Please note: this blog post is about trauma. I do not go into detail about the types of trauma, rather, I list examples of what trauma could ‘look like’ or ‘feel like’ for an autistic person. My writing is a personal summary of the book “Trauma, Stigma and Autism: Developing resilience and loosening the grip of shame. By Gordon Gates. Counsellor. Autistic person and Social Worker. It is also written, in part, from 1st person ‘lived experience’.

I have experienced trauma. The physical trauma of being knocked unconscious in a moving car whilst it rolled 3 or 4 times into the bush. It was 2012. February. I cant believe this month it is 10 years since that day. I remember so much about that day. Before and immediately after the car rollover. Pictures flash through my mind. The feeling, the shock, the realisation I had ‘survived’ a car accident. That my boys were alive. It took time. Days, months, even years to come to terms with what happened. For many months, all I could think about was ‘what if’? What if a car was coming the other way? What if it was a truck? What if we’d hit a tree instead? What if no one drove past and called the ambulance for us?

A few years had gone by and I thought we were doing ok. Our lives were getting back on track. Normality had returned. What is interesting, is that even though I thought I was ok… (I mean, my physical injuries had gone -bruising, seat belt mark, trauma to my fingers), I was diagnosed with anxiety and joint hypermobility 4 years later, fibromyalgia 5 years late, and autonomic dysfunction 7 years later, after the accident. Now, I am not attributing all of these diagnoses post-accident on the car accident (although I highly suspect it was a major contributing factor), rather, I am highlighting how the body remembers trauma. It becomes part of our sub-conscious. We push it down, we try to forget, we move on… We say ‘I am okay’, but really, our bodies are not.

I did not receive any form of trauma-counselling after the car accident. Nor did any health professional suggest that maybe support would help me process what had happened, or that maybe strategies such as mindfulness and self-acceptance would help in my recovery journey.

How, then, does this relate to trauma experienced by an autistic person?

Gordon Gate delves into the different types of trauma, before he discusses trauma, stigma, and autism. The type of trauma I experienced from the car rollover was ‘shock’ trauma. A type of physical trauma. Autistic individuals may experience this type of trauma, however, it is ‘developmental’ trauma that most of us can relate to. What I realise now, is that, I have actually experienced both ‘shock’ and ‘developmental’ trauma.

Developmental trauma is the type of trauma that stems from stigmatisation. Stigma is actually a form of invalidation trauma. Why? Because all the stereotyping, discrimination, intolerance, indifference, rejection, judgement, or exclusion we may feel is a direct attack on our autistic identity. Stigma is an invalidation of our humanity, and of our neuro-difference.

I became aware that I am autistic at age 45. That’s about half my life feeling like there was something wrong with me. Not to mention all the years of trauma building up, compounded by the physical, emotional and mental trauma of the car accident. Aah… (the song “I can see clearly now the rain has gone…” just entered my head!), now, upon reflection, it all begins to make sense. Acknowledging all that has happened in your life is part of the recovery process.

Why the tree analogy?

In the image I created, the tree symbolises many things. We see the impact of trauma, constantly fed by stigma, seeping down into the roots, down in the depth of our suffering. However, above, a tree grows. It grows branches… ways that we can help ourselves in our recovery from trauma, one branch at a time. The more branches we grow, the more validating our experience becomes. IN-V.E.S.T in yourself. You are 100% worth it. You are a survivor. The branches are some examples of ways that we can help ourselves in our recovery from trauma.

Everyone’s experience of trauma is unique to them. We cannot change the past, but we can learn, through IN-VEST-ing in ourselves, how we can make a difference to our lives as we move forward.

Nat x

Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist or counsellor. I have a BA Psychology and an interest in supporting autistic women through their autism journey.