Published on 12, July, 2020
I think it can, and there are a few articles online that explore how autism relates to trauma and PTSD. Compared to neurotypical people, trauma in autistic people has different causes and plays out in different ways.
Some examples:
Although there is a little research on the topic, I think it deserves more. I would guess that the above examples are all risk factors for depression, stress, alcoholism, heart disease, and a whole host of other health problems.
I was diagnosed yesterday aged 53
Being extremely good at maths and coming from an academic family, I went into banking. My career started really well and I rose through the ranks with relative ease becoming the finance manager of a merchant bank. The problem that arose was that the higher I was promoted - the less I was using my strengths (number crunching) and the more I was having to do things I was very poor at (board meetings, meeting solicitors, being responsible for other peoples mistakes etc)
I pushed myself to the point of destruction and after some sort of meltdown I was forced to leave. I then spent 4 years looking after a my two children aged 6 months and 2 years at the time whilst my wife resumed her career
I then became a postman which I have been doing for the past 20 years. I have struggled with anxiety most of my life which has gradually got worse to the point that I ended up being diagnosed ASD
The question is - would I have taken the route into merchant banking if I had had a diagnosis during my school years? Probably not but would I have ended up in a better place? I don't know
Though I'm not good at Maths (unless I do nothing much else, than I am strangely enough), I do symphatise with what you're saying.
Whenever I was doing really well in a job or at university, anxiety would get the better of me and I'd stop and go do something else.
I'm supposed to be not too stupid, but I ended up in call centers with some succesful freelance writing/editing on the side. The anxiety never faded though. I still felt I was going to be caught out and that they'd say I was acting and performing in the worst way possible.
Sometimes being smart gets in the way.
Had you not gone into merchant banking, you'd have done somwthing else with Maths or numbers (Accountancy?), and you'd still have had that people's issue and get anxiety from that.
Yes I did my Accountancy qualifications whilst working at the merchant bank - I worked there for 13 years.
The problem was that I became a victim of my own success. If I had remained a bean counter I probably would have coped with that and still be there now. So maybe an childhood diagnosis would have helped
Theres a theory that people in senior jobs are all incompetent because they start at the bottom rung of the career ladder and if successful get promoted to a higher and higher rung until they reach a level where they are no longer achieving and that's where they stay. (anyone know the name of this theory?)
I believe it's called the Peter Principle. People get promoted to the level of their incompetence.