maybe this is something we need to pay a little more attention to and myself included, and so As I learn more information and I build the toolkit, I will definitely share all of that with you, as you all know about strategies and implementing different tools for different people all based on what works with for you at that given time. So definitely please, if you have a tool that you use, or if you have a story you'd like to share or some thought, you know, or some just response to, you know what we'll be talking about. Over the next couple weeks. Please, please share with me, I would love to hear from you. So with that I will talk to you all soon and take care. Thanks for listening to autism in real life. This is Ilia Walsh. And if you like the show, please hit subscribe so you can get notified each time a new episode is released. I also offer training consultations and parent coaching. I would love to help you in any way that I can. You can check out my offerings at the spectrum strategy calm and when you join my email list. You can get a code to receive a discount off of an online class or a coaching session. Looking forward to hearing from you. Take care and see you next time.
Transcription autogenerated by https://otter.ai