what is the relationship between autism and psychosis?

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Hey, I'm no psychologist nor a psychiatrist, I was wondering, in layman's terminology how you would explain the relationship between autism and psychosis?
Thanks!

There is none...

Autistic individuals are under more presure than NTs and may develop a mental disorder like anyone else...
Autism is a syndrome and not a mental illness...

My Ex used to experience auditory hallucinations and visual psychosis, it turned out that he had multiple sclerosis

I used to have terrible psychosis at the height of puberty.

So I feel like when people feel trapped in their bodies, they are more likely to experience psychosis, I think what really matters is how they logicalise this symptom.

Thinking about societal pressures, puberty, my obsession with morality and religion (and I knew I was bisexual) all causing me to have meltdowns, especially at night - all this internal and external conflict resulting in psychosis, when I have a very overactive imagination, is not surprising and in some ways even to be expected

Psychosis is not a characteristic of autism or any ASD.

I don’t think there is a direct link, however autistic people are generally more prone to mental illness than the rest of the population. Given that many of us are constantly stressed, it wouldn’t be surprising that those stress levels could result in psychosis for some individuals.

Being a person who has numerous sensitivities(light, sound, texture, touch etc.) and a very sensitive and soft-hearted nature, I experience huge amounts of stress just going outside. I may or may not be on the Autism Spectrum, and it is much too late for a clear or simple diagnosis if I sought one, but those sensitivities are common with ASDs, as is the awareness that I do not think or reason in the same way most people seem too, though I do not think of it as a lesser capability for judgement or logic - It is simply that I prioritize some things differently, especially in social interactions, because I perceive the world from many perspectives simultaneously, and all of those perspectives can seem valid too me, even ones I find objectionable.
With all that said, I've never heard of a direct link between ASDs and psychosis, but psychosis(even in some cases of schizophrenia) is often linked to severe, ongoing, unresolved cognitive disonance. Telling a computer that two opposite things are true, and that both must be acted on, will cause it to meltdown and freeze, becoming locked in a logical paradox. Human minds are more malleable than computers, and so we experience psychosis as a means of forcing the issue, resolving deep and vital internal conflicts related to who we are and what we are refusing to accept and are burying, or what we know we must do that fear holds us back from, etc. Most stories I've heard of psychosis that was not directly caused by drugs, illness or prescription psychiatric medications(like ativan or prozac) occured during a time of intense personal wrangling, where the person in question knew that they were lving in a manner that was untrue to themselves and was equally unwilling to conform fully to whatever lifestyle/self-image they had adopted or been raised with. That is what happened to me a few years ago.... I was too uncomfortable knowing I am different in obvious ways to go out and just be myself. I started to hide indoors, living alone in a city where I knew no one and had no friends or family. Eventually I stopped going outside even for sunlight, ordered everything to my home, stopped cooking, missed classes, didn't work, deleted lots of phone numbers from my phone.... one day, when I was feeling really awful, after eating and sleeping poorly for weeks, I was in the kitchen and heard a voice from the other room(it was my own voice) say "I think you are going to die". Unfortunately, even though I realized I was hallucinating and went to the hospital, I received no meaningful help. I was locked up in a dark crypt of a facility with no windows for almost two weeks and then released. A month later I had a terrible breakdown and got evicted, but actually I wanted to move out of that city the whole time. I hated it there, despised it, and spent every day convincing myself it would get better. I'm certain that if I had left I would not have had a breakdown, and I'm pretty sure that If I were not light, sound, touch, texture, smell etc. etc. sensitive, I would have been more able to cope on my own as well.
But I am sensitive to everything it seems, and I am strange enough that most people who meet me realize I'm different and often appear uncomfortable with that. Maybe this is more info than was asked for, but I would say that if there is any higher rate of mental illness -psychosis specifically- with ASD, it could easily be caused by the massive stress and fear that comes with it for anyone who has insufficient or inappropriate support for their needs.

That's a great description, shadowself. The whole internal-turmoil thing leading to psychosis.

I experienced psychosis at the peak of years worth of trauma. Having my bones broken, being beaten and raped daily, emotionally abused, I could go on and on. It became too much, I feel like my mind could not take it anymore and broke from reality. I was in a state of extreme negative emotion when it began. In the acute stage I was experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations. A hefty amount of lorazepam and haldol being injected into me while I was in four-point restraints in a hospital bed (not sure exactly how I got into them), brought me back to reality. Slept 12 hours, woke up free of the craziness for the most part. Took me a couple weeks to get back to a relative normal, after that. It felt like my brain was coming back online, lol.

It was absolutely terrifying, right up there in the "most terrifying experiences I've ever had" category, especially in the acute stage and when I was strapped to a hospital bed - but it enabled me to free myself from my abuser. I have a lot more respect towards what the brain can do.

I'm still not my old self, but that's due to PTSD developing, rather than psychosis. I think saying autism had anything to do with my psychosis might be a stretch of logic. I don't see as many people talking about psychosis here as I see on the PTSD forum I visit. There are many causes of psychosis. Maybe our different brain wiring makes us more susceptible, maybe not. I will say this though - I wouldn't be surprised if everyone had some "breaking point" or threshold, at which things become too much and their brain disconnects from reality as a defense mechanism. Luckily most people never have to reach that point.

Yes, Tibergrace, terrifying. My own mind threw at me everything I fear, and amplified because I had become insensitive to, and uncaring of, ordinary pain and fear. Apparently there was more existential fear than I had ever imagined locked up in me. The beginning of the madness was a manic kind of joy, where all the things I ever wanted to believe were simply and unalterably true. Then, slowly, reality intruded and ruined it all, but also created room for later healing.
The U.S. mental health system is in a sad condition overall, especially in some states(North Carolina, keep trying, 'cause doc-in-a-box diagnosis at a distance, by video,is ethically and morally wrong and dehumanizing), but at least I wasn't lobotomized like I probably would have been 100 years ago, though I am sure not handing out any thank you cards to the docs just for not lobotomizing me outright.

PTSD. Yes. Definitely dealing with that too. It is so challenging to make a diagnosis and treatment plan for an average-seeming person with a short list of traumas and bad memories.... Throw in years of abuse and manipulation, repeated damaged and failed relationships, addictions etc. etc. etc. and soon it's hard to tell which feelings are caused by what stimuli, or disorder, or whatever. Additionally, my parents would never have taken me to a psychiatrist or psychologist of their' own accord, nor would they have accepted a diagnosis if there had been one to provide, I think. That would have shamed them. Instead they sent me to a private school for "gifted" children with surprisingly similar social issues. lol But I did like my fellow students, and no one threatened anyone for being a nerd in a school full of 'little professors'.

Us Aspies tend to be more prone to mental illness because of our problems fitting in & dealing with the rest of the world. But like others have said there is no direct link between being on the spectrum & having psychosis.
I developed a psychotic depression when I was 20 cuz of my 1st realtionship ending. I had a lot of anxiety within that realtionship because of Generalized Anxiety Disorder & OCD. She was the 1st person I felt I could really relate to & who understood me since I have a very hard time connecting with others due to my Aspergers. My bad bad anxiety in general along with my OCD caused me to be very dependent on her. There were problems within our relationship including her issues with alcohol & drugs. I became very controlling as a result of all that which contributed to problems within our relationship. The anxiety & stress eventually caused me to start believing things were going on that weren't. We broke up & I saw her bragging online about how she drank so much she had to get her stomach pumped. I snapped & basically watched my body slash itself on the upper arm 9x. I went to the hospital for medical attention cuz the doc office was closed at that time. I spent the next 5 years seeing a psych & taking meds. i worried about her alot in the beginning & kept making up stories in my head explaining what happened & I actually believed em even thou I had zero evidence & they were extremely unlikely. I wasn't sure what was real & what was fake in my own mind & the rest of the world. I gradually got better as my depression lifted.
Anyways I don't think my autism was the main reason I developed psychotic depression but I do believe it was a factor along with other things in my life.

This was basically how it went for me. The start for me happened during an intense low point. I was on my arms and knees on the floor crying, tears dripping from my glasses, pretty much destroyed emotionally, and then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I started laughing, and there began the whole "manic kind of joy" part. I actually came back to reality some, several days later, due to my abuser's actions, which were getting more and more extreme. I was pretty much just trying to survive and get out of the situation, at that point. I managed to function well enough to get myself out of it, and free from the abuser, but it felt so intense. It felt like my brain was on fire, I was hanging on by a thread. Then after I was totally free from that psycho, I re-entered the "manic kind of joy" sort of thing, stayed awake for days, and wound up in the hospital like how I described in my earlier post.

The last days definitely threw a lot of existential fear at me, and it felt like an eternity. An eternity of suffering and fear. The whole thing had a lot of "existential" stuff to it, but the peak of it was so insane, so intense. A complete mindf***.

Psychosis is when you start panicing about feeling like a victim.. Like everyone is watching you for example. Maybe autistic people feel like everyone hates them for no reason, but I don't see any other correlation.

I smiled reading this. The experience was good for me[in a long-term benefit sense], and if not for some collateral damage, mostly social damage, I would not now regret it at all. In the future I may need to change more quickly and roll with life a little more. Drag myself out of this rut and back to living.

I have had to deal with psychosis NOS for the past 4 years and have seen many psychiatrists, so have heard many different opinions. Most of the psychiatrists I have seen believe that having ASD makes people more susceptible to having psychosis, however are unsure of exactly why. I think having ASD means you are more predisposed to mental illness in general (for example I also have OCD and Generalised Anxiety Disorder too), probably due to different brain wiring and painful experiences we have had to go through in life as a result of having ASD?? However, before I was diagnosed with ASD my doctors thought I had schizophrenia, as my strange behaviour combined with my psychotic symptoms (which are a symptom of my psychosis NOS) meant that I met the criteria. I think it is sometimes hard for proffesionals to tell the difference and that there is a lot of overlap.

Some of the symptoms of autism overlap with schizophrenia symptoms


Neurotypicals often perceive autistics as weird, freaks, strange. That could be the same way that neurotypicals perceive schizophrenics

There has been little research into the topic, and autism is not psychosis or been proved to be linked to psychosis. However, people with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome are at increased susceptibility to having both autism and psychosis, so that could potentially explain a sort of correlation/increase in psychosis diagnoses in autism spectrum disorders. Autistic people in general are no more likely to develop psychosis than the general population, however. The symptoms can sometimes overlap, and that is why if you have an autism diagnosis, you must present with positive symptoms of psychosis/schizophrenia in order to be diagnosed as such because autism symptoms often overlap with the negative symptoms.

Psychosis is not a mental disorder. It's something that can happen to anyone when they're under pressure, either willingly or from external pressures, you do not need to have a MH disorder to experience psychosis

I see it as a way for your mind to cope under pressure. It's easier to experience psychosis if you are very creative or have a strong imagination. You could also feel like you're experiencing psychosis if you have a problem with your vision or hearing or if they are just generally more sensitive than the average population's. Some people experience it when falling asleep even.

Schizophrenia is not psychosis.
Psychosis does not mean you're losing your mind it just means your senses are under pressure