Schizophrenia Just Mental Breakdown in Asperger's Syndrome?

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Hi Daniel's Mum. I'm afraid this is out of my depth, but I'm going to say something anyway. I wouldn't say that psychosis is a normal part of having Aspergers. While they may be connected in your son's case, where one disorder is present it is common for others to also be present, I wouldn't say it is something most Aspergers will develop. Especially not to that extent.
Your comment about the MMR vaccine is fascinating. I know that I had a severe reaction to the MMR vaccine, needing to be rescuscitated. My mother firmly believes that that is the cause of my autism, because of both the damage caused by the immunological response and the amount of time my brain was deprived of oxygen.

I don't think they are afraid of "catching" schizophrenia, Daniel's Mum. But often, where one disorder is present, it is not uncommon to develop another. It is the possibility of developing schizophrenia, because of the Autism link, that is the cause of concern. If we, as a statistical group, have a higher chance of developing schizophrenia than another group, then it is a logical concern.

I'm afraid that I've had very little in the hallucinations department. Strange beliefs and moral concepts that I've read in books and made my own, alter-personalities that are actually fictional characters; I have, though, been convinced that they are nothing out of the ordinary, even though the beliefs are rather unusual. A couple of emotional breakdowns where I've being reduced to frothing at the mouth and tried to kill people. I haven't had any persistent dark thoughts, but I have had brief episodes where I lose the normal concepts of morality and what would normally be considered bad thoughts become good and just. For example, planning to hunt down and kill rapists and murderers. They are brief enough that I snap out of them after merely planning methods of finding them and killing them. I'm pretty sure it's just narcissistic thoughts of grandiosity, coupled with emotional rage towards people who are cruel to others, and a temporary lack of morality, rather than true psychosis. Since those days, I've practiced leaving bad thoughts in my preconscious and remaining consciously oblivious to them, and I'm pretty confident it can deal with everything.

Anyway, I hope that's somewhat helpful.

Schizophrenia is a broad category applying to many things (that I think are mostly unrelated).

Such as:

That's from here:

http://cebmh.warne.ox.ac.uk/cebmh/elmh/ ... page8.html

How many autistic people might meet criteria for that, if it weren't considered wrong to diagnose autistic people with schizophrenia in the absence of "positive symptoms"?

That scares the hell out of me, too. I worry that everything I do could be considered schizophrenic. I think I am schizophrenic sometimes, because I hear voices in my head sometimes and see things that aren't there. Not all the time, though. Just occasionally.

At work there was a lot of air vent noise and whenever there's a lot of white noise I always think I'm hearing things - bells, people talking, etc. but at the same time I really don't know how abnormal that is, at least if your sleep is stretched thin. It's just enough to where I think I might be hearing something but nah...I'll worry if and when I ever start having things happen in my life that are just too grand scale, I'm more of a low dopamine kinda guy anyway so I have nothing to worry about.

Makes a lot of sense that "Schizophrenia is just a mental breakdown".

In some case studies, it is said that many people can posess a gene (gene or possibly the same neurological defect) that causes schizophrenia, but not all people show symptoms because it is not brought out. For instance, two people go through the same trauma. Both react the same way. One person developes Schizophrenia (the one who posessed the gene/defect) and the other developes PTSD (without gene).

So some say significant trauma can bring out Schizophrenia Symptoms if you posess the gene/defect, while another person without the gene/defect, can never show Schizophrenia Symptoms in result of trauma. On that sense, people with Autism have a thought process that differs from the Neurologically Typical. So even though I hate to put it in this way, Austism can be the brain "trauma" that can bring out Schizophrenia.

On a personal note, I am both diagnosed with HFA and Schizophrenia (Paranoid/Disorganized type). My psychiatrists always told me how odd it was for me to develope Schizophrenia at a young age (I was 7 years aged), with no outside trauma and only one extended relative having Schizophrenia.

Sorry If i'm babbling or jumped from the previous posters subject (or didn't understand the topic in general). I actually never thought of that specific scenario, so I'm greatful someone brought it up. Even if the topic is just a thought, it makes a lot of sense in my case.

joon

can any one tell me what the def of Schizophrenia is because i have allways hade visual and auditory hulusantions all the time (tho they have lessend with my new GF/CF diet) but i allways kno what is reall and what is not, well i think that i do. and all i have been told about it is that u see things and dont kno they are not real. but i have allways wonderd even more so afte joon mentiond Paranoid/Disorganized type cos that would discribe me to well just those to words and i did not kno that those to personlty trats were assoseated with it

There is much more to schizophrenia than just the hallucinations and delusions.
There are typical patterns of thought disorder. Thinking can be discribed as being very disconnected, with odd associations, very illogical and loose coherence.
For example, they may speak such sentances as :"It was time the flower bemouthed the wretched cane, for I talk the morning down in that way, it's done past the chair!" and they may believe that it should make perfect sense.
People with schizophrenia have similar brain abnormalities, and have abnormal cognitive profiles as well. Their attention is different, and they often have certain memory difficulties.
People with AS may experience hallucinations, but so called NT people, or bi-polar people especially, experience some psychotic episodes, and this doesnt necessarily mean that they have schizophrenia.

[quote=mysticaria]For example, they may speak such sentances as :"It was time the flower bemouthed the wretched cane, for I talk the morning down in that way, it's done past the chair!" and they may believe that it should make perfect sense.[/quote]

That sounds like the kind of thing I say, only I realize after a few moments that it didn't really make any sense. It's like, I hear the right rhythm of the sentence(s) I'm trying to say, but the words are completely different. Huh.

I've wondered a couple times these last three years if I was developing schizophrenia, the first time with no basis in fact, more recently based off of actual delusions and hallucinations I've had in the last couple of months, but those are in all likelihood medication-induced, and I'm no longer taking that.

I have always had occasional little 'check' thoughts in my mind, to try to check for a break from reality. Now I see many others have had thoughts of concern with regard to schizophrenia. I wonder why? I always thought it was because I had a little more logic, and hence had a little better overview of life's rules/motivations, than the average person. So where they are like leaves blowing in the wind of wants and instincts, I can see things for more of what they are, and so I can make decisions that are not available to them, and so some worry, from time to time, as to whether or not I am still in control occurs. But not as often anymore, I have grown more sure of myself, or more confident. I am not sure which. I think I have grown more confident in my logical derivations of life, the universe, and everything.
That doesn't say it quite right, but I don't really have the words for it.

Oh! I got it, I got it! The reason I worry about it is this: How do you really know if you are experiencing something real or not? Knowing that what you are seeing is for sure real requires an outside perspective, because if the error is in your mind, then you have no way of knowing. It is like trying to make yourself fly by pulling on your belt straps. One that spends much time lost in thought will likely come to this same conclusion and therefore become a bit apprehensive about reality.

"Thought disorder," though, is inferred from speech. And having speech that sounds like that, does not always mean a person is thinking incorrectly, only that they are forming words in an unusual way.

Which is yet another of the problems I have with the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

That is where a long process of diagnosing comes in. To definitely infer the difference between a persons actual thought process and their speech patterns in each individual. Where exactly are the words becoming mixed up? Thinking itself or the process between thinking and speaking?

Things like Psychomotor Retardation and some stuttering is in point of fact a brain dysfunction rather than speech tribulations.

joon

Yeah, but the "long process of diagnosing" rarely happens, and even when it does, it's not like anyone truly has the expertise or the instruments to figure out what it is. It's guesswork. Some people do long, involved guesswork, and other people do short, fast guesswork.



This confuses me. You don't think speech problems are part of "brain dysfunction" or that stuttering is a speech problem???

At any rate, I'm not pulling this out of nowhere. Lots of autistic people are diagnosed as "schizophrenic" because we have that kind of speech problems, and by the way "psychomotor retardation" is part of a movement disorder common in autism too (of course... you can't measure the "psych" part of "psychomotor" either, so you can't really tell how fast a person's mind is moving even if their response time and actions are slow). So is stuttering. So is flat affect. So is (often) catatonic behavior (not only the slow to no movement part, which only happens with some of us, but all the repetitive movement parts). So is lacking the common sense to take care of yourself in "appropriate" ways or dress in "appropriate" ways. So are several of the speech patterns that are lumped under thought disorder. So is concrete language. So are, in fact, most of the "negative symptoms" of schizophrenia and a few things that can be mistaken for some of the "positive symptoms".

You really think that every time an adult gets taken to a psych clinic, presenting like that, they're going to think "autism" and do a full developmental history (if they can even get one, which they often can't)?

I was once told, by a professional, after I'd had a diagnosis of autism for a long time, and was still trying to use speech that was really starting to fail badly, that my speech pattern alone was a sign of a severe thought disorder and that I needed immediate professional help. I had the diagnosis, and the people around me, to get out of being "treated" for a non-existent "thought disorder". How many don't? That person certainly didn't seem all that eager to take a long history. When I did have less power in my life, I got my autism diagnosis temporarily removed and replaced with a schizophrenia diagnosis by a doctor who believed that I had "childhood schizophrenia", partially on the basis of my speech problems. (Before you tell me how much diagnostics have changed, this was only ten years ago.)

I know many other people that similar things have happened to.

It might be a really neat idea, in theory, to be able to have enough clinical observation ability to tell the difference between someone who's speech-impaired in such a way that their thoughts can't get through to speech without getting distorted, and someone for whom the distortion is occurring at the level of thought. In practice, it's not always done, and even when it's done, the people doing it really have no way of knowing. They can add together other things... but then those other things can also be signs of autism, or signs of a history of being drugged, or a lot of other things besides distorted thinking.

The tendency to infer inner states from outer appearances is also why the intellect of many autistic people is extremely underestimated either by people looking at us, by IQ tests, or both. They've only recently been able to start proving that it's not necessarily or even that often that the person is less able to think, but that we're less able to look certain ways, and/or take certain kinds of tests, for a whole variety of reasons ranging from processing/movement speed to language barriers.

Anbuend, I agree with you on a lot of points; and I do not intend to argue.

True, most diagnosing is "guesswork". But like all labeling, there are certain criteria and guidelines to test to closely conclude a correct diagnosis. Even though the long process rarely occurs, it is still a better chance to be diagnosed correctly, and a better shot to study what is actually going on.



I believe there is more than one reason for stuttering (both thought dysfunction and "mouth/speech" related). With studying a persons speech patterns, both ideas should be considered (in my opinion).



I do understand that many children have and are being diagnosed with Schizophrenia instead of a Developmental Disorder. I am well aware of this. But with that, it seems as if professionals aren't doing their homework. There is a definite difference bewteen a Psychotic Disorder and a Developmental Disorder, even though Autism and Schizophrenia share some of the same symptoms. Considering the misunderstandings of both disorders, extensive assessments should be had before labeling a person with either. Labeling a person with Schizophrenia instead of Autism, and vise versa, can be damaging.



No, I seriously doubt they will think “Autism”. But if they actually look into it, they can find differences. I'm not saying that it is an easy task. And I am not saying that professionals will actually do it. But with using the (little) information, understanding and intelligence that we have, they will be able to see the differences (and there are definitely differences between a Psychotic and Developmental disorder).



I do apologize for that experience. But many professionals will tell you that they do not agree. I can understand the idea of one having that you could indeed have more of a thought processing or psychotic disorder, but an actual diagnosis with that only fact seems odd to me. Further evaluation and an understanding of your Autism diagnosis should have been kept in the picture.



Most definitely. And hopefully when people can find a deeper understanding of both disorders, that mistake will happen much much less often. We can only hope.


joon

But what I'm saying isn't just about autism.

It's about the fact that, if you acquire those traits in adulthood, even if they are in no way related to a loss of reality contact, then you are likely to get diagnosed as schizophrenic. There are kinds of "schizophrenia" that don't even specify loss of reality contact, they've just been assuming it since the days of Bleuler and Kraepelin.

What I'm saying is, those assumptions are wrong. Including in many people who are not autistic or developmentally disabled. Not everyone "schizophrenic" has any more loss of contact with reality than anyone else, not everyone who acquires those speech patterns late has a "thought disorder", it's simply been assumed since the beginning of the word schizophrenia. It doesn't work to say that these people, unlike others, are not "schizophrenic", because the word schizophrenia itself originally encompassed these people. The word schizophrenia itself is formed from someone's guesswork about why a wide variety of people acted this way. There's no such single thing as "schizophrenia", and many of the things that fall under the name have nothing to do with "psychosis" at all (except that they're automatically assumed to be, perhaps especially if the person isn't autistic).