Are aspergers sufferers really more prone to develop PTSD?

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From school I was teased, left out socially and ridiculed, till I left college, then I had a car crash and blacked out so I can't drive.
And some memories from when I was little were distressing at the time.

I am guessing that you might be talking about me. If you are please say so. If anyone has specific comments or questions about what I have written please speak directly. If you have a question about something someone has written, it is good to ask it because then the person has a chance to say why she wrote what she wrote.

There is something about people who think visually being more prone to and more affected by PTSD. Having a visual memory of whatever happened makes it more tied to emotion, and being able to replay it in your mind makes you keep reliving it and then your body thinks it's reliving it and reacts accordingly. The help for that is use language and words to process something bad if possible, it makes it more abstract.

That being said, a lot of people with autism think visually, a lot don't. A lot of non autistic people think visually. Thinking visually is not a defining trait of autism, but enough of us do that it's worth mentioning.

In a sense, like if you face a traumatic experience, and you don't have any support from friends or family it can make PTSD more likely to develop from the trauma. Having emotional support from people can help prevent it because then you can process it better...If you already feel alone and are dealing with trauma that can make it worse.

Nobody is more prone to PTSD, it just matters how prone you are to emotion.

I've heard it said that the way autistic/Asperger's people perceive the world is a trauma in itself, much like the earlier poster who pointed out that we can't tune out sensory or emotional input. So much of the world seems like an assault to us. If that is so, which I could believe, that would logically tend to make people on the spectrum more prone to trauma, and just statistically, the more trauma you undergo, the more likely you are to develop PTSD at some point. So, add to that the fact that we're more likely to be bullied, and more likely to perseverate on bad events, and I think it's probably true, albeit a generalization.

FWIW, I do have C-PTSD stemming from 10 years of hardcore bullying in school and a verbally/emotionally abusive home.

The fact that the OP called us Aspergers "sufferers" is making me develop PTSD.

I am being treated for PTSD right now at age 39.

There are actually two sides to this.

First: yes, autism increases one's risk of experiencing trauma, which is a necessary precursor to PTSD. Many (though not all) studies have found that autistic kids are more likely to be abused or neglected, and this risk is much higher for autistic kids who have an intellectual disability. Some studies place the prevalence as high as two thirds of autistic kids. There's also a much higher risk of bullying, with different studies finding between 50% up to almost 100% of autistic kids are bullied in at least once incident each year. Rates of trauma in autistic adults are unfortunately less well known. (That's another thing that I'm trying to capture in my study.) Finally, autistic people may face stressors that typically developing individuals don't such as increased social stressors, sensory overload, and distress from unexpected situations or changes. These can all increase the impact of traumatic events or in some cases be perceived as traumatic (Baladerian, Coleman, & Stream, 2013; Schroeder, Cappadocia, Bebko, Pepler, & Weiss, 2014).

Second: yes, autistic people may be more likely to develop PTSD once exposed to trauma. Risks of developing PTSD include existing mental health difficulties (comorbid disorders are very common in autism), a lack of social support (unfortunately very common in autism), and lower IQ or difficulties regulating emotions (which affect a significant portion of people with autism). There are concerns that differences in how autistic people process events also increase the risk of poor outcomes (Kerns, Newschaffer, & Berkowitz, 2015).

As for coping mechanisms, therapy helps a lot. Learning to ground can help to manage flashbacks or panic. The usual -- stay healthy physically, obtain a strong support system if you can, try to manage stress without falling too far into avoidance -- also apply.