Can an autistic meltdown look and feel like schizophrenia?
Docs are back and forth about whether I have schizophrenia or Autistic spectrum disorder. Since EVER.
The thing is, I sometimes get "mini-nervous-breakdowns" in stressful situations, that pretty much feels like psychotic nervous breakdowns. Then I sleep over it and everything gets fine and dandy again.
In stressful situations, I kind of loose my sense of self if that makes any sense and go into a very ehm.. primitive automatic mode and basically everything I do is a reflex and I'm basically not there anymore to control my actions (and I'm also dumb as f***). I also sometimes get really p*ssed at random people (or family members). From the inside, I can't control my thoughts and I can't let go of what I'm feeling or thinking. Last time I was pretty sure my whole family hates me. Whether that's true or not, I do not know. The problem was I couldn't let go of the thought and I went on a downward spiral towards hell itself. Then again, I slept over it and now everything is fine.
I must add that my stress tolerance is very very low. So when I say stressful situations it could be just going to the grocery store. Or other minor thing like encountering people who for whatever reason are p*ssed themselves.
I also must add that I've been given each and every antipsychotic for a long time and non of them seem to be able to fix these.
Also AFAIK, there is no version of psychosis available in the literature that happens within minutes and subsides hours later completely or by sleeping over it. Most psychosis go for longer time. The only kind of psychosis that fits this is Ultradian Bipolar Disorder, but then again I have not that much of mood swings. I rather get p*ssed and super stupid.
Is it possible that these "psychotic episodes" are actually autistic meltdowns or shutdowns or something like that?
Update:
I can feel this kind of feeling coming up. And if I withdraw from people / activity when I realize it's coming up, it won't happen.
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Male
Aspie score: 131 of 200
NT score: 34 of 200
Possibly Aspie (diagnosed by an autism expert, doc moves abroad, forced to change docs and all say it's schizophrenia NOS or schizo-affective disorde or personality disorders. initial doc was a colleague of uncle Simon btw. you do the math.). (edit: by Uncle Simon I mean Simon Baron Cohen. Just to clear things up.)
This post has rung strange bells with me, though I'm not that good at insight, there was an interesting little bit in the half hour follow up talk with the consultant psychiatrist after the dx (at age 58).
He assured me, and assured me again with extra extra meaning, that the downright weirdness of my symptoms was because of Aspergers, and they had looked very hard at everything.
One symptom is very odd, unique and personal, it is a feeling, but the feeling is like a line from a Devo song " . . . give in to Ancient Noise,", and it is perhaps similar to the OP's reports, a miniature naff temporary nervous breakdown that mends quickly, what Victorians perhaps used to call a Turn. It's not like a fear of dying, it's like a fear of eternity, suddenly becoming permeated with it in a grim form of elation.
Another odd discovery is that I have migraine aura without any following headache, and the full follow through of symptoms from that can be odd - perhaps this in play in my case?
Here's my guesswork and possible suggestions:
1) Autism / ASD / Aspergers or whatever it is is hardly researched at all in adults.
2) Aut / ASDA / Asp MAY WELL have many sub types, and COULD EVEN be a collection of many different things.
3) Aut / ASDA / Asp could well be a subtle chameleon, or a sort of skeleton key to other mental states of being.
I'm certain of the following - Mental Health Services in the UK are scandalously bad.
didnt we already establish that autism and schizophrenia are not connected 50 years ago?
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Obsessing over Sonic the Hedgehog since 2009
Diagnosed with Aspergers' syndrome in 2012.
Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 severity without intellectual disability and without language impairment in 2015.
DA: http://mephilesdark123.deviantart.com
I don't know which part of this post you are answering with this.
All the docs who say I might have asperger's say they can't diagnose me because I have a past diagnosis record of schizophrenia and they also say that it's absolutely impossible to have schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorder at the same time.
So as you said, autism and schizophrenia don't go together obviously. But I still don't know who your comment is directed to.
Basically I have had quite a few nervous breakdowns, visible as well as invisible from the outside, and when I describe those to docs all they come up is psychosis. Now they say I have Schizotypal personality disorder so they have at least let go from real schizophrenia but still I believe I have Asperger's or some other kind of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and I was diagnosed with exactly the later in 2005.
_________________
Male
Aspie score: 131 of 200
NT score: 34 of 200
Possibly Aspie (diagnosed by an autism expert, doc moves abroad, forced to change docs and all say it's schizophrenia NOS or schizo-affective disorde or personality disorders. initial doc was a colleague of uncle Simon btw. you do the math.). (edit: by Uncle Simon I mean Simon Baron Cohen. Just to clear things up.)
To some degree this rings a bell with me . I have never been dxed with ASD but in my time have been dxed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective . I am now currently dxed with paranoid PD.
I have a history of becoming emotionally volatile under stressful,for me negative,conditions. Paranoia ramps up,anxiety ramps up, I become verbally heated(think ranting and raving) and irrational/mentally all over the place. Is it a psychotic like episode?/am I having a meltdown ?/Is it always possible to distinguish between the two?
What I can say is I've not really had an episode since getting on the depot antipsychotic. Sure I still get anxious and worried but I'm less emotionally reactive than I used to be.
My shutdowns/meltdowns generally start in a similar way.
Mine was only called anxiety and they look like behavior or me having a fit or a tantrum.
Weird they would call yours schizophrenia since you don't have any delusions or hallucinations or thought disorder.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
I have had severe anxiety once and only once I was also kind of delusional (but no one realized as my behaviour was rather super P*ssed and not delusional). But those happened in EXTREMELY stressful life situations WHILE I was on the wrong meds. some antidepressants and Lamictal make me bonkers. And on those occasions two I was on them. Now I refuse to take Lexapro or similar meds and lamictal with all force.
_________________
Male
Aspie score: 131 of 200
NT score: 34 of 200
Possibly Aspie (diagnosed by an autism expert, doc moves abroad, forced to change docs and all say it's schizophrenia NOS or schizo-affective disorde or personality disorders. initial doc was a colleague of uncle Simon btw. you do the math.). (edit: by Uncle Simon I mean Simon Baron Cohen. Just to clear things up.)
Another odd discovery is that I have migraine aura without any following headache, and the full follow through of symptoms from that can be odd - perhaps this in play in my case?
That sounds like a silent or acephalgic migraine to me and it may not of been the catalyst to my breakdown but it was definitely the first new odd thing I noticed. I've had one since then but nothing really happened just the aura and increased anxiety.
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Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury. Raise the double standard
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