How is AS mistaken for schizophrenia?

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Your "guess" is certainly correct. MAN! There HAVE been times I have been so obsessed, etc... that I haven't really slept, etc... But I am HAPPY to take showers, they don't take long, and I can get a lot done in the shower. I have LITERALLY debugged programs that I haven't even looked at for DAYS, etc... For languages, you can certainly practice, and it provides a kind of cooldown time. Your description doesn't sound very good. And are those people Americans? No offense to others, and I HAVE been to parts of europe, so I know it isn't THAT bad, but a lot of people here say a lot of people in a lot of other countries don't generally wash daily.

BTW the three last people I saw that smelled bad(that was long ago, and they all appeared NT) were WOMEN! They ESPECIALLY stood out because they used perfume over the B.O., and tried to LOOK nice! I had to wonder what they were truly thinking! So I doubt men are the only AS offenders.

BTW What kinds of ongoing help are the psychologists giving you? I'm just curious, because I would like to know if it was worth my while to do that.

Steve

I am from central europe but I cannot imagine going to bed w/o a shower...

Well, I was only in three countries, and only for three weeks, and I certainly didn't get around TOO much, but I never saw such a problem. Still, people HAVE said that, so I had to ask.

Steve

They might, but a lot of them can -- superficially -- appear enough like various things autistic people might do, to arouse suspicion, such as:

1. Talking out loud to oneself.

2. Having imaginary friends beyond the usual age.

3. Creating and possibly acting out imaginary worlds in one's head beyond the usual age. (Especially if trying to escape something like abuse/bullying.)

4. Extreme suspicion of others, due to things like long-term bullying and being unable to read social cues.

5. Suspecting others of very strange motivations, due to not being able to figure out the real ones.

6. Taking things literally.

7. Having decided extremely odd things about the world, and never learned they weren't true, due to lack of the usual socialization that teaches this.

8. Echolalia of people who do believe bizarre things.

Etc.

Moreover, if they get stuck in the wrong parts of the psych system, the way I did, they might be forced to "admit" to various experiences they didn't actually have (to avoid loss of "privileges"/being considered "in denial and not wanting to get better"), thereby confusing things even more.

I can identify with playing the movie clips well. I'm not talking about movies I've seen. I constantly have stories playing in my head and characters. Some characters want out more than others and talk to the point where I can't sleep or concentrate, so I write them out. Do I ever think they are real? No. They're characters. Something I've understood since I was at least six, probably before. But, considering I'll walking around writing on everything and mumbling dialogue and such when I can't, I can see where a Psychiatrist would have though I was Schizophrenic if I had been taking to one. I was really then, and still am, a frenetic writer. I'm obsessed with it. I would rather do that then anything.

I also have a flat aspect in that my face is impassive and I had no desire for a career, in fact publishing horrifies me. I'm not very fond of most people, although they don't bother me too badly if they leave me alone to write and don't try to read it.


Yeah, they probably would have stuck me on antipsychotics and ruined my writing. I can see it happening if I had a different kind of mother.



Writing is just a socially acceptable way to deal with all the voices in your head.

I can't see No. 1 happening in very many reasonably high-functioning adults with Asperger's (autism) nor No. 2. I suppose something like No. 3 may be possible in a limited sense. No. 4 sounds like a personality trait of paranoia (paranoid personality disorder), and I think this is separate from Asperger's syndrome (I am not highly suspicious of others despite having been bullied in childhood). No. 5 may be an extension of No. 4; I really just don't know other people's motivations, and when I get some idea, they seem so alien to me that I don't really try to make myself understand why, for instance, an NT might enjoy a stupid, oafish TV show.

No. 6 I would think would not affect reasonably high-functioning adults with Asperger's (autism) especially much. I can understand No. 7 as beng very possible in adults with Asperger's syndrome or high-functioning autism. For No. 8, I don't know why an aspie trying to fit in would choose to emulate someone who believe bizarre things of all people.

1-3 happen if you are a writer for sure. That doesn't change throughout your life. You live your characters and your stories. That's what makes you a good writer. If you remain detached from that, it shows. I've noticed a marked difference in this between NT writers and writers with other things going on. Plus, I've never known a NT writer have the stories playing like movies in their head that they just had to tap into. Most NT writers want to know how you decide what to write, what your characters will be like, what plot you'll use, etc. There really isn't sense in trying to talk to them about how you really write because they don't get it and think you're either making it up or they believe it and become frightened by it.


I would imagine Aspie painters see the entire painting in their head and could live in paintings if they chose to.


I don't think it's Schizophrenia at all. I think our brains are just over developed in those areas. Feeler NTs have overdeveloped emotions. We just developed different parts of the brain to a higher level.

How many do you know?

A lot of autistic people I know talk out loud to themselves to keep themselves oriented and talk themselves through things. And I've known a surprisingly large number with imaginary friends.



It's possible in more-than-limited sense. (It's fairly well-documented, at least according to Tony Attwood.)



I didn't say these things were "part of Asperger's syndrome", they're things that autistic people commonly do, however. "Paranoia" of this sort is a common trait among people who were bullied a lot and were powerless to figure out why. You're doing the equivalent of saying "I don't have PTSD, therefore PTSD is not a common response to abuse."



Again, many people try to guess and guess very badly. You might not, but a lot do.



I kind of thought taking things literally was almost universal among autistic people, if they understand language. (Not taking everything literally, but enough to get in trouble.)



Yeah.



Who said anything about either "trying to fit in" or "choosing" to emulate people? Do you think echolalia is always voluntary, or that it's related to trying to fit in? I acquired a great deal of echolalia in psychiatric contexts, and it had nothing to do with wanting to fit in, nor wanting to be like anyone whose words I used. Also, I at one point learned that when you were asked questions, you answer them, and I used the answers I'd heard in response to the same questions asked of other people.

Moreover, you would be surprised by some of the social venues that exist in the world. I used to know someone (non-autistic) whose primary peer group was a bunch of people who decided they were possessed by space aliens and who did horrible (abusive/dangerous) things to each other while "possessed". I have been part of peer groups with equally bizarre (if not more so) premises. Trying to fit in, in those cases, would involve taking on beliefs and actions that outside the group would be seen as totally bizarre or delusional or otherwise "mentally ill". (I got majorly screwed over at one point as a result of the first group of people I ever socialized with, where I made some assumptions about "this must be how socializing works in general" because I'd never done it in a group before. It turned out that many of the things I was taking to be standard and emulating were, in fact, extremely odd and later came to psychiatric attention.)

Additionally, who said I was talking about "reasonably high functioning people," whatever that term means to begin with? I'm talking about how these things can become misdiagnosed -- and everything I described is part of that, as in stuff I've either read about or observed personally (in myself or friends). I have no clue what the functioning labels of the people I'm talking about are, and I don't really care, all of them are now diagnosed with Asperger's or autism though.

I forgot another one I've heard of (and experienced): Being considered to be hallucinating because you're perceiving real things below the perceptual threshold of most non-autistic people, and/or having autistic "sensory issues" confused with hallucinatory perceptual distortions. Georgiana Thomas was thought to possibly be hallucinating for a long time because she heard conversations from several rooms away, for instance. "Do you hear voices other people can't hear?" can mean that to some autistic people. I can remember being thought to be hallucinating because I thought someone was knocking at our door, when in fact someone was knocking across the street. Etc.

Perhaps this reflects the level of depression in an AS person; after all, lack of interest in personal hygiene is a symptom of depression.

And lack of ability to do personal hygiene doesn't mean a person is depressed, or even uninterested in personal hygiene.

(Not sure how many people will grasp that on a board where I've been accused of being suicidal because of inability to cook/eat food regularly without assistance, but it's true.)

Yeah, they're Americans. Or I guess they are, because they don't talk with any unusual accents.

As for the psychologists, um, a range of different things. Trying to help me get my anxiety under control for one....I have a "regular" (not the AS specialist) psychologist that helps me with that by doing clinical hypnosis and helping me try different medications (yeah he's a psychologist so he can't prescribe them, but he just calls my GP and tells them what he wants to have me try).

I started with the AS specialist as having the goal of trying to find work-arounds to daily problems so that I could keep my job, but it just didn't work out. I was too far past the point where I could have made it work. So now he and the other psychologist are helping me to get disability and helping me formulate a new "life plan" to find work and do things like jobs where I can work at home. Trying to work "regular" jobs stresses me out to the point where I a) am constantly on the verge of getting fired and b) I end up the mental hospital because I get overwhelmed and it makes me suicidal. It sucks because I had just gotten my first "really good" job with a really good company that paid decently and I tried so hard to keep it together.

My AS specialist psychologist also runs "social skills training groups" for those with AS who need them, but my social skills aren't bad to the level that I need that kind of help. He also helps me with just general stuff. For example, I have some trouble dealing with my husband's family. I like them, but due to my poor social skills, I have a really hard time trying to connect with them. I want them to know that I like them, but I'm afraid that I'm constantly pushing them away because they invite me to do things, but they're things that I can't really handle doing. For example, they invited us on a vacation to the Outer Banks a few years ago. We went, but a few days in, I just couldn't handle all the people and all the chaos anymore and we had to go home after 3 days of our 8 day vacation. I'm afraid they'll think I leave because I don't like them.

Just tell the people you weren't feeling well. It's TRUE, and breaks no feelings and reveals nothing.

For the suicidal feelings.... Are you getting plenty of magnesium, vitamin B and tryptophan? Do you have an interest you can get involved in? I'm asking only because it helped me. It sounds like you are worse off than I am, but who knows?

So how close are you guys to virginia?

Steve

I can say I'm not feeling well, but it happens all the time. When I'm "not feeling well" every time there's an event going on, it still looks like I'm making stuff up to get away. And when they say "hey, next month we're all going to go to X event, do you want to come?" I can't say "I'm not going to be feeling well next month."

The suicidal feelings actually don't come from depression. They come from anxiety and stress. Being overwhelmed every single day leads me to believe the only logical way to break out of that is to kill myself. And it's been going on for...um... 17 years now?

I don't know about the tryptophan, but I try to remember to take a Centrum Performance vitamin every day, so I get some supplements for the magnesium and vitamin B. My health-nut aunt gave me magnesium and B12 vitamins too (and ginkgo...and vitamin E...and fish oil...AND garlic...I think you see where this is going), but I don't take those regularly.

I have interests that I engage in all the time. What's an aspie without interests, after all? Honestly, now that I'm staying at home and not working, things are perfect. No suicidal thoughts at all, ever. Because now I'm not subjected to a sensory overstimulating environment every day (well, I am, but that's places like the grocery store, and I can leave when I need to), I don't have to deal with a ton of social things that make me panic because I don't know how to handle them, etc. There are a million things about working that cause me to start to break down and fall apart, and now that I don't have to deal with them, things are going really well.

I was actually diagnosed Schizophrenic Disorder by the same doctor who diagnosed me with AS. When they did SPECT scans they didn't diagnosis me with that though, although they did diagnosis me with AS that way too.

I know where you are with the suicide bit. I felt that way for many years and many years before that. If there was a way to just DIE, I would have died LONG ago! So I am not simply SAYING I understand. Magnesium is good because a LOT of people are deficient in it. If you are deficient, it can lead to muscle soreness, poor memory, poor immunity, and DEPRESSION. You need like 400mg of magnesium a day, so you won't get it from a multivitamin. tryptophan, or 5htp, is an essential amino acid, and you don't get those from multivitamins either. the fishoil is good(OMEGA 3/6/9), and ginko IS a good vasodlator(used for memory).

Anyway, I'm glad you feel fine NOW. I would just love it if you could push yourself a BIT harder, and STILL feel fine.

And if you go out with them so often, they probably like you to a degree. Given that, maybe you can just tell them about your hypersensitivity, and about how it really IS just you. Maybe you can find a way to work it so you can all have fun without your having the problems.

Steve

Don't let the social stuff get you down. I have this all the time with family and friends. Sometimes it's okay, but then I go for long periods where I can't do anything social with anyone except my husband. That can literally go on for years with me. I'll say I'm going to go, but then I won't because I just can't. I get overwhelmed by it. I used to lie and say I was sick, now I just tell them I can't deal with it. It's hard for them to understand, but they do. It's gotten to the point now where they are just surprised if I show up.


As to work, I'm mega anti-social and touch/noise phobic. What kind of work do you do? I write technical manuals for a living, which I have done from home in the past. The people contact is very, very limited. The same is true of many technical jobs or jobs in Science labs. You might want to check into that kind of work if you feel like you want to work but can't take the social aspects of it. Whatever you choose, state your boundaries firmly. There is no reason at work to need to socialize unless the job calls for it. Most of this is just nonsense emoter things that go on in the work environment. The Tech Writers who worked for me rarely spoke. They wore headphones most of the time. If they needed to communicate, they had email. Our entire department was as quiet as a library. It's a very soothing environment for an Aspie.