Published on 12, July, 2020
Notable adverse childhood experience (ACE) trauma — especially when its effect is amplified by an accompanying autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — suffered by adolescents can readily lead to a substance use disorder. This, of course, can also lead to an adulthood of debilitating self-medicating.
The greater the drug-induced euphoria or escape one attains from its use, the more one wants to repeat the experience; and the more intolerable one finds their sober reality, the more pleasurable that escape should be perceived. By extension, the greater one’s mental pain or trauma while sober, the greater the need for escape from reality, thus the more addictive the euphoric escape-form will likely be.
If the adolescent is also highly sensitive, both the drug-induced euphoria and, conversely, the come-down effect or return to their burdensome reality will be heightened thus making the substance-use more addicting.
As a highly sensitive child, teenager and adult with ASD—an official condition with which I greatly struggled yet of which I was not even aware until I was a half-century old—compounded by a high ACE score, I largely learned this for myself from my own substance (ab)use experience. The self-medicating method I utilized during most of my pre-teen years, however, was eating.
Yet, in many sober ‘neurotypical’ minds such addicts have somehow committed a moral crime. But serious life trauma, notably adverse childhood experiences, is typically behind a substance abuser’s debilitating lead-ball-and-chain self-medicating lifestyle.
Generally, there’s a formidable reason why a person repeatedly consumes and gets heavily hooked on an unregulated often deadly chemical that eventually destroys their life and even that of a loved-one. It all really doesn’t happen out of boredom.
Perhaps not surprising, I have yet to find a blog that dares to delve into (what I call) the very problematic perfect storm of psychological/emotional dysfunction — i.e. a debilitating combination of ASD and significant ACE trauma (and perhaps even high sensitivity) that results in substance abuse.
Also, I strongly feel that not only should all school teachers have received ASD training, but that there should further be an inclusion in standard high school curriculum of a child development course which in part would also teach students about the often-debilitating condition.
It would explain to students how, among other aspects of the condition, people with ASD (including those with higher functioning autism) are often deemed willfully ‘difficult’ and socially incongruent — and mistreated accordingly — when in fact such behavior is really not a choice. Maybe as a result, students with ASD feel compelled to “camouflage,” a term used to describe their pretending to naturally fit in, which is known to cause their already high anxiety and/or depression levels to worsen.
While some other school curriculum is controversial (e.g. SOGI, especially in rural residential settings), it nonetheless was implemented. The same attitude and policy should be applied to teaching high school students about ASD, the developing mind and, especially, how to enable a child’s mind to develop properly.
Thats what makes me so angry .All the hurt and death i have seen ,it is so unnecessary .
And then s==t piles on s==t and it is even harder to escape ,no help
There was a teacher shortage in the 90's and the gov put financial incentives in place to promote teaching ,i think alot of people went into it for the wrong reasons. They are now in positions of power eg headteachers ,etc .
i have met so many who are so obviously in it for the money.
Teaching should be and is a vocation. [ There are good teachers ,but they end up having to fight the others and many just leave ]
At my local secondary school the headteacher tried to have all children go to a Military preparatory school [boot camp],
but parents objected to much .
A ONE DAY COURSE DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN EXPERT . why is it every social worker ,teacher, school nurse, etc have a family member who is autistic [ so they totally understand ]
I understand and appreciate what you are saying; and you sound passionate about it.
As for me, when it comes to students learning neural diversity, I doubt it will be seriously discussed by school-curriculum decision-makers any time soon. Nonetheless, I'm hoping that will change within the next decade.
I'd also like to see secondary-high-school child-development science curriculum implemented, which ideally would include some psychology and neurodiversity lessons, albeit not overly complicated. It would be course material, however, considerably more detailed than what's already covered by the current basic home-economics (etcetera) classes, which typically is diaper changing, baby feeding and so forth.
I believe the latter do not suffice, especially in contemporary times.
General society perceives thus treats human procreative rights as though we’ll somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture our children’s naturally developing minds and needs. I find that mentality — however widely practiced — wrong and needing re-evaluation, however unlikely that will ever happen.
I wonder how many instances there have been wherein immense long-term suffering by children of dysfunctional rearing might have been prevented had the parent(s) received, as high school students, some crucial parenting or child development education by way of mandatory curriculum? After all, dysfunctional and/or abusive parents, for example, may not have had the chance to be anything else due to their lack of such education and their own dysfunctional/abusive rearing as children.
For decades, I have strongly felt that a psychologically and emotionally sound (as well as a physically healthy) future should be all children’s foremost right—especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter—and therefore child development science should be learned long before the average person has their first child.