Autism and PTSD

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I have to agree with that, and my heart goes out to you. I know how difficult and positively terrifying my childhood was just getting abuse from my sisters and kids at school. I can't really say that my parents actively contributed to the stress/abuse that I lived with. Mom is bi-polar, and at that time, untreated, so she was at the zoo (so to speak) a good deal of the time. Her blindness and apathy toward my plight was only due to the fact that she was drowning in her own demons- and a drowning person makes a pretty ineffective lifeguard. Dad did what he could and I spent a lot of time with him when he wasn't working. When I was with Dad or with my grandmother, my sisters and their friends couldn't pound on me, so I got refuge when I could get it. It doesn't sound like you had any kind of a safe place to go. I hope that you have found one now. Everyone needs to have a safe place.

I really hope that you're at a place where you're getting help. There is life beyond PTSD - not to say that you are ever "cured" of it, but there are coping strategies that can help you turn down the volume and decrease your anxiety. Sometimes those strategies will need to come from mental health professionals, including medication for some people (me included!). I wish I hadn't waited until my mid-thirties to get help- but I am thankful that I finally did.

I hope that you have at least one person who you can trust and confide in. Not everyone understands when a person with PTSD freaks out over certain triggers or for seemingly no reason at all. Dealing with delayed reactions and flashbacks is really terrifying business sometimes. I won't tell you the things that cause delayed reactions and flashbacks will go away, but over time those triggers get less intense.

Please feel free to message me if you would like to talk further.