Psychosis vs. autism symptoms in Aspies with psychosis

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Is it possible for people with high-functioning autism to experience symptoms of psychosis when they get sensory overload, if they already have a genetic vulnerability for psychosis?

Could sensory processing problems and hallucinations be seen as being on the same spectrum of sensory problems? E.g. an aspie with psychosis, could sensory problems shift to hallucinations when the person gets overload and gets very tired? I know a girl (who has been suspected to have Asperger syndrome after many years in and out of psychiatry, she is now getting evaluated for this) who experienced something like this a lot. And before recently, no one could really explain why she could experience symptoms of psychosis acutely when she got tired after a lot of stress. I wonder if this has something to do with autism, but there is difficult to find research on this topic. Could autism symptoms mimic psychosis, and vice versa, and what about if an aspie experience both at the same time?

I read somewhere that those with e.g. Asperger is more likely to experience psychosis, but that it often looks a bit atypical compared with neurotypicals. Is this a unusual comorbidity and if a person with Asperger develops a psychotic disorder, will it look more Atypical? Do someone have examples of this?

I'm on the spectrum and had my first (out of very many) psychotic episode about 9 years ago. I still take the meds, and have been in progressive recovery for about 2 and a half years. Some observations by my doctors:
- Profound paranoia and grandiosity.
- Hallucinations, aural and tactile.
- Didn't lose my ASD ability to hyperfocus.
- Bad hygiene.
- Logorrhea. (Written)
- Didn't realize I was sick.
- Thought the state of sensory overstimulation was my brain shifting into some sort of quantum computer mode.
- Heard no voices except for the occasional shout.
等。

I had an episode that lasted 6 months,i thought the government or mi5 where trying to kill or set me up.

some of the things I believed(delusional thinking)

Actual and attempted entrapment
overt and cryptic attempts to recruit me as an informer
spiking & drugging my drinks
overt surveillience
stalking
theatre,contrived conversations calculated to deliver cryptic messages.
sabotage
calling cards,leaving props,switching on & off lights.curtains etc
Noise, including incongruous sound effects
sleep deprivation
interference with my technology etc phone,internet.
everyone I met during this time I thought was part of a big conspiracy
hundreds of coincindences

those 6 months were scary and intense.i had 2 choices,live like this for the rest of my life or accept that this experience might be sort of mental health disorder and to get help.which I had to do,as my life was too uncomfortable.the reason for this episode was probably due too much drink and drugs and not looking after my mental health.i still believed in this conspiracy for years after but I got less scared of it as time went on.

IMHO, Aspies and High Functioning Autistics experience significantly more stress during their lives than the typical NT. This stress can manifest as psychosis.

According to the Internet - Many factors can lead to psychosis, including genetics, trauma, substance use, physical illness, injury or mental health conditions. However, we are still discovering why and how psychosis develops. “What we do know is that during an episode of psychosis, the brain is basically in a state of stress overload,” says Garrett.

Stress can be caused by anything, including poor physical health, loss, trauma or other major life changes. When stress becomes frequent, it can affect your body, both physically and mentally. “When a brain can no longer effectively process a certain level of stress, the processing of information and emotions is impacted, resulting in trouble perceiving reality,” explains Garrett.

Source: Understanding Psychotic Breaks

i'm currently on quatiapine, an anti-psychotic (also apparently an 'agitant' for people with autism) and i'm recovering from a psychotic illness. i was told by a psychologist that i most likely have a neuron development disorder also.

causes - not enough sleep, purposely staying awake for 48 hours at a time for the buzz for a long duration and an addiction of a legal drug that i abused for over four years, that has limited research on it (LSA - acids cousin. the Aztecs took it. also known as the 'devils seed'. horrible stuff, long term and a potent psychedelic.) i took it on my own every two weeks for four years, as a form of self medicating (it has a one week tolerance.) it made me more confident temporarily, but mental illness can strike anyone at anytime without notice.

i wish i'd have joined WrongPlanet much earlier and gained more self awareness and confidence to talk about it earlier to someone, before my symptoms effected my reality and i wish i'd have been able to express my light before it faded away.

my psychotic symptoms where: external critical auditory voices. under the delusion that i knew things about the world that nobody else did. drug induced light sensitivity increase. general heightened awareness and body awareness in the dream world. being a slave to my own fantasies, visual mind and thinking. unhealthy thought patterns. hearing people laugh at me at college, thinking it was real, realising it was just in my head. constant paranoia that someone is watching me, weather through my webcam or through my window. extroverting strong anti-mainstream opinions, without knowing they were anti-mainstream opinions. this can be seen as a loss of logical insight and a form of delusion if expressed in a curtain way. drastic change in personality. one week i was the happiest person in my friendship group, the next week i was unable to speak and my symptoms took over. four years on, i'm generally quite distant from people and people are obviously uncomfortable around me. my friend even said to me that they are scared of me not long ago. i am no longer in contact with anyone. i have made the decision not to have friends. this is a good, healthy thing for me. last symptom, residue delusions associated with hallucinations that i had in my childhood and going unconscious briefly, then becoming overly cautious.

psychosis can also be presented as a will to be in control of the environment and self.

my auntie has schizophrenia. schizophrenia is often described as being a loss of touch with reality... i think the better description would be someone who has created their own reality, a reality no one else can comprehend, from the outside. schizophrenia can be a defence mechanism or a coping mechanism to trauma, which my auntie went through during her visit to the middle east. she also smoked a lot of skunk cannabis. skunk cannabis is sprayed with artificial psychoactive chemicals that increase the potency, smell and taste of it. it has a high THC and low CBD content. research concludes that the "use of high-potency cannabis (skunk) confers an increased risk of psychosis compared with traditional low-potency cannabis (hash)". at the second to last mental hospital i went to, a worker there suspected schizophrenia, then later brought up psychosis N(one)O(ther)S(pecified).

i am prone to mentally embodiment. i'm working on it, as i recover. it can be the awareness of the psychotic illness that can be the most weird part of the process.

me and my auntie sometimes look at each other and laugh uncontrollably without saying anything. i believe in them moments we know something that no one else does, without words. beautiful moments that mean more than what words can describe and i don't have it with anyone else.

currently in treatment with a psychologist for OCD-like symptoms but i accidentally keep getting sidetracked in the sessions...

vs. autism symptoms... um... no idea. psychosis and autism sound like two parallel opposites.

When my autistic traits lurked from behind the mask (at the time I was excessively masking), they were interpreted by bystanders as drug abuse - that was easy, I wasn't on any drugs and I knew it - or psychotic symptoms - that was hard.
I don't know if my burnout was a psychotic episode. I didn't know what was real and what wasn't, so it may have been one. But anti-psychotic drugs made it worse so somewhere on neurological level it was kind of opposite to schizophrenia, my <I lack the right adjective> misdiagnosis of that time.