Questions for Schizophrenics or Autistics...

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Hey,

So I have previously posted on here regarding AS and getting a referral from my GP... Anywho, I have been referred to a psychiatrist... but my appointment is some time away... So in the mean time my mind has been getting carried away... As I expected...

I have literally nobody to talk to that I feel comfortable expressing my thoughts and feelings with... If anybody has experience or knowledge with these two conditions and anything similar I'd appreciate the advice...

My main concerns are that I am 21 and feel that if I did have Autism that it would have been picked up by now (this makes me feel like I do not have this)... I just generally feel like I do not have this as in the people I have seen with Autism I cannot relate to.... I.e. my brother

I also feel that there are parts of my personality that does not fit with this and there could probably be another cause... However I do feel that an AS diagnosis would have probably been that case as a child... Hmmm contridicting myself there a bit lol...

I am quite a logical person and feel that stimming as it is a physical behaviour and can be seen is more reliable than how I feel etc... So do Schizophrenics Stim? If so why do they? What does it feel like to them? Just any information regarding this... There is little online that I can find about Schizophrenia and stimming...

Also same questions to anyone with autism who stims...

When I stim (I think it definately is that), well the main thing I do is sit with my legs crossed and tap my fingers very fast on my shins... It feels really good... Not quite sure how to explain it...As in a rush of excitement.... for instance, when you are in a car and go over a hill or bump and you get that feeling in your tummy... That is probably a rubbish example... But anywho it helps me concentrate and sort of go into another world... like day dreaming/zoning out... I would often do this if im stressed and alone.... Sort of like a way to retreat into my own world..... I do get urges to do it at other times of day but am aware people are around and if I catch myself doing it I would stop.... So would try to do things like rubbing the side of my hip or tapping my pocket but tbh it doesn't really work as well...

I do quite a few things which I have only recently noticed... like blur my vision when smoking, rub the palms of my hands on my thighs in meetings etc...

I quite often imagine fantasy stuff whilst doing it... make up stories... this make me think it cannot be Autism because I have heard Autistics do not do well with making up stories... I also get excited when I put up display boards or I clean the room... Or when I'm asked to change the layout of the room.... Also I get excited when I feel like I've got on well with everyone and the day is going perfect... I feel like I need to do it then... So I will go to the toilet and probably do it after washing my hands (shake them quite fast).....

I work in a Nursery as I thought it would be easier than any other job and wouldn't involve that much interaction apart from with the children... But I was very wrong there lol... Anywho, this may seem odd but when doing stuff like messy, sand or water play I get extremely into it like mesmerized by the feeling of it and just watching it fall from a height... like my mind beings to drift... I'm not sure if that is the same for everyone... I have heard the other staff say " I need to stop playing with this sand" etc... and play with it as well... But it literally does feel like im zoning out when I play with it and get a feel good feeling from it....

God I sound like im regressing lol...

I heard that Stimming is something to so with stimulating your senses... But tbh I didn't realise it could being doing that... I don't understand why my senses would need stimulating.... I do feel that when I do it I can block things out and focus on imagining... So wouldn't stimming have the opposit affect and not make me concentrate...?

Also I find myself imagining throughout the day... like I keep zoning out whilst writing this and I start thinking of imaginary scenarios... Is that normal... Well its normal for me but is it considered normal? I am also really tired so that probably contributes to it...


Furthermore if anybody could answers these questions I would be grateful...

Schizophrenia

What does hearing voices feel like? Do you actually hear a voice as in somebody talking to you? Or is it like thoughts? Is it clear to these people that the thoughts are not their own? or it their own thoughts but they can't make sense of them?

I feel like when somebody is talking to me and not all the time, I get thoughts of what the other person is thinking... For instance, not somebody's thoughts in my head but say if I suggested an idea to someone and they had a funny look on their face. I would without going through the process of coming to that conclusion.... Think "What is she thinking about, that is such a stupid idea"... But it would be me thinking it not a voice of someone else saying it... Way too confusing.. I do sometimes worry that I am hearing voices and just do not realise it...

Also when Im thinking its like I can have a proper debate with myself like the responses are so quick that I sometimes do wonder if I am hearing voices.... But I try to be logically and think how did I come to that and I think well I was thinking this, then that and it all sort of clicks...

I will also imagine speaking to my Doctor and explain everything that I am writing now and generate a response.... But its as if the responses are so quick... I just get worried that when people say that they imagine having a conversations that they don't do it like me and that maybe these are voices?? God I'm confused...


What does delusions consist of? Are they really obvious things that are completely irrational? Do they know that they are delusions, as in can they rationalize them?

For instance, I have moments when I'm watching the television and I hear about the earth quake in japan, and floods (global distasters) and I think this means the end of the world is coming because I have briefly read about the mayan predictions or other scare mongering. However I will then think maybe I do not watch the news enough and only tune in when they are reporting disasters like this

Or I will have been researching stuff or have had a conversation with my boyfriend regarding something and it will appear on the news and I will think is somebody watching me or listening to my conversations. However I will then try to explain it by reassuring myself that it is a coincidence and that the BBC would not be interested in me.

The thing is I know this sounds extremely bizzarre... But I just feel like my brain makes these connections automatically and I have to pull on the rains a bit tighter to keep it in check...

I think the strangest thing I ever thought was after watching a film (think it is called the truman show or something) and thinking that maybe there are cameras watching me... Especially after my nan told me that there are satalites that can see through walls... I obviously do not believe this anymore... My nan would scare me loads when I was younger and I would always believe what ever she said... But I did occassionally worry about this when I was younger... but would brush it off...

Also I'm not quite sure about empathy to be honest I think I am quite a kind person and worry a lot about what others feel and if they are alright... I do feel like I have an emotional response when someone is upset.... For instance, When in work if a child falls overs I'm pretty much the first person there... If anything I think I'm the opposit to an Autistic when it comes to things like this... Maybe I can't tell if a child is alright so I overreact??? I don't know....

I also reckon that I had a somewhat mild form of OCD or may still have it due to weird rituals that I understood were completely strange but felt the need to do them... I.e. put my tea bag and sugar in the mug before the kettle boiled...


In terms of socialising I find that I lack the ability to make friends, socialize properly... make small talk, sometimes eye contact (found this so difficult to do up until a few years ago and when thinking and talking I find it difficult)... etc...

I do feel that I was a very naive child and immature... I never understood certain behaviours in others.. like lying to me... my sister often lies about things.. and its only through her admitting it and me developing a way of telling if she is... For instance, when she lies her nose does something funny like squints... hard to explain...

With facial expressions I could be talking to someone and really understand what they are saying then get it completely wrong... But I then I feel like I can tell when my sister is lying...

I feel that I am better at socialising than my brother and understand a lot more... but then theres time when he can go and have a conversation with my mum for hours or other family members and I literally say Hi and Bye to them...


Just some information:
I have a brother who has AS and a cousin who is paranoid schizophrenic and several other illnesses/conditions in my family


BTW I am extremely tired and sorry for any spelling mistakes and so on...

I am extremely sorry for such a long post... but thanks for taking the time to read...

I could answer some of the questions about the schizophrenia because I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. For the voices, hearing voices is actually hearing it in your ears as in someone talking to you right beside you. Thoughts and voices are different. Thoughts are inside your head and usually not audible. If you are having someone else's thoughts it might be thought insertion which is a symptom of schizophrenia. If you believe that you are broadcasting thoughts that means you believe others can hear it it is also a symptom of schizophrenia. For the question about delusions a lot of schizophrenics don't believe that they have delusions they believe it with 100% conviction. Even while evidence is given to the contrary. There is no changing a schizophrenics belief when they are deep into their delusions. When I am having a psychotic break no one can change my mind on a belief. There are two types of delusions. They are classified as either non-bizarre or bizarre delusions. Non-bizarre delusions can happen in real life such as believing that someone is trying to kill you and bizarre delusions consist of things that are physically impossible in real life such as believing that you are made of metal or the sun is made out of an orange. It usually is obvious when the belief is this out there. I have had both kinds according to the doctors. I take medicine for it and it helps most of the time except when I am under a great deal of stress. Both autism and schizophrenia can cause socialization problems.

Hi firebird,

That was quite helpful... I do think the thoughts are mine... but do sometimes feel like others know what i'm thinking like from my facial expressions... or if I think "was I talking aloud?" But then realise I was not... I think I do get very paranoid... lol... but I always do try to be logically about it...

Do you stim? Have you heard of it?

I am suspected of AS. I have a close relative who is diagnosed schizophrenic, another who is paranoid schizophrenic and a grandparent who was obviously impaired by schizophrenia, yet despite this was a talented musician and valedictorian of her high school graduating class. I have some of the negative things that overlap with AS, and none of the hallucinations, or delusions as far as I can tell. For mild cases where only negative symptoms are present, AS and schizophrenia may be mistaken for one another, and in Poland adults with AS are classified as schizophrenic. One negative symptom I may have is trouble processing strong emotions. Another is not having much to say to people, although I've improved on this one. I do some stimming and have trouble reading people, which may be specific to AS and not schizophrenia. I tend to fall out of touch with people, and after I've lost my rapport, I'm very uncomfortable going back unless I'm specifically and unmistakably invited to do so, which may be a paranoid feature, but I don't have any paranoid beliefs.

Hey sgrannel,

Why do you feel you fall out of touch with people...? I often fall out of touch with people.. I feel very overwhelmed by meeting up with someone I have not seen in ages... For instance, old work colleagues. I feel that they might not want to meet up and are just saying yes because they feel obligated to... Like from what I've seen go on with the bitchiness in my old place I assume... Is that paranoid thinking?

Do you ever feel when you do not see someone you cannot socialise like you use to?

I feel something is missing and I need to ease back into the friendship again...

What are your stims like and why do you do it?

Actually, that's a pretty good description of stimming. And the surrounding events and emotions and what it means to you.

I am self-diagnosed as Asperger's / Autism Spectrum. And about some of my stimming . . .

If I've working on a paper or an Internet post, write some, play with a soft T-shirt and imagine tennis or basketball (like my 6 ft max regional basketball league) and good writing parts kind of feels like a basketball layup. And the energy kind of flows together. It is positive and creative. And I might also be jotting down quick phrases potentially for future writing projects. And if I have the house to myself, I might take a break and dance around. Might talk to myself some, or build off of lines of movie dialogue that I like. All highly creative.

And I think people in general do kind of “weird” things when involved in creative enterprises, and it's acceptable. Although perhaps best kept somewhat private as you say.

And I lived in Vegas for 2 years, played poker seriously (broke even, but not if you count incidentals!), and if you stand next to a poker room and close your eyes, it sounds like a million insects. But maybe not a million, but a large number. It is the poker players fiddling with their chips. That is, they are engaging in stimming! presumably to maintain concentration. Interesting. Isn’t it? Funny world we live in.

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 05 Apr 2011, 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am quite happy to hear your response to what I consider stimming... I feel kind of relieved...

The poker chip thing does sound kind of amazing... lol...

My brother who has been diagnosed with AS stims but I have only just realised that he is doing it... I have seen him wave his hand in front of his face...

So do you know anything about schizophrenics and their stimming ?

Don't know a great deal about schizophrenia. Understandable hallucinations, often auditory ones, a common aspect. Issue with brain chemistry presumably. In fact, in his book BECOMING A DOCTOR, Melvin Konner (1987, so now dated), he quotes an experienced psychiatrist as saying, Everyone deserves a lithium trial. Meaning bipolar is hard to distinguish from schizophrenia, but so much more easily treatable. That was his medical school experiences in the early 1980s. So, thirty years later, things may have changed.

I am also an enormous walker, think nothing of an hour-and-a-half walk.

And I like reading in places like airports or universities, where it's safe, but there's a lot of white noise. Again, funny.

Falling out of touch has to do with logistics and habit. I'm quite attached to my bird because I see her every day. It's sort of an out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing I guess. I told a friend about how I just sort of lost touch with a female childhood friend and I didn't have a good answer for why, and he said I should seek help for that. I can socialize with someone I haven't seen in a long time, but it takes a while, but maybe not as long as for a total stranger. If the other person feels hurt because of the long absence, for example the frustrated expectations of how a potential girlfriend/boyfriend relationship might have otherwise progressed, then I don't see how I can deal with it at all. Other people's negative emotions are very disturbing and difficult for me to deal with. My own negative emotions aren't a problem because they're generated by me. For example, it feels better to be angry than to be indifferent. Other times I feel I would like to visit former teachers, but feel inappropriate to go back to old places I've graduated from, hence "grown out of".

Some of my most recently remembered stims have to do with hand movements like rubbing my palms against a surface or holding my hand up to my chest, or holding my fingers a certain way, cracking my fingers and coughing at times when I didn't really need to. I might also jerk my head a litttle or tilt sideways or touch and pull my hair. Once I destroyed an ink pen I borrowed from a guy while talking to him and he didn't like it. I do this mostly when I'm nervous, trying to pay attention, or changing a situation like getting out of a car. Changing situation may also involve clapping or whistling, which sometimes keeps me focused so I don't waste time by momentarily freezing up.

I was just reading a book, "Mad in America" and it mentions that in the USA schizophrenia historically has been over-diagnosed to a ridiculous degree. I haven't gotten far enough to find out if that has changed, but I think I'd try to be careful not to end up misdiagnosed with it.

The book says in one case a film of a person was shown to some American psychiatrists and British psychiatrists. 69% of the American psychiatrists diagnosed the man with schizophrenia, whereas 2% of the British psychiatrists did. And in 1982, a study was done of Manhattan State Hospital's records, and 80% of the "schizophrenic" patients were found to have never met the diagnostic requirements for the diagnosis.

I'm sure this book is controversial, but it's still something to think about.

I wasn't diagnosed with AS until i was 21, and i definitely have it. I had pretty obvious signs of it, so i don't really know why i wasn't diagnosed earlier.. A therapist i had back when i was a preteen did say that she thought that i had it(she wasn't a psychologist, so it wasn't a real diagnosis), but then we mostly focused on anxiety and depression issues and i improved a lot with those, so no one mentioned AS again until i talked to my current therapist/psychologist about the possibility, and she was pretty sure about it.. so i did the psych testing and everything. So, yeah.. There are a lot of ways that people can end up not getting diagnosed until adulthood. I've heard some people on here even say that they weren't diagnosed with classic autism until adulthood, even though they had a speech delay and the traits people most often associate with autism as a kid.

I wonder whether some my relatives might have been misdiagnosed and might have AS instead. Even paranoia might be an adaptation in adjustment when one has trouble reading people. If you're bad at reading people, you can get hurt if you aren't vigilant. As a result, vigilance is uniformly applied, including to those for whom the heightened vigilance turns out to be unwarranted, after the fact of course. However, my grandmother was obviously schizophrenic, whereas the others' impairments are not obvious.

Many autists spend a lot of time daydreaming & have good imaginations. Difficulty making up stories is more likely to be due to language issues.


It can be for any number of reasons - expressing feelings, reducing stress / overload, for fun, because your body "just does" it. The behavior gets counted as stimming, whatever your reason.


Autists have as much empathy as anyone else, we just tend to be worse at noticing things we're supposed to be empathic to, and showing the empathy in a normal manner.

I don't think you have schizophrenia. It's interesting to see how it's related to autism and there is a definite genetic link, as far as I know. My dad is paranoid schizophrenic and I think my aunt is too, but she's only been diagnosed as bipolar.

Schizophrenia does set in gradually but you sound like you've been pretty much the same way all of you life. I don't think hallucinations are an easy thing to mistake for something else. Delusions are a little bit harder to differentiate, but these occur outside of schizophrenia all the time. From what I gather, when you hear voices, it's usually "them" talking to you, "they" are telling you to do something and you are aware that the thoughts or "directions" you receive aren't your own ideas but can't be sure that they aren't real.

Sounds like you could be somewhere on the spectrum, or just have some traits.

It is something to wonder about -- how many on the spectrum were misdiagnosed in the past (and the present, too, for that matter). That makes sense about paranoia -- having people blow up or have other strong reactions and never being able to see it coming. And the same for sensory stuff. I know I've heard of people thinking that autistic zoning-out and certain kinds of stimming were due to hallucinations, also.

I have schizoaffective disorder and anxiety, and some people think I might have AS, including myself, but personally I am also confused about teasing out symptoms.

About stimming, I've seen schizophrenics rock and stuff, and I do this too.

About voices, I don't hear voices very often, but it seems external.

About delusions, you don't realize how bizarre or irrational they are in the middle of them.