Music is one of my intense special interests. It lifts me, soothes me and inspires me.
Recently, while driving home at the end of the day, old favourite “Drops of Jupiter” by Train popped up on the radio. Yes, I turned up the volume. Then the thought struck me – what if that was my inner child talking to me, waiting for me to come home.
Another song, “The Grind” by Thirsty Merc, inspired me as a reassurance from my inner child that’s its time to come home.
“Always on My Mind”, by any artist, also struck me as words from me to my inner child.
That, recently, lead me to consider the concept of the inner child and PTSD.
Late diagnosis of autism and PTSD
Late diagnosis could be any diagnosis from teenage years into adulthood. In a perfect world, children would be diagnosed before the age of 6, 12 at the latest.
My diagnosis, at the age of 51, is not the latest diagnosis ever.
Many experts in late diagnosis and the female autism phenotype say that PTSD, or even C-PTSD, is an automatic thing with a late diagnosis.
How and why? What did I experience?
I turned to ChatGPT for help again. My dys-regulation and over-stimulated state has eased but not gone. Having generative AI that can write for me at times like this is a blessing.
Me: Hello, friend. I see many on social media stating that PTSD should be an automatic diagnosis along with a mature age autism diagnosis.
How and why? Can you help me understand?
ChatGPT: Hi there! The idea of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) being automatically linked with a mature-age autism diagnosis reflects a recognition of how life experiences for many autistic individuals, particularly undiagnosed until later in life, can lead to trauma.
Here’s how and why some people make this connection:
1. Lifelong Social Misunderstanding and Isolation: Many autistic individuals spend years, even decades, masking their autistic traits in order to fit into neurotypical expectations. This often leads to chronic stress, social rejection, and bullying, creating cumulative emotional trauma. Without understanding that they’re autistic, they might internalize these experiences as personal failures, leading to a kind of long-term psychological harm.
2. Misdiagnosis and Lack of Support: Before an autism diagnosis, many individuals may have been misdiagnosed with mental health conditions like anxiety or depression, or their struggles might have been dismissed altogether. The lack of appropriate support over time can lead to a sense of betrayal by medical professionals or caregivers, reinforcing trauma.
3. Burnout and Sensory Overload: Many autistic people experience autistic burnout— a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion due to prolonged efforts to mask or adapt to neurotypical standards. The stress of constantly being overstimulated or misunderstood can lead to trauma responses similar to PTSD.
4. Sudden Self-Realization in Adulthood: For those diagnosed later in life, there’s often a powerful sense of grief for missed opportunities, unrecognized struggles, and the potential life they could have had with proper support. This retrospective pain, combined with the emotional impact of the diagnosis itself, can manifest in trauma responses.
5. Intersection with Society’s Ableism: Being autistic in a largely neurotypical world can feel isolating and painful. Constant exposure to ableism, both subtle and overt, along with a lack of understanding or accommodation, can create trauma. Autistic people often experience a lifetime of microaggressions, which can have a cumulative traumatic effect.
6. Coexisting Mental Health Issues: Autistic individuals may be more prone to developing PTSD because they are often more vulnerable to adverse experiences, including bullying, abuse, or neglect. The statistics show that autistic people, particularly women, are more likely to experience trauma in their lifetimes.
In summary, many people believe PTSD should be automatically linked to a mature-age autism diagnosis because of the likelihood that these individuals have endured significant social, psychological, and sensory trauma throughout their lives due to their undiagnosed autism and society’s misunderstanding of it. The combination of life-long stressors and late self-realization often leads to trauma that can be comparable to PTSD in its symptoms.
Does this resonate with what you’ve seen or experienced?
Hmmm. That’s a lot to think about. So I got to thinking.
Is this trauma?
Was it at 13, when the girl I thought was my best friend told me she hated my guts because I was smarter than her, and she couldn’t compete AND be my friend.
Was the further bullying from the smart boys who couldn’t stand competing with smart girl?
Was it the teacher who ignored me for the rest of the term after, in a lesson about states of matter, I asked about plasma?
Was it every time I was excluded from a work team?
Was it every time I was berated for not keeping things neat, tidy and clean?
Was it nearly going bankrupt in the 1990s?
Was it every time I was told I was rude and blunt?
Was it every time I was nearly sick with dread about annual performance reviews and performance management?
Was it every time I was performance managed because of my bad temper?
Was it every time my late husband got frustrated by my dislike of surprises and lack of spontaneity and my need to plan everything?
And what of all the little, seemingly inconsequential yet bruising engagements with the world around me?
What of the issues with my adoptive mother, and her “madness” from what I now know to be 30 years of undiagnosed hypothyroidism, misdiagnosed as anxiety.
Even now, post diagnosis, I still struggle with executive dysfunction and have businesses chasing me for documents and signatures and authorisations.
ChatGPT: It sounds like, when you put it all together, there’s a lot that could be recognized as trauma stemming from unrecognized autism and the challenges you’ve faced because of it. Each of those experiences you mentioned—being bullied, excluded, berated, struggling with executive dysfunction, and managing emotions—has likely left an emotional mark. What you’ve described is often referred to as complex trauma or cumulative trauma, where multiple smaller or ongoing stressors build up over time rather than a single traumatic event.
Hmmm. Constant masking, feeling misunderstood, rejection and bullying, and the rage and grief for missed support. Trauma? Maybe, maybe indeed.
Inner child, music, reconciliation and trauma
As a polymath, I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge. I’ve read a lot of stuff, watched a lot of stuff, seen a lot of stuff.
It strikes me that maybe my inner autistic child is the one who holds the key. Is that why she seems to sometimes be about 6, sometimes about 14?Are those ages linked to some traumatic incident?
What is the Inner Child?
ChatGPT: The concept of the inner child in psychology is rooted in psychoanalytic and developmental theories that explore how early life experiences shape our personality and emotional development. The term itself became more prominent in the 20th century as psychologists began to focus on the impact of childhood on adult behavior and emotional well-being. Here’s a brief overview of its evolution:
1. Carl Jung’s Archetypes: One of the earliest contributors to the idea of an inner child was Carl Jung, who spoke about the “Divine Child” as one of the archetypes in his theory of the collective unconscious. Jung believed that the child archetype represents the part of our psyche that holds innocence, creativity, and potential for growth, and is a bridge to the unconscious mind.
2. Sigmund Freud’s Developmental Theory: Freud’s work on early childhood experiences and their impact on adult life also laid a foundation for the inner child concept. Freud believed that unresolved issues from the oral, anal, and phallic stages of childhood could manifest in adulthood as neuroses or psychological distress.
3. Alice Miller’s Contribution: In the 1970s and 80s, Alice Miller, a Swiss psychologist, popularized the idea of the inner child in her work on childhood trauma. In her book The Drama of the Gifted Child, Miller argued that unresolved childhood trauma impacts adults’ emotional lives and that reconnecting with the wounded inner child is essential for healing.
4. John Bradshaw and Popularization: John Bradshaw, an American counselor and educator, was one of the most significant figures in bringing the inner child concept into mainstream psychology. In his work on family dynamics, particularly in the 1980s, Bradshaw focused on healing the wounded inner child to address dysfunctional family patterns and emotional issues stemming from childhood trauma. His book Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child (1990) brought these ideas into popular psychology.
5. Transactional Analysis (Eric Berne): Another important contribution to the inner child idea came from Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis, where he discussed the concept of the “Child” as one of three ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) that operate within everyone. The Child ego state reflects our emotions, creativity, spontaneity, and also holds unresolved childhood emotions or trauma.
In sum, the inner child concept emerged from various psychological theories about the lasting influence of childhood experiences on adult life. It has evolved into a therapeutic tool used to address unresolved trauma, promote emotional healing, and reconnect with one’s true self.
A Healing Journey Through Music and the Inner Child
The inner child is not just a metaphor; it’s the part of us that holds our emotional truths, even when we don’t fully understand them. Through the lens of my late autism diagnosis, I now see that the trauma from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood had been quietly affecting my sense of self for decades. And yet, the music that has always been such an intense special interest is, perhaps, the voice of that inner child—waiting for me to listen.
When I hear songs like “Drops of Jupiter”, “The Grind”, and “Always on My Mind”, they are not just melodies; they are conversations between me and my inner child, full of the emotion and understanding I’ve long needed. Music becomes a kind of therapy—an unspoken language that helps reconcile the gap between the girl I once was and the woman I am today.
Healing, for me, may not look like perfection or closure, but rather like a reunion—finally coming home to the child I left behind, the one who now knows she is seen, understood, and safe. In this way, music and my inner child form a bridge—a way to integrate the trauma of a late autism diagnosis, the grief of missed opportunities, and the celebration of self-discovery.
The journey is ongoing. But now, I have a way of pulling the threads together, pulling songs and sounds together, guiding me back to myself, note by note.
Now, having written this, I’m off for a good cry. If it’s powerful to be seen by others, imagine how powerful it is to be seen by yourself.
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 