About autism and dissociative disorders

Hi everyone =)

ViTheta's question on this topic made me think about a few resources on autism and dissociation I have gathered.

There are two videos from the CTAD clinic, and a chapter of a book shared by it's authors. Note that the guest of the CTAD clinic is also one of the authors of the chapter, and the creator of the website "did-research", and also have a page on their website dedicated to neurodevelopmental disorders and dissociation.

-> video - autism and dissociation part 1
-> video - autism and dissociation part 2
-> chapter - Dissociation in Autism Spectrum Disorder
-> did-research - Comorbidity - Neurodevelopmental Disorders

If you have other resources, feel free to share!

Thank both you and Arbremonde.

The videos were incredibly helpful.

Dwelt wrote:Hi everyone =)

ViTheta's question on this topic made me think about a few resources on autism and dissociation I have gathered.

There are two videos from the CTAD clinic, and a chapter of a book shared by it's authors. Note that the guest of the CTAD clinic is also one of the authors of the chapter, and the creator of the website "did-research", and also have a page on their website dedicated to neurodevelopmental disorders and dissociation.

-> video - autism and dissociation part 1
-> video - autism and dissociation part 2
-> chapter - [url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication
-> did-research - Comorbidity - Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Hi Dwelt

The chapter had an interesting quote

" Masking. Stigma and internalized shame cause many autistic individuals to try to
camouflage or “mask” their autistic traits. They may copy neurotypical individuals’ speech,
dress, body language, and facial expressions as well as try to hide their reactions to
overwhelming or aversive sensory stimuli in an attempt to be accepted by others. Masking
can contribute to feeling disconnected from or confused about one’s true self"

If there is somehow a natural instinct in more intelluctually-able autistic (purely because lower functioning/more severely learning disabled may not have an awareness they are being made fun of by others) to mimic others to avoid bullying and such then the jump to 'creating an entirely different persona/alter' to deal with some situations is not such a large leap?

Then of course the more persona's that are created to cope with life the less the autistic person feels they know which is their 'true self' over the years. In this context it suggests there is a 'core autistic personality' who feels a need to 'become others' either in order to escape abuse, or bullying in one form or another or just to get through what they experience as an highly stressful environment such as school where they have no control over the volume of the classroom (if they are extremely sound sensitive but also desperate not to be singled out for it).

If everything 'you' are is mocked and made fun of then you develop a phobia of anyone 'discovering who you are' so your true autistic self becomes a 'shameful secret'.

That explains WHY autistic people may develop severe dissociation to the point of multiple alters but it would be interesting to know if there was any difference in the TYPES of alters that evolved compared with 'neuro-typical DID people' where the development of alters may follow what may be considered 'a more typical path' ...as the parts never becoming 'one original self' in the first place.
eg does there tend to be more or less 'fictive alters' within autistic adults? Does the amount in the system tend to be less or more? or triggered in different situations to what a NT DID may experience?

I don't know if anyone has studied the differences to such a degree?

It is discussed and there are references studies about it in the article from the website DID-research

TheTriForce : Honestly, for me, once you've started to dissociate to "DID levels", creating alters to be able to mask because of autism or any other neurodivergent condition isn't a big leap at all. After all, DID purpose is to look "normal" even when enduring severe stress.

I have ADHD, and I checked our old roll calls : before they all merged together, we had 7 alters dedicated to social interactions, some at home, some with friends, the rest to deal with social interactions at work.

Like stated in their chapter, Reuben is currently analyzing interviews of autistic people with dissociative symptoms. Some have DID. Maybe we will get a comparison between NT and autistic system? That's 100% something I would like to see more in researches.

Going down our system map, the bulk of our system's alters all exist as means to facilitate functionality as opposed to social interaction. Myself (Vi), Beth and Angel are all social alters with two of us acting as host at various times. Meanwhile, Pippa is social if she's in a safe environment. Those alters who don't hold traumatic memories seem to be designed to do things that are outside any given host's ability or comfort. For instance, Octavia is our librarian. She has access to information and can explain it in a professorial manner. She can even socialize up to a point. When the discussion gets passed academic information, she gets bored and pulls back.Agnes is our cook. She knows all about spices and herbs. She can whip up a mean stew or soup. However, like Octavia, she doesn't hold trauma, just information and can take over the body in order to do exactly what she's good at.

So, yes, this is along the lines of what I was trying to get at and failing to talk about well yesterday. I do hope that they do studies into the differences between neuodivergent and neuotypical system.

I've also been sharing the links with an autistic friend of mine who has BPD and CPTSD. They've been helpful for her as well.

ArbreMonde wrote:It is discussed and there are references studies about it in the article from the website DID-research

I hadn't read the last link when I'd just read the third link and posted about it!

I have now though and suddenly I remember having read this site before, particularly this page about 'cores'

https://did-research.org/did/alters/cores

They do acknowledge that not all systems have a core and it depends on the age the child experiences the trauma.

I wonder if it may also differ depending on whether the child also had stuff like autism/adhd and the kind of trauma? eg a severely autistic young child finding life (in general..any kind of changes, expectations, social settings) traumatic as a result of faulty sensory processing issues is not the same kind of trauma as a NT child receiving 'deliberate & intended abuse' from parents right from the beginnings of their life.

If most of the perceived trauma for the autistic child was coming from outside of the family (medical interventions, school etc) and that child has at least one place and one person they feel safe with there is surely going to be a difference (aside from the autism) in the 'development of self'? ..to the child that feels they are not even safe in their own home? In each case though for different reasons the full process does not complete.

The 'Neurodiverse brain' may be more likely to progress to a set stage then not get beyond it for many more years than is typical of a NT brain? None of our alters are the age of the body ..physically or emotionally ..even the 'social mask hosts' who try their very best to be 'age-appropriate' (more than the 'secret selves' who have never needed to as they've never appeared in public).

I'm pretty sure you are right, TriForce, and there is a difference between the two. Like Dwelt said, we need some serious research about it. I cant wait for somebody to publish a paper about the comparison between neuroTypical and neuroDivergent systems!

I'm just glad that they're doing research into adults with autism, and also how trauma affects autistic individuals. I mean, a year ago, I talked to our T about it and realized that she didn't know enough about it though she was learning. It seems like everyone focuses on autistic children and then when you turn 18 you're just fine. Which isn't true.

And I'd love to see if there's differences in the types of systems, and hopefully someone will do the research.

If most of the perceived trauma for the autistic child was coming from outside of the family (medical interventions, school etc) and that child has at least one place and one person they feel safe with there is surely going to be a difference (aside from the autism) in the 'development of self'? ..to the child that feels they are not even safe in their own home? In each case though for different reasons the full process does not complete.

About that, if the child really feel safe at home but has gone through enough traumas outside, I think it would lead to the same kind of DID I've read about in some case studies (people are supposed to be NT).

I don't remember where I read about those two, but I will try to find them again.

One was about a child in foster care, in a very kind and safe family, who suddenly had to visit her birth (and abusive) mom at the age of 4 (if I remember well). It was ordered by court, her foster mom didn't find a way to protect her from her birth mom, and the child ended up with one alter created to deal with visiting her birth mom. That alter behaved differently than the other alter (the one made to deal with the rest of the life), and couldn't recognize/didn't remember her foster parents if they checked on her out of the blue.

Another one was about a child who had medical trauma and felt that their parents weren't able to protect him from it. He had one ANP going on with normal life and totally amnesic of the trauma and didn't know they had other parts, and two EPs. One EP was really angry about what happened.

I can imagine that, with more difficulties surrounding their sense of self, someone with autism/ADHD would have more than a few alters to deal with that.


Anyway, I can't wait for Reuben to publish her paper, I hope there will be some answers!