Schizophrenia is autism?

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I have been wondering why i was diagnosed with aspergers and schizophrenia.
I have most of the symptoms on the early signs page of schizophrenia dotcom but no hallucinations or delusions.
Now i know...

However, it states from 15 to 26 years old and i have always been like this....

Schizophrenia is not autism. Some schizophrenia spectrum disorders have certain traits which superficially can mimic autistic spectrum disorder traits.

For example, people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders frequently become socially withdrawn, and may behave oddly.

The negative symptoms of schizophrenia are common in autistic people. And schizophrenia is the most common misdiagnosis for autistic people.

New York Times article on Schizophrenia <--web link--click mouse to see

A recent NYT article postulates that perhaps only 50% of people with Schizophrenia are self aware of their delusions. In this article, he only realizes he has delusions when he gets a promotion at lunch, yet hears the typical badmouthing about his work that has caused him to lose job after job.

Now i am just confused..

Last edited by JayCat on 09 Aug 2011, 10:00 am, edited 3 times in total.

http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm

Schizophrenia affects about 1% of the population.

Since you say you don't have hallucinations or delusions, the only parts of schizophrenia "left" are negative symptoms that are teh same as autism. The difference is that in case of autism you have those since birth and you never develop any hallucinations later; in case of schizophrenia you have those as an adult and you will "soon" develop halucinaions as well ("soon" can mean few months or perhaps a couple of years). So in your case the profile is the one of autism. The doctor was wrong in saying you are schizophrenic.

Hi Jay. I took the time and went to schizophrenia dot com and checked the list of early signs of schizophrenia. I read before that schizophrenia was a common misdiagnosis for autistic people, but I did not know why. Now I know why: the signs physical, feelings and mood, behavior, and cognitive symptoms are very similar! I've read about some autistic people misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, and they say this misdiagnosis is very dangerous because of the medication for schizophrenia. I would recommend you to get a second opinion. My Aspie child was diagnosed with a lot of different things before she got her AS diagnosis. Apparently AS is very difficult to diagnose, and psychiatrists are not very reliable. Good luck!

They are not the same thing, but one can definatly have both.

ERM... I remember seeing a story on oprah about childhood schizophrenia...

I recall a conversation once that autistic individuals have a much higher rate of becoming schizophrenic. No research to back it up though. I'd be real curious about this. Could be an interesting project

Negative symptoms are not the same as autism - they can appear very similar, but the mechanisms behind it are different. IMO with negative symptoms, the main issues are lack of motivation and an inability to feel pleasure which can lead to behaviours such as social withdrawal. Whereas social withdrawal from Asperger's tend to come from an inability to understand other people, thereby having negative experiences when attempting to reach out to others and also from sensory overload.

It is possible for people to have both Asperger's and Schizophrenia. I have Schizoaffective [which is a variant of Schizophrenia; Schizoaffective is when there's a mood disorder component alongside scz symptoms] as well as Asperger's.

However, I was under the impression that a scz would only be made if you already had an Asperger's dx if you had hallucinations and delusions, so you might want to talk to your treatment team about why they've given you both dxes.

I personally was given the Schizoaffective dx first, and it was only when the Schizoaffective became asymptomatic that my doctor gave me the Asperger's. Before that, my ASD symptoms were attributed to Schizoaffective.

"Autistic fantasy" and "autistic aloneness" are sometimes considered symptoms of schizophrenia, and some of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia can also resemble autism; but these uses of the word autism don't equate to autism, the pervasive developmental disorder.

I have heard differently. One can have a diagnosis of

Schizoaffective disorder

or diagnoses of

Schizophrenia plus an affective disorder

The main differences, I have heard, is that with Schizoaffective disorder when one has an increase in the symptoms of the psycholtic disorder because or when the affective sypmtoms get worse; that with Schizoaffective disorder the affective component is usually pretty strong (whereas in separate psychotic and affective disorders the the affective disorder varies more; and that with Schizoaffective disorder one doesn't necessarily hear voices.

That said, my primary care doc told me (because his family has history of one or both schizophrenia and Asperger's) told me that one cannot truly have Schizoprhenia and Asperger's
but can have Schizoaffective disorder plus Asperger's. On the other hand, my psychiatrist has said to me that the Schizoaffective disorder and Schizophrenia and depression is that just splitting hair. So, there is some disagreement.

Why could someone not have both, that does not really seem consistant with anything.

DSM diagnoses are designed to be determined from behavior only. So, as far as the DSM is concerned "negative symptoms" means only one thing, even if different causes exist. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that there is a weakness of the DSM there, which can get autistic people labelled as having negative schizophrenic symptoms even if it is an "autistic thing."



That is also my understanding (can't find a reference off-hand, though). The OP might want to ask the professionals involved for clarification about that.