Eight Reasons Why Neurodiverse People Are More Likely to Experience Complex Psychological Trauma

Being neurodiverse means experiencing the world differently—often with more sensitivity, more complexity, and more intensity.

This difference can bring incredible gifts: creativity, depth, insight, focus, emotional attunement. But it can also make life harder in quiet, cumulative ways that aren’t always recognised or named.

This article is for people who may be coming to understand their neurodivergence later in life. People who are highly sensitive, emotionally attuned, intuitive—often high-functioning, high-masking, and able to perform as neurotypical for long stretches of time. People who may have spent years feeling like something was just off, but never quite knowing why. Who have carried burnout, overwhelm, anxiety, and shame—without ever being able to trace it back to a clear cause.

Please note: you do not need an official diagnosis for this to be relevant to you. If you’re exploring the idea of being neurodiverse, this is also deeply for you.

The most important thing to say is this:

Being neurodiverse makes someone more likely to experience complex trauma—but not always in the way trauma is commonly understood. Many experiences—especially for neurodiverse people—are missed or minimised not because they aren’t real, but because they don’t fit the usual narrative of what psychological trauma should look like.

For neurodiverse people, trauma often isn’t one big event—like a car crash, a natural disaster, or a violent assault. Instead, it’s the result of many smaller emotional injuries over time. It’s the slow accumulation of relational wounds, unmet needs, chronic stress, or emotional misattunement. It doesn’t come from one overwhelming moment. It comes from too much, for too long, without enough support or relief. And yet, many neurodiverse people never receive help—because there often isn’t language for what they’ve lived through.

So this article is my attempt to offer that language:

Here are eight reasons why neurodiverse people are more likely to experience complex trauma.

Reason Number 1: Emotional Sensitivity

Emotional sensitivity is a major reason neurodiverse people experience trauma. Many neurodiverse people feel things deeply. They’re highly attuned to what others are feeling—even when nothing is being said. There’s a common belief that autistic people lack empathy. In reality, the opposite is often true. Especially for people who don’t fit the typical stereotypes—like women, or those who mask well—emotional sensitivity can run very deep. This kind of attunement can be a strength. But without the right support, it can also become overwhelming.

When a sensitive child grows up in a chaotic or emotionally intense environment, they often take in more than they can process. And when there’s no one helping them regulate, that emotional overload builds up in the body. This kind of overload can lead to shutdowns or emotional explosions. It’s not attention-seeking. It’s not drama. It’s someone who has taken in too much and doesn’t know how to get back to calm. If those moments are met with shame or punishment instead of care, it makes things worse. The person learns that their sensitivity is a problem. That they’re too much. That their feelings are wrong.

Many neurodiverse people are told: “You had a good upbringing. Why are you struggling?” But emotional trauma doesn’t always leave a clear mark. It builds slowly—through years of unregulated intensity, internal pressure, and no language to explain why everything feels so overwhelming. That kind of pressure on the nervous system can lead to deep exhaustion, anxiety, or depression. This is complex trauma. It may not look like trauma on the surface. But inside, the nervous system has collapsed. This isn’t weakness. It’s a nervous system that’s done its best to survive too much, for too long.

Reason Number 2: Being Misunderstood or Misperceived

The third reason neurodiverse people tend to experience more complex trauma is that they are often misunderstood or misperceived. Neurodiverse individuals often express themselves in ways that fall outside social norms. Not because anything is wrong with them—but because their nervous systems are wired differently. As a neurodiverse person myself, I find these expressions beautiful and deeply human.

But in a culture that rewards sameness, those differences are often met with confusion, discomfort, or even ridicule.

From an early age, this mismatch can lead to neurodiverse being mocked, misread, or left out—and this is especially common in school environments. Many people experience moments of exclusion. But complex trauma isn’t about one-off events. It’s about the frequency, intensity, and duration of relational wounding.

When someone is misunderstood and excluded repeatedly, the message sinks in: “You don’t belong here.” Over time, these messages shift the nervous system out of openness and into chronic contraction, fear, and shame. Even without one “extreme” event, the repetitive nature of these moments of not being seen, understood, or welcomed can cause deep psychological wear. Over time, they may begin to expect rejection, brace for misunderstanding, and protect themselves from connection. This is trauma—not from one big rupture, but from the quiet accumulation of small, unacknowledged wounds.

Reason Number 3: Intergenerational Trauma

The fourth reason neurodiverse people often experience complex trauma is intergenerational trauma. ADHD, autism, and other forms of neurodiversity are highly genetic. These are some of the most heritable neurodevelopmental traits. Autism is estimated to be around 80 to 90% genetic, and ADHD around 70 to 80%. So it’s very common for a neurodiverse person to grow up in a household where their parents or caregivers are also neurodiverse—even if they were never diagnosed.

In many cases, those parents are also carrying complex trauma. They went through similar struggles in a time when there was little to no understanding of what they were experiencing. Often, they didn’t even know they were going through it. What’s important to understand is that in previous generations, there simply wasn’t language for any of this.

So when a younger neurodiverse person says to their parents:

“I’m completely overwhelmed all the time. I can’t process anything. I’m getting bullied at school. I don’t know how to calm myself down. I’m so angry…”

The parent might respond with:

“That’s normal.”

Because it is normal—to them.

Which isn’t a failing on anyone’s part. It’s just what happens when something isn’t recognised or understood in a system. It compounds. It gets passed down. And over time, it often gets worse.

Reason Number 4: Being Disconnected from What You Find Meaningful

Another reason neurodiverse people often experience complex trauma is a sense of not being able to do what they enjoy or find meaningful. For a lot of neurodiverse people, having a deep interest in something is one of the core motivating factors for their existence. They tend to be incredibly passionate about the things they care about deeply.

It could even be said that neurodiverse people are specialists more than generalists. They love to deep dive into one thing with immense focus, energy, and joy. But our education systems—and many of the jobs that are available—are designed for generalists.

In school, you're expected to know a little bit about everything.There isn't much room or acceptance for someone who knows a lot about one specific thing. So what happens?

Often, when a neurodiverse person wants to focus intensely on what they're passionate about, they’re criticised for it. They might be told:"You're too obsessed with that.""You should be doing something more useful.""Why are you wasting your time on that?"

School might become frustrated with them.Their parents might get angry. And the underlying message becomes:“You shouldn’t be doing it like that.”

But being told to change the way they think and feel—that isn’t support. It’s erasure.

Because some of the most capable, influential, and successful people in the world are people who were allowed to specialise. People who became so deeply immersed in one thing that they mastered it. So when a neurodiverse person is deprived of the ability to engage with what they love, that deprivation is not just frustrating—it’s a deep loss.It’s grief.

Underneath it all is one quiet, painful question:Why can’t I just be who I am?

This kind of dismissal cuts to the core of their identity. And it creates a profound feeling of not being able to express ourselves in the way we want to. And when that happens over and over again—especially in early years—it doesn’t just hurt. It shapes the nervous system. It teaches them that who they are as a person isn’t right. And over time, that kind of loss, shame and dismissal becomes trauma.

Reason Number 5: Chronic Criticism

The next reason why neurodiverse people are more likely to have complex trauma—or mental health issues—is because of criticism. Criticism is so much more common for neurodiverse people. I'm not trying to say that neurodiverse people shouldn’t ever be criticised. Everybody is criticised in their life—especially when they’re growing up. Because when you're growing up, you're learning. You don't fully understand how the world works.

Sometimes the way you're taught how the world works is through criticism and that’s not necessarily—or inherently—bad.

However, because neurodiverse people tend to do things differently, and tend to do things in a way that doesn’t always match what the status quo expects, they can be criticised at much higher rates than neurotypical kids. For example, for every one time a neurotypical child is criticised, a neurodiverse child might be criticised ten times. These criticisms are often for things that don’t make sense to the neurodiverse person.

For example: if they're really into chess, and they’re brilliant at chess, and they spend hours on it—but they're not doing as well in English class, they might be constantly criticised for what they’re not doing, instead of being supported in what they are exceptional at.

That child might grow up to be an incredibly talented chess player.They might have enough English and literacy skills to function perfectly well in their adult life.But because it wasn’t their preference, they were punished for it.

Ongoing criticism can have deep impacts.

It can affect:

• self-esteem

• anxiety levels

• the ability to trust other people to perceive them accurately or safely

And when you can’t trust how others see you, you learn to walk through the world with tension, vigilance, and shame.

Reason Number 6: Increased Physical Sensitivity

The first reason neurodiverse people experience more complex trauma is increased sensitivity. This can include many different types of sensitivity to environmental stimuli—like noise, touch, smells, textures, tastes, or light. You can think of a neurodiverse person's nervous system as being less able to filter sensory information. In some ways, that can be incredible—there’s a kind of vividness to the way they experience the world. But it also means they’re more likely to get overloaded. And when that happens too often, it can lead to shutdowns or meltdowns.

Everyone gets overstimulated from time to time. That’s not exclusive to neurodiverse people. But when overstimulation is chronic—which it often is for people with ADHD or autism—the nervous system never really gets a break. It never gets to reset. And over time, that starts to create a trauma response in the body. Not because anything extreme happened—but because they can’t relax. They can’t calm down. They live in a body that doesn’t get to feel safe.

This is part of what makes complex trauma different from acute trauma. It’s not always about a single moment. Sometimes, it’s small things—things that might not seem traumatic on the surface. But when they happen over and over again, the body doesn’t get to recover. When there’s no relief, no regulation, and no way to escape the overwhelm, the nervous system starts to change. It learns to stay on high alert. And over time, that state of constant vigilance becomes trauma.

Reason Number 7: No Language for the Self

Another reason that neurodiverse people might experience complex trauma at high instances is simply because we don’t have a language to understand ourselves. I was diagnosed with ADHD at 26. And before then, I had deeply struggled my entire life—with school, with relationships, with meltdowns from overstimulation. I was always told I was lazy. Which never made sense to me. Because when I really liked something, I would become obsessed with it and devote myself to it.

The hardest thing, I think, back then was that I didn’t have a language to understand why—despite my intelligence, despite my love of learning and my love of academics—I was never able to do it in the way that made it acceptable. I think the thing about getting that diagnosis was that—at least I had words for it. Because the words I had previously to describe myself were just:

dumb, lazy, annoying.

When we don’t have language for why we’re struggling, we internalise it. We turn it inward.

And over time, that quiet self-blame—layered over years—can become its own kind of complex trauma.Because instead of owning our abilities and our uniqueness, we learn to survive by turning on ourselves. We use self-loathing as a form of coping.

 

Reason Number 8: All of It, All at Once

The last reason that neurodiverse people tend to experience higher instances of complex trauma isn’t just one thing. It’s that they tend to experience all of these things simultaneously. It’s just so much. And there’s often no naming of it. No understanding of it. So they go through it by themselves.

And that’s very lonely.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

If you're reading this and something in it felt familiar—something clicked or stirred or made you feel less alone—then you’re exactly who my Wannambool Bassed Group Therapy is for.

Because we weren’t meant to go through this alone.

We weren’t meant to carry the weight of being misunderstood, misnamed, and misdiagnosed in silence.

And we weren’t meant to spend our whole lives adapting to a world that never learned how to meet us.

That’s why I’m running a series of group therapy classes here in Warrnambool—specifically for people who resonate with this intersection of neurodiversity and complex trauma.

These groups aren’t about diagnosis.They’re not about fixing anyone.They’re not about learning to perform neurotypicality.

They’re about:

• Talking about the things no one helped us name

• Processing the grief and confusion that comes with late diagnosis

• Exploring who we are without shame

• Feeling seen, finally, in a way that actually lands in the nervous system

We'll be drawing from a range of therapeutic tools—EMDR-adjacent techniques, somatic work, bilateral stimulation, trauma processing—but always at your pace, and always with gentleness.

It’s about finding what works for you, and doing it in community, not in isolation.

If you're local to Warrnambool and this speaks to something in you—reach out.I’d be honoured to have you in the room.