Does Asperger's lead to Schizophrenia?

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This is something that's been seriously bothering me for a while simply because my mother was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia when I was fifteen. I don't really remember much of what life was like before that other than the fact that she had some quirks, but after she was hospitalized and medicated she was just never the same. I've felt very much like the adult in our parent-child relationship for almost 12 years now because some combination of her diagnosis and the side-effects from her medicine make it very difficult for her to think clearly.

I, on the other hand, sought counseling as an undergrad because I was aware that I had pretty significant social challenges and was diagnosed with Asperger's, which is fine. I feel like I'm relatively high functioning. I'm the first person in my family to go to college, I'm currently working on my Master's degree while working full time as a preschool teacher, and I spent several years working overseas. If I didn't know myself extremely well it would be hard to tell that I even had any mental challenges.

Anyway; I casually mentioned to my mother a few years ago that I'd been told I have Asperger's. She seemed curious and responded by saying that Asperger's was one of the things her therapist had added to her case file as well. Now I'm finding it very difficult not to live my life in fear of a potential psychotic break. I'm only 27; my mother was 35 when she was hospitalized, and the entire ordeal was very traumatizing for the entire family. She was very clearly having visual and auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions, which she hadn't had before, so I have a hard time imagining that she was simply a 'misdiagnosed' Aspie. Since then she's gone off of her medication a few times, and each time the hallucinations, impulse control and delusions return.

I'm not really sure what to do with all of this anxiety and dread. I feel like I've worked too hard for everything in my life with too much success to suddenly lose it all and become essentially unable to work or function like a productive member of society. I know there's really no point in anticipating something when there's no guarantee that Asperger's will definitely lead to Schizophrenia, but the fact that we share that basic diagnosis has been haunting me for a while.

Sorry for rambling. I don't tell people about my family or my autism diagnosis, so I haven't really had anyone to vent to about any of this. My brother doesn't even know. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Honestly, most of us are carrying around psychosis genes as it is. The combination of genetic and environmental factors are usually present in order to create psychosis, although there are probably hundreds of causes.

In short, no. Even panic disorder doesn't directly lead to psychosis, which basically makes you feel like you're slipping away or going crazy all the time (I literally had this for years, and still never went psychotic).

My genetic report says I'm carrying around about 200 schizophrenia genes, and I'm just an NT with aspie qualities. Don't worry yourself, but you can search Google Scholar for yourself to ease your fears.

Also, most of us on WP would be going in and out of psychosis (I have plenty of autism genes, too), and we're not.

schizophrena and autism have a lot of overlapping symptoms.

autism used to be called childhood schizophrenia.

thus far, according to research, autism does not lead to schizophrenia.