Trauma and Neurodivergence: An Introduction
If you have scrolled on “therapy TikTok” or spent much time on social media, it is likely that you have encountered posts talking about trauma, sharing signs you may be neurodivergent, and sharing ways to “heal” your trauma. While the terms “trauma” and “neurodivergent” seem to be everywhere, the amount of information about what it looks like when neurodivergent folks have experienced trauma can be surprisingly sparse. Yet this does a major disservice to neurodivergent folks who have experienced trauma (which they do at rates higher than their neurotypical peers) and can leave so many people confused about how to proceed and how to make sense of their experiences. My intention is to create a series about trauma and neurodivergence to help shed some light on what it looks like and how to best support yourself so that you feel empowered in your therapy journey. To start, I want to focus on some definitions to get us all on the same page.
Trauma
The Oxford Dictionary describes trauma as “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience” and “emotional shock following a stressful event or a physical injury, which may be associated with physical shock and sometimes leads to long-term neurosis.”
To get a bit more specific, the American Psychological Association (APA) defines trauma as:
“any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning. Traumatic events include those caused by human behavior (e.g., rape, war, industrial accidents) as well as by nature (e.g., earthquakes) and often challenge an individual’s view of the world as a just, safe, and predictable place.”
What these definitions tell us is that trauma has two parts:
The actual traumatic event; and
That person’s long term response to the traumatic event
Interestingly enough, studies have shown that you can take different people and expose them to the same traumatic event and not all of those people will go on to develop symptoms of Post-traumatic stress. This is important to keep in mind when understanding trauma, as experiencing a potentially traumatizing event does not necessarily result in the long term experience of trauma.
Neurodivergence
The Oxford Dictionary defines neurodivergent as “divergence in mental or neurological function from what is considered typical or normal (frequently used with reference to autistic spectrum disorders).”
“Neurodiversity / neurodiverse is an umbrella term
that describes all human neurological diversity
including ‘neurotypicality”
While the Oxford Dictionary definition mentions Autism, neurodivergence can actually encompass a whole range of diagnoses including:
Autism
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Acquired Brain Injury
Anorexia Nervosa
Auditory Processing Disorder
Bipolar Disorder
Down Syndrome
Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia
Epilepsy
Giftedness
Intellectual disability
Major Depression
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Narcolepsy
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Perfect pitch (absolute pitch)
Schizophrenia
Sensory Processing Disorder
Tic Disorder
Tourette Syndrome
Sources
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. (2023, November 7). Why we don't all develop posttraumatic stress disorder after trauma. ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231107105359.htm
Kemp, J. (2023, November 16). Delivering Best Practice Neurodiversity-Affirming Therapy [Webinar]. Alma. https://community.helloalma.com/c/webinar-library/delivering-best-practice-neurodiversity-affirming-therapy
