Autism
自闭症裡面44%的人是智力正常的（IQ over 85），而31%的人是有智力障碍的（IQ lower 70），25%的人处于临界边缘状态（IQ 71-85）...
自闭症（脑回路障碍，没有眼神交流这样的意识）不是社交恐惧症（焦虑害怕而不看人的眼睛），自闭症听不懂他人说话的深层意思，
自闭症不是心理疾病，而是神经发展类基因疾病，是从受精卵形成的那一刻就注定了。一般伴随终身 。
自闭症不是强迫症，自闭症的重复性的刻板动作只是孩子用来适应环境的自我调节机制。为了达到让自己安静下来的目的而已。
The way we see this world is different. All brains work differently, and the brain is connected in such a way it affects senses and how we perceive and read interactions and situations. Some people are born to be autism. So lets know some information about this.
自閉症
自閉症譜系障礙的譜系是圓形的從外到內不同的顏色分別從淺到深，自閉症的嚴重程度和伴隨症狀非常廣泛例如智力發展缺乏，溝通缺乏與困難，不看眼睛，說話異常平淡，語言障礙，攻擊性，抽動和煩躁，人際發展困難，刻板或者 重複的行為和興趣，感官反應異常，社交互動缺乏困難等等因人而異。每種顏色在譜系裡象徵著自閉症可能的症狀或者伴隨的特徵，每一個自閉症都是獨一無二的譜系。
.社交互動缺乏困難
社交上自閉症的人通常表現比較冷漠，被動或者古怪，幼年的自閉症患者除了為了得到食物玩具會主動接觸大人以外，很少主動與他人接觸，父母在叫他們的時候，也很難得到回應。他們往往喜歡獨自玩耍，很少注意其他同伴。也不會分享個人興趣感受和成就。對於他人的擁抱或者身體接觸，也會有抗拒的表現。
.溝通缺乏與困難
自閉症患者在溝通上有語言障礙和非語言障礙的區別。部分自閉症兒童有非常嚴重的語言障礙。也就是無法用語言說話，同時也是部分兒童語言發展完全正常，不過無論自閉症孩子有沒有語言上的障礙，他們基本上都具有非語言障礙。非語言障礙裡抱括臉部表情表達，眼神交流障礙和肢體動作障礙等，一般性的普通人在一些情況下會用肢體動作來表達更生動確切的事物描述，同時也會時不時的注意他人的眼神和表情來得知他人對方對描述事物的反應，而自閉症兒童完全不會。沒有眼神交流，肢體動作和臉部表情。自閉症這樣是因為他們根本不會意識到他們需要這樣做。所以他們長大的過程中也沒有意識去學習他人的肢體語言以及語氣聲調所傳達的涵義和情緒，同樣的說話時候也難以結合手勢表情等區合適的表達自己的意思。有部分的自閉症患者雖然沒有嚴重的語言發展障礙，但很有可能會有詞彙缺乏，鸚鵡式仿說，特殊化他們口中的語法，或者將你我這種代名詞混餚。
人際發展困難
自閉症患者比較不能理解非直白的溝通模式，類似比喻，諷刺，或者話中話等方式，同樣也不會玩類似扮演性的遊戲。
A game called 『Sally and Anne Test』兒童心智理論可以描述這個情況，Sally身邊有個盤子，Anne身邊有個箱子，而這個時候Sally有個小球，Sally把小球放入籃子後就跑出去散步了，等Sally走後，Anne從籃子裡取出小球放入箱子裡，接下來Sally散步回來想要玩小球。正常人會想Sally會先去籃子裡找小球后找不到才會去箱子裡去找，如果是自閉症兒童，他們不會站在Sally的角度看問題，自閉症兒童類如Anne會認為Sally會去箱子裡找小球。一般小孩四到五歲以上都能正確的回答問題。
自閉症兒童也不擅長打開話題或者與人持續話題，因為難以理解別人的想法和感受，有時候會不理睬別人的反應。單向的對他人講訴自己感興趣的話題。他們有表現過分的頑皮和暴力只和自己興趣相同的孩子做朋友。
PTSD
Trauma and PTSD isn't just "all in your head" it's literally in your head. Trauma and PTSD change the brain in four very specific ways. Traumatic experiences like abuse, assault, or witnessing violence or tragedy can leave people feeling constantly on edge. PTSD can impact your emotions, your stability, your relationships. And trauma can have an impact on your physical and mental health. These are really common experiences for many, and they are in part due to four ways that your brain changes after experiencing trauma. But the good news is that when you understand how trauma impacts the brain, these symptoms can often be reversed. You can learn to heal.
After experiencing trauma, your brain change in a physical level. This isnt simply a damage as people would perhaps think. But its your brain adapting to the experience that the world isnt safe. Its your brain taking measures to help you avoid future dangers, so essentially your brain makes you more danger avoidant, your brain is super moldable, it adapts and it rewires depending on what we experience and how we use our brain. So when we experience trauma, here are four ways the brain changes or adapts after that experience.
Four ways trauma impacts your brain, and nervous system in general.
1.Amygdala 杏仁核 becomes more sensitive.
---- this is an area of the brain that scans for threats and it connects memories and emotions, so its kind of like the smoke alarm of the brain and after trauma, it becomes much more active, more sensitive, more likely to alert when it perceives a threat. Survivors become less tolerant of stress, little things make them feel more anxious. Loud sounds (fireworks), Seeing someone with a beard who reminds them of an aggressor these can all trigger that threat responses. The amygdala associates them with trauma and sets off that red alert.
2.Brain scans indicate that after trauma, the hippocampus 海马体shrinks.
Hippocampus is the part of the brain that processes emotions and memories. After trauma, stress hormones essentially kill off cells in the hippocampus, making it less effective at processing emotions, this also makes it hard for the brain to distinguish between the past and the present. So this is essentially what a flashback is. Your brain experiencing a memory that feels like its happening right now,
People who experienced trauma they may have missing memories fragmented memories or painful memories that pop up when they don’t want them. When these memories pop up, they re-trigger the amygdala, so essentially the amygdala perceives the memories as a new threat and sends off the alarm that restart that trauma cycle that those whole flooding of the fight flight freeze response. The changes to the hippocampus they can also contribute to shor-term memory lost. But the connection between hippocampus and the amygdala gets stronger, so this essentially maintains the fear response over time. Even if you cannot remember the traumatic event, your “smoke alarm” is still going to blare with the slightest trigger.
3.The pre-frontal cortex shrinks. 前额叶皮层收缩
make it harder to process through those memories and harder to speak about what happened, it makes it harder to think clearly and rationally, to make a person get trapped in a loop of trauma, if they don’t get treatment.
This is the part of the brain that essentially handles higher order thinking, planing and rational thoughts, language etc…
This part of the brain becomes disrupted by constantly reverting back to that fight, flight, freeze part of the brain, or the reptile part of the brain . When you are stuck in fight flight freeze or hyper-vigilance, the thinking part of the brain gets turned down, and the way that neuroplasticity works the more we use a part of the brain, the more it grows pathways there, but the less we use a part of the brain, those pathways get trimmed. So when we cannot use reason to think through our traumatic memories or sensations, then it makes it hard for us to override that danger signal the amygdala and hippocampus are sending. It makes harder to remind ourselves that the danger is not real,
4.The broader nervous system.
This constant flooding with stress hormones keeps the body locked in an activated sympathetic state or the fight flight and freeze state. Its also known as hyperarousal so you feel constantly on edge, you feel jittery, stressed out, until you get exhausted, then you have adrenal fatigue, then you shut down and feel depressed.
Being stuck in a state being overactive, dysregulated nervous system, leads to a lots of strain on the body, and that can contribute to chronic illnesses like autoimmune disorders, low functioning of the immune system, diabetes, obesity, muscle tension, chronic pain and problems with sleep in the gut and your heart health.
Neuroplasticity
Your brain adapted the trauma response as a functional way to deal with real threats and dangerous, your brain also has a built-in ability to change in response to healing and perceived safety.
When trapped in a constant trauma response people with PTSD experience four types of difficult PTSD symptoms including:
1. Painful thoughts - upsetting memories, flashbacks, and memory lost. intrusive thoughts, arousal and reactive symptoms 创伤记忆再次体验 traumatic memory reliving
2. Intense emotions - feeling helpless, anxious, ashamed, scared, jumpy, angry, feeling blame or persistent negativity, or just feeling numb. hyper-vigilance 过度警觉 and negative thoughts 思维情绪负面化
3. Bodily changes - these include increased hear rates, feeling jittery, or on edge, startling easily unexpected rage, or tears, and shallow breathing, panic attacks, insomnia, or nightmares,
4. Behavioural changes - this is usually avoidance of anything related to the trauma or its memories.
5. Deliberately avoid
1.People with PTSD will involuntary recall back the details and memories of the traumatic event, despite not thinking about it intentionally, at the same time, the patient might also have flashbacks, to drag them back to the incident they experience, although it is just in their conscious mind, they would feel like as if they are experiencing it again. These moments will be triggered anytime. It also might be triggered when they see or listen to a similar case. Otherwise it would be in the form of nightmares. This is also a very common adverse effect.
过度警觉 The second type, arousal and reactive symptoms, patients with PTSD would unconsciously put attention on minor things and they easily get startled/frightened/alarmed/over-thinking by small things, so they tend to be more nervous, thus become an outcast/borderline. At the same time, they get irritable and angry/lash out easily, even behave aggressively.
The third type: negative thoughts and feelings. After a traumatic event, there will be a negative change in their thoughts and mood, For example, they will have negative thoughts towards themselves or this world. And lost interest in activities previously enjoyed, problems with cognitive memories will arise including not remembering some important details of the traumatic event. These are not caused by the drugs taken during treatment. Usually, PTSD is accompanied by other mental health condition, including sever depression, anxiety, and even multiple personality disorder mentioned earlier,
The fourth type, avoidance. Patients with PTSD will try to avoid talking about their traumatic events, places activities or people that will lead them to recall back the memories of their traumatic events. E.g. a traumatic event like a car accident, such patient will usually avoid driving or getting into a car.
With that being said, not everyone who has experienced a traumatic event will become a PTSD patient, most people who have gone through traumatic events will develop PTSD symptoms within a month. However, technically speaking, this is not really PTSD, but instead its called “acute stress disorder (ASD)”急性应激障碍, most people’s feeling about their traumatic events will fade away after a few months or after a couple of years, If its continues, this means that you have developed PTSD symptoms,
In addition, a phenomenon was discovered in research studies, those patients who are more willing to talk about their traumatic experience will recover faster from PTSD symptoms, than those who avoid talking about it. Patients who willing to keep in touch with outside world. As time passes by, their symptoms are gradually decreased too. Wheras patients who avoid doing so, their symptoms will become more serious as time goes by.
What if we realize our friends or family have PTSD symptoms? Then what we can do is to accept and support them, communicate with them, so that they can be more expressive, encourage them to look for professional help and mental health sessions to get treatment and consult. The earlier one gets treatment, the better it is to prevent PTSD symptoms from getting worse.