Autistic Trauma: What It Is and How to Help - Marcy Willard PhD
marcywillardphd.com
A new understanding of autistic trauma has emerged in the research. Dr. Tasha Oswald's presentation on autistic trauma at a recent conference provided invaluable insights into the often-overlooked experiences of autistic individuals. As a psychologist in the autism field, I was struck by her emphasis on moving beyond the medical model and embracing a neurodiversity-affirming approach. Here’s a look at the recent research on autistic trauma treatment, based on the important work of Dr. Oswald.

So I’ve been thinking about how unhinged I’ve been over the past several months around employment and society, and I’m wondering if I’m having a trauma reaction from all the bad times I’ve had with employment.

I’ve been fired from I’d say half the jobs I’ve ever had. In my chosen field and trained field, I have never once had a job I looked forward to going to. My last job experience was really, really, horrible, despite having an advanced degree and a language skill, I was kept making coffee because I didn’t cajole and get along with the power structure and made the mistake of publically criticizing.

It’s hard for me to even write about without getting upset, yet, if I want to make a living, I have to keep applying to these jobs for which I keep bombing the interview, for which, if I ever get the job, I will probably have to deal with unethical egotistical backstabbing morons every day until I get fired or rage quit (like the last job).

In the meantime, I can’t go to therapy, because therapy is the field I’m in and I’d estimate the percentage of therapists who can actually talk to me without immediately getting defensive is about 1%, which throws me back to the Daniel Mackler quote, “It is easier to become a good therapist than to find one,” which leads me here because I’m wondering what:

a) experiences y’all have had for autistic burnout and
b) anything you tried to help you through it and
c) any resources you’d find helpful.

I also think that I’m sour on employment specifically because it is basically the ony time I’m forced to interact with people on a regular basis, which makes me think autism might be the key to this current trauma. I’ve tried socializing in meetups and other venues, and it always fizzled, but it never ends horribly the way work does.

  • jellohound420@piefed.socialEnglish
    8·
    6 days ago

    I mean yeah. Being autistic makes work a living hell even when the job itself is fine because you have to go back to a place where you have to act like people don’t hate you from the moment they look at you on some primal level that they aren’t even aware of, and have to ignore the fact that every word that comes out of your mouth grates against other people on some visceral level. It’s straight up to the point where people will slam the door when they hear my voice (and one time I got told that that wasn’t the case when I wasn’t even thinking about anything with regards to that which shows that people tell on themselves…) Hobby groups and meetups tend to be more neurodivergent-friendly by design, since it’s not socialization that comes with your daily routine, and in my experience even allistic people tend to view us a little bit more favorably if it’s through a shared interest in which we have some level of competence or knowledge. I tend to try and be very reserved around coworkers since I know that anything I say can and will be used against me. If I tell other people about it, then they say that I’m being dramatic and that I can’t prove that my coworkers hate me. But this has been my experience in every work situation I’ve ever been in. I know that there are some workplaces that are more autistic friendly and that remote work is often better but unfortunately I’ve worked almost all front-facing jobs in my lifetime. I literally got to the point where I went on SSRIs just to cope with it (they’re only kind of helpful and have side effects).

    I know that experiences can vary and all but I’ve also personally not found therapy, not even neurodivergent-affirming therapy, to be very helpful. I found it meandering and felt like I was misunderstood. I think that if I worked with an autistic-informed trauma therapist, then I might stand a chance, but I feel like the intersection of trauma and autism is not well understood. The autism-informed therapists that I had used a ‘combination of modalities’ but it seemed like it was mostly just talk therapy. I am interested in Somatic Experiencing, but I think it would have to be heavily modified for it to work for me since in spite of being emotionally dysregulated and very angry and resentful due to trauma, I also have alexithymia to a certain extent when it comes to other emotions. I want to believe that there’s some form of therapy out there somewhere that can do something for me.

    As for burnout, I was in previous jobs and just forced myself through anyway, which just made my mental illness worse in the long run. Probably inadvisable. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have. I had the resources such that I didn’t have to. But now that’s probably what I would actually have to do.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOP
      5·
      6 days ago

      I feel more ignored, sometimes tolerated, sometimes disrespected, but when you’re at a job that kinda sucks and doesn’t pay anything, all you’re thinking about is getting a promotion or transfer that is never gonna come. My last job’s inciting incident was being treated with open contempt by someone outside my department, then complete dismissal by the person (who I thought was a friend) who should have been protecting me. But that place is like game of fucking thrones, always sucking up to power, and backing me up would have meant standing up to the power structure, so of course she totally fucking caved.

      I’m pretty sparse on special interests, most of my meetups were general interest-type groups, and they were entirely a wash. I think it’s funny that a therapist would just encourage me to go out and meet people and they didn’t have anyhting to say when I told them that I went to multiple weekly meetups for over a year without making a single friend or connection.

      Your taking SSRIs to deal with a horrible situation in reality is textbook why-I-hate-the-field. There’s nothing wrong with you! It’s the system you’re forced to live under that’s the problem, and if you’re depressed, it’s a perfectly natural reaction to knowing from experience that you’re likely to be hated for 40+ hours every week of your life!

      Anyway, I feel like I wouldn’t have needed therapy if I could figure out how to make enough money to live on without exposing myself to misery, and no amount of therapy has ever helped me with that, so all therapy ever did was waste my time and mislocate all the blame for my problems on me.

      I also tried a public job coach, but they are used to dealing with people who are intellectually disabled, so that’s how the approached my case.

      I encourage you to keep trying things, though, with or without a therapist. I wish I could do cool stuff like IFS or Jungian shit, but my brain is just on lockdown mode all the time. I can’t generate anything to work with and barely remember my childhood. The only thing I ight help is going on a walkabout in the woods and just leaving everythign behind, but I’m pretty addicted to the internet.