Connection between AS and psychosis?

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Rarely, people born with an ASD can develop chronic/frequent hallucinations and/or delusions in the teenage or adult years which then warrants an extra label, but as I said, it's not common. This would constitute a "double hit", just like an ASD and OCD.

I've heard that psychosis can be caused by certain medications that could be prescribed to ASD individuals who have been misdiagnosed. But you may have to look up which ones.

^^ good point.

Of course, I'm not sure of what the statistics are, but even if the statistics were the same on the percentage of people with ASDs and psychosis as NTs with psychosis, the statistic wouldn't mean that there weren't things about ASDs that decrease the chance of psychosis... only that there could be something else that simultaneously increases the chance. What b9 said could be true, while things like trauma from being treated like crap increase the risk of psychosis in other people with ASDs. A statistic being the same doesn't mean that the two don't influence each other at all, only that the influences balance out.

When I was 14 (in 1992), a psychologist, I used to go to, presumed that I might be in danger of developing a psychosis / schizophrenia. (AS wasn't a diagnosis back then).
But I never did that. She must have mistaken some aspie-like things for being in-danger-of-developing-a-psychosis-like.

I know that when I doubt things which I believe and get confused over the reality of situations, I will imagine things/dream up scenarios to fill in the blanks/delude myself in order to make sense of what seems to be a confusing situation. Oftentimes people lie and I've learned that it is better to trust my gut rather than allow words to get in the way. I had some problems after I doubted myself. It's a downward spiral from there.

Communication is mostly non-verbal but we are told to believe only the words that come from people and we all know that people are basically self interested apes who pretend to be civilized all the while they are harboring endless secrets. Perhaps it is best to simplify life by pretending to believe everything at face value while guarding our inner thoughts and having faith in ourselves. The less intuitive a person is the harder it is to handle AS because to take things literally would drive anyone insane because so much about people is false.

I do want to read that book now, The Imprinting Brain. Thanks for the recommendation.

I seem to be the least emotionally disturbed or psychotically inclined of all people I know. But before this year, I knew nothing about AS and I often wondered about the possibility that I was just suppressing my emotions so deeply that I had no awareness of them. But now I realize that I probably just don't have as many emotions as NTs.

I've heard that autism is sometimes mistakenly diagnosed as schizophrenia due to literally interpreting thoughts as voices. When you have thoughts there is a voice in your head, taken literally then that means you are hearing voices. No idea how common this mistake is but apparently it happens.

Beyond that, my brother is schizophrenic so I've always assumed there might be some similar genetic causes and/or biological similarities.