Schizophrenia the opposite of autism?

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I'm new to this forum and I'm very very confused about myself.

Where do I start? So I'm 18 years old, I've always been a little strange. I never relate to people that well. I used to believe in a lot of weird things, like astrology, conspiracies, telepathy, things of those sorts. If schizophrenia and autism are on the same spectrum, I would be way towards the schizophrenic side. I even have started to hallucinate before bed, which is kind of scary.

Yet somehow I find myself relating to autism very much. I even thought I had aspergers for a while until I realized I might have the exact opposite of it. So I have a lot of similar traits, including not looking people in the eye, not understanding jokes, acting strangely in social situations. I have a lot of theories to why this might be.

I'm wondering how you feel when you look people in the eye? I feel violated, like they are looking into my soul. I also found it interesting that we both find it hard to speak. I find it hard to talk because my mind is a vacant, spacey confusion of everything I have ever learned. I find it very hard to talk because I think in metaphors, pictures, and it's very difficult to translate that into words.

I don't understand jokes but not because I don't understand social cues. I'm actually extremely empathetic, so much so that it's uncomfortable. I'm extremely awkward and scared to talk to people, not because I don't know how they are going to respond to me, but because I am hyper aware of every little facial expression, every little tone of voice. And my brain rackets itself for hours pondering what people think of me.

I can let go of my identity and trick myself into thinking I'm a completely different person. It makes it very confusing cause I don't know how I am. Yet I know exactly who I am. My brain contradicts itself every second.

I guess another parallel I found was being confused in social situations. I get confused and it's hard to cognitively comprehend what people are saying to me. I was wondering if anyone on the spectrum felt similar. So I guess instead of taking things literally, I take everything abstractly. I always think people mean something opposite of what they say. I also get confused because in my mind, anything is possible: my mind works on loose associations. So for example, I was zoning out in class but I heard someone say "sweet". In my head, I went sweet=orange, and orange was the color the teacher was writing with so he must be talking about the marker. I thought this for 2 seconds before I realized it was delusional.

A lot of things like this happen. Tell me there is a giraffe outside the mall. I'll think, "oh, oh know those festivals outside the mall on the parking lots sometimes? They must have a giraffe for entertainment or something. That makes sense." Even though I did not see a festival or a giraffe!

Sorry for the long rambly post. I'm just so curious about insanity, the human mind, people who think differently, things of this nature. I have many questions for people on the spectrum. I'm assuming if you're on this forum you are at least somewhat interested in psychology. How does this interest manifest? For me, my feelings and intuition lead my research into the human mind, and I trust myself more than any outside resources. I see outside resources as guiding me into what I know spiritually and from my own experiences. Many people might call this BS, but this is just how my mind works.

More questions. I am always wondering how I appear to other people. As I'm typing this now, I am putting myself in your shoes. You are probably pointing out all the logical flaws that I'm blind to due to the right brained mush I have for a mind. Are you ever questioning how others see you? Do you ever speculate on it? Also, does this essay seem rambly? I'm not the best at organizing my thoughts, so I hope I'm coming through clearly.

Are you wondering about me and how I think? Do you not care? Do you see me as stupid, or can you somewhat empathize with me? Do you empathize in a logical way? Do you struggle with theory of mind? Could you just explain your thought processes as thoroughly as possible, as well as what you think of neurotypicals, or perhaps the opposite of people with aspergers? The people who are falling apart because they are always in an existential crisis and on the verge of psychosis (aka me)?

Thanks so much.

Hi Gracie, welcome to WP.

First off, your train of thought wasn't hard to follow ; in fact you expressed yourself quite effectively and there's a lot there I can relate to. I don't believe schizophrenia is the 'opposite' of autism or that the two are mutually exclusive; I am autistic but I also have schizoid traits. Very often I wonder if it's actual schizophrenia.

I feel as though the person might be looking into me. I worry that I might be saying something with my eyes without knowing it. Essentially I feel as though eye-contact is not a secure means of interaction, and it makes me uncomfortable. This isn't the same as schizotypal personality disorder because I don't believe that others are actively trying/able to see my soul through my eyes; rather, I feel that I will unintentionally miscommunicate if I meet their gaze.

I think in pictures and metaphors too, I have a highly visual way of processing things. This can mean I'm slower to talk or answer an unexpected question. The answer is in there but it has trouble getting out, and sometimes I won't even understand the question right away. It just stays there as noise until I decode it.


Lots of aspies report this experience. Personally I had to learn how to express empathy. I felt it, just not always at the right times, and I wasn't comfortable showing it. It's still a work in progress.


Depending on what you mean, this could be autism or schizophrenia related. Aspies tend to adopt social masks and personas to fit in, and these can become convincing even to themselves.


Your brain sounds really interesting! This could be an example of synesthesia, have you ever looked into that? I process information as colour, and my mind is mostly fuelled by colours and pictures.


I am my own test subject and reference point for my interest in human psychology. You won't get better access to evidence than what's in your own head. My interest also manifests through reading the forums, and finding portrayals in literature, pop culture etc. Scientific papers, whilst interesting, are no match for a person's expression of their own insanity.


I wonder a lot about how I appear to other people too. Not because I care for their judgement, but because I can't really tell from the clues available (which means I don't know how to be around them). e.g. Yesterday I had a humourous conversation. My rapport was fair, I'm not great at banter. They smiled and looked for eye contact. Now, the whole time we were speaking and after they left, I was considering all those little speech and body language cues which I saw but didn't understand. I still don't know if I did well at that conversation, if the person likes me, dislikes me, thinks I'm weird, etc..


'Thought processes' is a broad request, but I'll go through a few off the top of my head:
Empathy for me is logical. I learned it, which is to say, I can now look at a situation and factor in all the reasons I should or should not have empathy. It's like critical thinking, but with feelings instead of facts. I believe I still had an innate level of empathy, but it got lost or overwhelmed inside my head. Logical empathy works better around NTs, and they buy it too.
Tasks are like puzzles to me, I process them with a kind of synesthesia, otherwise I get overwhelmed. For example, if I had to make a sandwich, that's a lot to think about. In my head, I would break down each stage to a coloured box (one for 'get bread', one for 'spread butter', etc.), and then rearrange the boxes flow-chart style to find the most efficient method. It's strange to have to do this for basic tasks, when my mind can handle complex concepts no bother, but it is what it is.
I don't have a blanket view of neurotypicals, just as I don't have one of NDs. I know we are different from them, but we're supposedly just as different from each other. That said I am aware of their perception of me. If an NT sees me struggling to start making a sandwich, they might think I'm generally incompetent, and that could make it difficult to get on in life. Alternatively they might be understanding. I have one task at work that I hate. It's very basic but it changes day to day so there's no easy order to do it in; it's an executive functioning nightmare. I struggled with it for ages and my team leader knew I hated it, but not why. I finally found a way to express it that I think he understood: there are just too many choices. I haven't had to do it on my own since .


I am autistic but I feel this description suits me too. I have delusions regularly, hallucinations intermittently, existential crises all. the. time.

Thanks for taking the time to respond in such detail, racheypie666. I can relate to a lot of what you said as well. The only thing is my psychiatrist said there's no way I could be on the spectrum?? I'm way too animated, laugh all the time, etc. Yet my whole life I've still felt awkward.

I think I can relate to this. I don't really do this consciously. In fact, I'm kind of doing this right now. I'm talking more concretely and with less metaphors than I probably would with the poetry forum I follow. It's just instinctual to me.



Then there are things like this that convince me I am an Aspie because you described exactly how my mind works. It is all jumbled and subjective until it ends up on paper.




These things convince me I'm not an Aspie. I don't understand people because I don't listen more than I don't understand social cues. It feels like there are two worlds vying for my attention: my inner subjective reality and what is real and in front of me. My daydreams take over and the physical world fades away. I'm sure if I was more attentive it would be much easier to understand people. I do instinctively get what faces mean, I'm just spacey as hell...



Haha I'm glad I'm not the only one! I wish there was a disorder to describe my exact problem in life, but I have yet to find one. Many have been close: aspergers, inattentive adhd, schizotypal personality disorder, maybe schizoid, but I just don't feel like I fit in ANYWHERE. I've felt like that my whole life and it's never going to change.

There is a scientific paper on the subject at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763415001165. Summary: there is some relationship between schizophrenia and autism, but it isn't clear what it is.

I know of a few people on schizophrenia.com who have both schizophrenia/schizoaffective and ASD. Therefore the two can go together. I mentioned aspergers to my nurse practitioner recently, and she said it could also be explained by schizotypal.

Schizophrenia usually includes both visual and auditory hallucinations. Is it possible you might have Schizotypal Personality Disorder instead?

I just registered because of this thread. I am a very young 57, dress like a four year old, and hyperfocus on organic gardening because it is the only thing that keeps me from obsessing about my own mind. I want to talk about genetic polymorphisms to help bring some science to the discussion. I have a genetic propensity for the spectrum and for mood and personality disorders.

I am a high anxiety extrovert totally allergic to small talk. When I was in my teens and twenties I was clueless about minding my own business so I often scared people off. I still can't mind my own business but I have learned to keep my probing questions to myself. I would like to find friends as quirky, youthful, yet mature and wise as I am, but I am so hypersensitive to smells and sounds that I avoid going out. The sounds and smells of socializing make my mind race and I can't stand how much more slowly everyone else around me seems to think.

I have bad mthfr, cbs, and comt genes, meaning I detox too slowly and catecholamine levels are always too high. Migraine headaches and pms ruined the first 40 years of my life. I have to get enough magnesium or I become suicidal with depression and fibromyalgia like pain. Because of my genetics, meds just make me worse.

Abundant fresh air and sunshine surrounded by plants and wildlife are my best therapies.

They were originally thought to be on the same spectrum.
However, now. Autism is considered a neurobiological variation (difference in the way the brain is wired) while schizophrenia is considered a personality disorder (likely) caused by neurotransmitter imbalance and a malfunction of how the brain works.



As other people have mentioned previously on this thread. It is possible to have both conditions at the same time.
I also note that Autism is one area that some psychiatrists and general practitioners do not always have much knowledge or experience especially as the diagnosis criteria or the way that it is diagnosed has changed a lot over the past few years.

One psychiatrist may diagnose you while others may not. Although i know, this isn't very helpful for you at mo.

From what you have written you do sound like you have traits. However, these traits may also be explained by your other condition.

With regards to empathy, there are a number of theories on this area and not all people who are clinically considered or labelled as ASC have problems with empathy.

One theory that i like is the Intense World Theory. This one explains that empathy is not absent with people with ASC but quite the opposite.

I personally think that ASC may simply be more complicated than they originally thought.
I would speculate that ASC may be a lot to do with how the brain develops and may be to do with brain damage that occurs at birth with some due to respiratory distress or caused by premature birth.

I would recommend that you read up on the subject from credible sources such as Tony Attwood and Baron-Cohen, as their books will explain what Aspergers and Autism is, which may help you gain a better understanding.

If you buy the book in kindle format and read it on a kindle device or the kindle reader app on a pc etc,
you will be able to highlight parts of the book that you think describe you.
Once you have read through the entire book or books, you can go to a page on amazon that saves all of your highlighted passages for you in rich text format, which you can then copy and paste into a word document or similar.

i would do this and present you psychiatrist with the word document with all the passages that relate to you.
Say that these quotes relate to how you see the world or what you have experienced during your life.

This may help him/her understand how you are, and diagnose you or at least work out how the information relates to your present diagnosis.

Hello there!
I myself was misdiagnosed as schizoeffective for a period of time and later properly diagnosed with autism and the possibility of depression with psychotic symptoms. I am familiar with words being said very loudly within your head and them not feeling like they are your own thoughts or words. Its a very uncomfortable experience and I wish you all the best. My "voices" started when I was about 16 and in the past year have lessened significantly. I found that these symptoms, if not schizophrenia, are often a direct result of intense life stress or something being wrong that is affecting you. Pay attention to when these disturbances occur and see if they may be connected to anything. Remember, this is my personal approach which I found worked for me while seeking the help of professionals! I do recommend seeking help if these issues are seriously distressing you! I wish you all the best, and remember that you are not alone.

The symptoms of schizophrenia and autism overlap. You might find this article helpful https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2928288/

I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder before I was diagnosed with autism. I had hallucinations at night and was obsessed with aliens and conspiracy theories. I was a teen and under a lot of stress which probably aggravated the symptoms of psychosis, especially since I was surrounding myself with and preoccupied with the conspiracies and paranormal stuff. I was hospitalized a few times and put on high doses of antipsychotic medications. It didn't help at all. I used to be really into drawing and lost all motivation after being put on that. I felt like a complete zombie, it made me even more depressed. Unfortunately a lot of mental health professionals are still ignorant about autism and people are going undiagnosed and not receiving the help they need. Anyway, I hate making eye contact because it makes me feel violated and makes me worry my thoughts are being read. Sorry if my reply seems disorganized

By screening thousands of individuals, an international team led by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the University of Bristol, the Broad Institute and the iPSYCH consortium has provided new insights into the relationship between genes that confer risk for autism or schizophrenia and genes that influence our ability to communicate during the course of development.

The researchers studied the genetic overlap between the risk of having these psychiatric disorders and measures of social communicative competence - the ability to socially engage with other people successfully - during middle childhood to adolescence. They showed that genes influencing social communication problems during childhood overlap with genes conferring risk for autism, but that this relationship wanes during adolescence. In contrast, genes influencing risk for schizophrenia were most strongly interrelated with genes affecting social competence during later adolescence, in line with the natural history of the disorder. The findings were published in Molecular Psychiatry on 3 January 2017.

Timing makes the difference

"The findings suggest that the risk of developing these contrasting psychiatric conditions is strongly related to distinct sets of genes, both of which influence social communication skills, but which exert their maximum influence during different periods of development", explained Beate St Pourcain, senior investigator at the MPI and lead author of the study.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-g ... order.html


I am not sure what to make of this and would welcome other people's thoughts.
For me social communication(interaction ) with others was a problem from an early age ie pre adolescence . There are those on schizophrenia.com(where I first posted this) though who had good social networks pre the onset of illness.
It's interesting that they say the relationship between genes affecting social relationships and autism wanes during adolescence.
Although my social communication/interaction problems started early they definitely didn't ease off during adolescence. If anything they may have got worse .

Sounds familiar , the thing that worries me is getting a correct diagnosis , I really don't care what the diagnosis is as long as it is correct. I've been told it's psychosis > depression > anxiety > breakdown. I was convinced I had schizophrenia for a long time but I have been told by many proffesionals that I don't and it's not a great fit but answers a few questions but autism also answers a lot of questions . The overlap of symptoms is very confusing.

The arcticle you provided was interesting read especially this part

I find both conditions to be close cousins.

Eugen Bleuler, in my opinion, had it right when he referred to schizophrenics as possessing "autistic thinking."