#dissociate

“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness—a real thorough-going illness.

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky,

Turns out, there’s quite a bit of work into how autistic people are traumatized easier. Mild stress gets handled similarly to trauma in autism, and those mild stress memories form comparably to ptsd memories. It’s also been shown that the resulting fear responses and conditioning are handled abnormally in autism, and tend to be much more intense and over generalized

There’s also the matter of types of trauma that the majority of autistics go through. We’re used to thinking of trauma as major negative events, but smaller instances and lack of protective factors are also significant. Sensory issues are one area where autistics don’t just “get used to it”, and it’s perceived as very distressing. It’s also important to note that traumatic instances autistic individuals reported were frequently not covered by typical questionnaires, which includes masking/camoflauging, as well as abusive therapy techniques (covered in first link of sentence). It’s also worth noting that difficulty with familial and social bonds removes one common source of protection, and especially early on autism can lead to disruptions in caregiver attachment which both increase chances of dissociation (same link + this one

Unfortunately, I cannot find any good information on what factors influence the way CDD systems present or function, besides the common sense fact that additional disorders influence functioning. This (free!) book chapter covers a lot on causes of dissociation in autism and what makes autistics more prone to it, but talk of identity disruption is fairly limited and doesn’t look at systems.