I've been reading that #longcovid can impact the vagus nerve, effectively causing ptsd-like symptoms from a physical reaction.

And that kinda blows my mind - it suggest PTSD may not have to be post-traumatic at all, it may mean some people just have a fucked nervous system.

When you look at the symptoms of PTSD and you look at a lot of stereotypical autistic behaviors you start to see a lot of overlaps. I've been working with the hypothesis that autistic people are more easily traumatized than allistic people, so we're more susceptible to PTSD. BUT!

What if a part of autism is some sort of inflammation or other physical interaction with the vagus nerve? What if we are being literally, physically stimulated into PTSD because of some biomechanical process?

I want to be careful that I don't meant to pathologize autism here, but a lot of us struggle with strong emotional dysregulation that looks and feels like PTSD.

What if the best explanation is that both autism and trauma can cause polyvagal dysregulation? Hmm!