Mental Illness vs Autism

Post Reply New Topic

There are some fundamental differences in how mental illnesses and AS operate. It also depends partially on the precise nature of the illness, as all diagnoses are not alike and even people with identical diagnoses frequently manifest their illnesses differently.

From what I can gather, most of us seem to have fairly good control of ourselves, save for when a meltdown occurs. While our perceptions of the world may not line up with broader social norms, they are largely under our control and organized.

A person with schizophrenia, however, is frequently subject to intrusive thoughts, delusions, and hallucinations that prevent them from effectively perceiving the world at all. Worse, their very thought processes often become confused, preventing them from reasoning through their dilemma.

Perhaps more to the point, many on this board find offensive the idea that AS is a disease to be cured. Rarely will you find such an attitude among the mentally ill.

As far as Autism Spectrum Disorders go,i think of them as mental illnesses.To explain better,i'd have to define what Mental Illness and Autism are.

Mental illness is a brain dysfunction of any kind.

Autism is the inability of the brain to process information,or to be more specific,to filter it.


So,in theory AND practice,Autism IS a mental illness.How severe it is,on the other hand,is pretty unimportant.I've heard some comments from schizophrenics like ,,i am not crazy,i am just hearing voices"....i think it's the same here.They're crazy,we are...it's a craazy world:)

Just FYI and all, Schizophrenia has similar social deficits as are seen in the milder forms of autism (where do people think the term "autism" came from?), it's just of an adult onset. Imagine an "NT" adult hit with the milder ASD bat, as well as the psychoses bat too, and you have Schizophrenia.

Generally speaking, mental illness is something acquired later on in life, it can be treated to some extent with medication and emotional/cognitive therapy, and normal emotional upset can sometimes bring it out in people without history of having it. Whereas a developmental disorder, like the various ASDs, are manifested by disturbed behaviour that's always been there, emotional events and upset can't bring it out (it can make it worst though), and the usual cognitive therapy doesn't work on it as it's not a problem of erroneous cognition/thinking.

You'll find in the future, "mental illness" will be moving more and more towards the neurobiological and neuropsychological fields as the underlying physiological causes are found.

It's just semantics, really, and a person with OCD should be accepted in the same way as someone with AS.