Aspergers and Abuse

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I was abused a lot as a child. I believe I also have PTSD and bi-polar/borderline. What are the normal effects of an autistic person being abused? I also remember a stupid psychologist I saw a year ago. She said that even if an Austistic person gets abused, the person's body won't react to the abuse negatively because they won't understand it is abuse. What a load of BS! People like that should not be psychologists...

As you can imagine, abuse of autistic people happens. See the recent story linked below. It comes complete with video, too.

http://fox5sandiego.com/news/stories/au ... z2UMldW3hc

I'm autistic and have PTSD due to sexual abuse.

In my experience, the effects of abuse seem to be similar for both NTs and autistics.

You don't need to know it's abuse to get PTSD from it. You only need to feel distress when it occurs. In fact many victims of child abuse don't know that it's abuse - one of my abusers thought that the sexual abuse from her father and grandfather was 'just how they showed love'. (Incidentally, abuse victims who don't know it was abuse are at a higher risk of becoming abusers themselves, for obvious reasons.) The fact that she thought it was loving behavior didn't stop her from getting PTSD, multiple personality disorder and probably undiagnosed BPD and/or RAD as well. And she wasn't autistic, either.

Grimdalus, your psych is badly misinformed. Normal effects are PTSD, depression, anxiety, anger, fear, panic, not being able to be touched (of course that's something a lot of autistic people have trouble with without having been abused), feeling of vulnerability, everything that is normal after abuse is a possible effect (highly individual), extreme fear of it happening again.

Of course high-functioning autistic people know it's abuse. (Have no idea about low functioning, I'd assume they'd know, but I can't say). You feel it! You know it instinctively. There's no mistaking that. If you need a professional, get someone who knows what they're talking about. Your last one is to be avoided at all costs. She shouldn't even be allowed to practice because people like that just do harm.

You can't assume an HFA, or even an NT, will know they are being abused. It's actually pretty common to find people who are or were being abused and did not realize what was going on was abuse. They knew they didn't like it, but figured that them not liking it was something wrong with them, not with what was happening. Or else they dissociated from their emotions enough to not realize they didn't like it because they weren't aware of feeling anything at the time.

What Ettina posted. I was in an abusive relationship that, while it was distressing, I did not realize was abusive until I read a pamphlet about emotional/psychological abuse. And, even after I got out, it took me a decade and a half to connect the abuse to possibly needing treatment (therapy) to deal with the consequences.

Curious question. Every abuse lessens everything normal. Autistics receiving abuse is common since abuse always comes to those who differ from the majority. In my situation, I believe abuse intensified my inclinations to shut down and shut out. Which seems a "normal" response I suppose.

Just want to add my vote to the "you don't necessarily know you are being abused" group. Some people might, but very often, especially with children, they have no way of knowing that what they're experiencing isn't normal, especially if the adults in their life, the ones who are supposed to teach us what is normal and what is not, are the ones doing it. It was only very recently that I discovered that the way I was treated by my family was actually very abusive. At the time I knew I hated it, but I didn't know it wasn't normal. I assumed that the problem was with me, and blamed myself (after all, my family always said it was my fault), which made it much worse. The same was true for my first few romantic relationships. One was terribly abusive but I spent all my time apologizing because I thought I was the one who had done something wrong. Fortunately I'm not the type of person who would ever pass the abuse on to anyone else - I reacted the opposite way, always being careful not to upset people around me because I don't want them to feel bad like I did and think it's their fault (and I certainly don't want them to blame me for their bad feeling and treat me badly as others have done). In fact, in recent years as I've come to understand my youth and my present self better, I've had to train myself to be less passive and more assertive, to stand up for myself without always being in fear of upsetting someone.

It is unfortunately very common to find psychologists who do not understand what autism really is. This is partly because awareness of what is really going on is quite a recent thing and is still being explored. Until recently, it was thought that all non-verbal autistics were mentally ret*d, and now we know that often (possibly always) they are actually perfectly intelligent, and just unable to communicate through their difficulties. If you can't find a way to tell or show that you are intelligent, everyone will assume you are not. Sounds like this psychologist was still holding on to this outdated idea that autism is synonymous with mental retardation or disconnection from the world, which we now know is untrue. I hope you aren't still seeing this psych and have found a better one. If not, find one now.