AS + Schizophrenia + 15 years suffering = NT

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Ok I'll drive you crazy now. You will hate this. This is not for everyone. Don't try this.
But I believe Schizophrenia cured my AS. Or rather I, through extreme otherworldly effort,
and 16 years of suffering and hell, cured my Asperger's asperger's using schizophrenia (and probably vice versa)
before going mad, hear me out.
Until I was 15, I had absolutely no clue what was going on on the outside world, an I wouldn't even bother caring. Girls? Who cares.. People? Nah...Social interaction? Lol… and everyone left me alone. They didn't care. Theory of mind? Haha. I was a sleeper. I was asleep, I didn't care. I was good at math and physics and crafting and 3d design and such and that was ALL I cared about. And absolutely no body thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, you may not believe me, but Iranians, the people (not the government) are the MOST tolerant people in the whole universe when it comes to being mentally different. I've seen completely insane people working regular jobs and being called “nervous” and “slightly nutty” although they would beat the crap out of their co workers once a week. “nah. Don't irritate him. He has got a temper you know….”

Ok so I moved to Germany and I was faced with….MYSELF. Being completely incapable of ANYTHING but maths and physics and crafting and 3d design. And it drove me literally nuts. It triggered Schizophrenia. The other extreme.

They keep saying Schizophrenia is the opposite of autism. They are absolutely right.

I kept seeing facial expressions that weren't there. I was confused and afraid for years because I didn't even know that such thing as facial expressions existed and that such thing would transfer emotions. And now I was hallucinating facial expressions that weren't there and was attaching emotions to them that weren't there. I was screwed, but more so, confused because I had no idea what so ever what I'm dealing with (facial..what? Faces can have emotions? Ehh?).

Then I started talking to myself. I haven't used language for thinking at any point in my life before. Until I was 15, I thought in meanings no pictures, images. Just meanings And I wouldn't use language in a useful way anyways. I would just talk about, like, gadgets and such... After that, I was talking to myself all the time (as crazy people DO). Sometimes even on the street. I still do. I loudly talk to myself. It has the exact nature of schizophrenic voices, the only difference is that others can hear the voices too because I talk them out loud. So I learned to use the language better. My German and English became superb this way. So there is a good thing in it too. This got quickly out of hand. My language center must be 3x as big as an average persons. I can keep 3 different imaginary conversations. I can think 3 different stuff (verbally) that have nothing to do with each other. (read psychotic or bipolar Thinkinf Disorder). When you have a conversation with me in farsi, I might in fact believe you had the conversation with me in English and recite the whole conversation in fluent English. Go figure.

So the good thing.
In short, I threw the Asperger's and schizophrenia at each other and they cancelled each other out.
I have reduced my medication to a point that I was absolutely unable months before, my mind is sharp, I have empathy, I can connect stuff like a champ, I can see the BIG BIG BIG BIG picture. Stuff make sense like never before, because I have seized to see just details. I see both detailes and the big picture. In short, I feel like I've been Implanted with and Aspie + NT fusion brain.

Let me tell you how I believe this worked. I believe, that the “hallucinations” like the facial expressions and the feelings and emotions I couldn't make any sense out of have stimulated parts of my brain and have trained me to be an NT or NT+Aspie hybrid or so. I mean I started to get a sort of input ( complex emotions, feeling, etc) that I couldn't make sense out of, and obviously, because of having AS, I was deprived of this input until I was 15.
You may argue whether it was random input or bogus input or actual input. It doesn't matter. It still trains the brain.
So by trying to make sense out of this emotional input, for f-ing 16 years, I have developed senses and abilities I shouldn't possibly have (theory of mind, empathy, seeing beyond details, etc.)

You don't want to go thorough what I wen through. It's not worth it. I'm an extremely masochistic person who likes pain and suffering. Any other person has killed himself 100 times in the middle of 16 years of sh*t. But this is proof of concept.

want low dose PCP treatment? For 16 years continuously? Kidding!! !! !

At the age of 14, some schoolmates told me one day: "You always say "yes" and nothing else" and they were therefore laughing at me.

They were true and from that day i was realizing that this was not "normal".
My speech was indeed limited to "hello", "bye", "yes", "no" and "thank you" + laconic awkward responses when asked direct questions.

So i started to "train" to say other things. 14 years old, is a bit late to start speaking, but better late than never...

Learning languages was helpful, because you "have to" speak. I am also training aloud several languages at home. (results are very good as well )

Thinking aloud is also very helpful when you tend to suffer 1000 thoughts rushing in your brain at the same time. When you speak aloud you have to select one or two thoughts and follow a logical thread. That way, you are taking back control on your thoughts. You are also conscious of your recurrent thoughts (which is not the case for most of people).

But question: As far as you speak aloud consciously, and with the purpose of improving your communication/language skills, is it schizophrenia?

I don't think so. I think schizophrenic people believe that they are another person, usually a person with much greater importance than they are in reality. This is quite different from training your communication skills aloud (even if you would "look" crazy if somebody was watching you without understanding your purpose. Mis-interpreting facial expression is also different from having the hallucinations (like the ones schizophrenic may have). Making up a dialog is also different from hearing voices (like the ones schizophrenic may hear).

As soon as you make the difference between the reality and your imagination, this is not schizophrenia. Are you sure you were schizophrenic?

Reading books about sociology and social psychology, books about gestures and their interpretations, books about trials and trials techniques also improved my verbal communication and non-verbal understanding.

However, i do not feel "cured" of my autism because as soon as i am tired or overwhelmed, when i have a period of uncertainty and high anxiety in my life, i speak very few again and everything i say is again typically autistic, so not socially efficient, and i can't control it. Also my way of thinking will always be fundamentally different from neuro-typicals.

I'm surprised that schizophrenia is considered the opposite of autism.

Well, it's good you're doing better. How's the executive functioning and sensory issues?

I'm still in the beginning of this. still wondering what is where and how the new brain functions. the shift happened really suddenly. Sensory issue is different. I don't know whether it's better or not but my are functioning definitely different. and I need much less sedative/antipsychotic meds to tolerate myself/the world.

I say I have schizophrenia because I was told I have Asperger's when I was 20 and some years later multiple docs flooded me with schizophrenia Disagnoses. many of them. I'm going with that. Of course it's possible that they are wrong and you are right. But I kinda took for granted that they are right.

It's kinda funny. I (assume) I was 16 years Aspie and I needed exactly 16 years to undo that. I'm now 32.