Autism not considered in the mentally ill?

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I've had a mental illness diagnosis as an adult for 10 years now, also as a child. Despite such symptoms as poor social skills and special interests, docs and laypeople (therapists tend to see it) lump everything going on with me under mental illness, no matter what it is. My psychatrist knows i am a bird encyclopedia, but its just not factored in or something. My relatives bash me for my social mistakes and "no common sense" and just assume its a part of me being "schizo".

If you are autistic, you do not have schizophrenia. It does prohibit you from being in the military.

There have been situations where NT parents of autistic kids have had to struggle with the military for trying to get the kid to join. The parents explain the son is neurologically impaired, and the recruiter doesn't care and says "He's fine".

There have been cases of people on the spectrum joining the military and getting into trouble.

You may be misinformed. Please be careful about what you tell others on this subject.

https://autismforparents.wordpress.com/ ... y-service/

Although ASD and Schizophrenia are differential diagnoses, I don't think that a person with ASD is immune from Schizophrenia. As ASD is a spectrum (with all people sitting on the spectrum, as it goes right to the NT end), how can there be a point where one is suddenly incapable of developing Schizophrenia? Differential diagnosis does not mean that the two conditions cannot co-exist, just that our diagnostic standards designate them as mutually exclusive for diagnostic purposes.

You are correct: people with ASD can have comorbid Schizophrenia.

This was made explicitly clear in Dr. Lisa Croen's groundbreaking study "The Health Status of Adults on the Autism Spectrum."

Among 1,507 adults with ASD studied, there were 118 individuals with a Schizophrenic disorder for a rate of 7.8%. Dr. Croen noted that the incidence of Schizophrenic disorders among the ASD sample was much higher than the 0.37% noted amone the controls (15,070 individuals with 56 Schizophrenic disorders.)

Full text:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10 ... 1315577517



Given the complex genetic picture that is emerging for both Autism and Schizophrenia and the significant overlap of genes between the two disorders, this makes sense.