asperger's and schizotypal PD

Post Reply New Topic

Sorry, my fault - I was rushing for work and didn't read the thread properly. I saw Schizotypal and Schizoid PD mentioned but forgot to see the posters

Schizotypal PD has some superficial resemblances to AS. There's social impairment and behaviour that is seen as eccentric by others. The main difference IMO between the two is that Schizotypal PD also features delusions and paranoia, and it's these two factors which causes the social impairment and eccentric behaviour.

I remember reading something a person with Schizotypal PD had written about whether they should take medication. He kept writing about how he believed his psychiatrist was reading everything he wrote and watching everything he was doing, and that the medication was poisoned.

Anyways, some conditions overlap to the extent that it's common for people to get misdiagnosed...it can take a while for people to get the proper diagnosis. This is not related to AS, but I've known people who have been completely misdiagnosed. One person was diagnosed borderline PD, but was actually bipolar II, while another person was diagnosed schizophrenic but was actually borderline PD.

Thanks for the clarification small fruit song.....I was getting abit confused also.I am currently in process of AS DX and also wondered if A DX of schiz PD was more appropriate because I have very little need for human contact and alot of posters to the forum seem to want friends...but I know there are a few who are content with one" significant other" ...I dont think anyone who had no need for human interaction would even be on the forum because this is "human contact" in my opinion...I want to know what others here think and feel and "need" feedback and want to share myself ...so I "am Social".....I just dont like the constant "physical" presence of others....but that has also changed over time because I use to want to belong to a group of like minded folks....I just never met any...and I have always hoped for "one special person" that I could feel comfortable sharing a space with...which I finaly found...

I am also struggling with the "concept" of AS at the momment because I am in the process of the DX and I want to believe what ever the result but have difficulty having "faith" in psychology/experts/doctors...I really wish it was more of an object process...like a gene test...


Anyone feel free to correct me, but I think what makes AS AS and not just OCD or Schizoid or ADD is that there are many co-existing traits that are grouped together


As far as the "delussional thinking" and "paranoia"....I have had both in my life but I think they are different then schizoidtypal in that they were mostly transitory, often brought on by extreme stress/confussion/depression and personality that tends to creativity.I think this combination in a world that is often "hostile" towards the behaviors and sensory experiences of AS person are really just a coping mechanism ...trying to make sense of a basicaly "crazy" world...

I use to believe that my mother hid my things just so she could yell at me for not being able to find them. I was unaware that I could have "missplaced items" due to recall problems.

I use to think I was an alien(common AS,evidently and I can not positivly rule it out)but it makes sense when taken in perspective of a person who has never felt they "fit into society and think society in general acts insainly"

As far as people stealing my thoughts or planting their own thoughts...that certainly is what it feels like when everybody around you seems to be denieing the reality of your perceptions and trying to get you to change to their perspective...

From wikipedia:

Schizotypal personality disorder:

* M - magical thinking that influences behavior, superstitiousness or the paranormal
* E - eccentric behavior or appearance
* P - paranoid ideation
* E - experiences unusual perceptions
* C - constricted affect
* U - unusual thinking & speech
* L - lacks friends
* I - ideas of reference
* A - anxiety (socially)
* R - rule out psychotic disorders & pervasive developmental disorder

Schizoid personality disorder:

* S – shows emotional coldness
* O – omits close relationships
* L – lacks close friends or confidants
* I – involves in solitary activities
* T – takes pleasure in few activities
* A – appears indifferent to praise or criticism
* R – restricted interest in sexual experiences
* Y – yanks himself or herself from social relationships

From the looks of it, Schizotypal personality disorder has more inc ommon with AS, as people with AS do take pleasure in their obsessions, not to mention the sexual thing.

Schizotypal PD is essentially very mild Schizophrenia. Just like mild Asperger’s is a mild form of Kanner’s Autism, AS is a kind of personality. Schizotypal PD - rather then a profound disorder, is an unusual personality type that is paranoid and believes in eccentric New Age kind of Ghost, Haunting ESP, UFO beliefs, Black Helicopters, Lough Ness Monster, Big Foot etc. ideas. Not totally crazy, just eccentric.

A person with Schizotypal PD could have a following/fan club. Someone with Schizophrenia would not.

David Icke is a wonderful example of an eccentric celebrity with Schizotypal PD. He was a famous sports show host in the UK who had a mystical awakening in April 1990. Then, he suddenly started to wear turquoise shell suits and appeared on a talk show calling himself the Son of God. He has since settled down a bit and is less insane. He has written several book about Reptilian aliens taking over the world and the Illuminati conspiracy. A lot of his writings have an anti-Semitic tone. He has made allot of money from being nearly mad.


I met one person (age 40-45) with Schizotypal PD. He came to my social group thinking he had AS instead. He ended up Schizotypal from smoking too much dope.

He was very paranoid and believed in New Age reincarnation, vibes, ghosts and ESP. He seemed just like a typical new age Hippie from a Crystal Healing - Fortune Telling shop, except he was quite paranoid and once heard the voice of his dead mother speaking to him on TV. He talked in a completely flat monotone, much like some people with AS I know. He seemed very boring, he had no emotion at all. He was quit depressed. He also dressed poorly and looked scruffy. He was married and had a family. Apparently he smoked too much dope as a teen.

Last edited by Diamonddavej on 22 Aug 2006, 2:56 pm, edited 5 times in total.

You're probably right, that's why it's a Syndrome.

Does anyone know someone with Schizoid PD? Because
* T – takes pleasure in few activities
could be wrong. It might just be what the psychologist thinks, because the patient just didn't talk about any interests.
Well, actually I think the whole "disorder" part is wrong. It's just a personality type.

Thats what the tabloids picked up on, but it wasnt the meaning he was trying to convey, which is more in line with established mysticism ie buddhism.



that is pure B*ll*cks mate, although i used to say similar things about him myself before i had checked firsthand.



But what is 'nearly mad' about anything he has actually said? Something which sounds ludicrous in a 1 minute soundbite can seem quite rational if explained progressively & cross-referenced to global-folklore, quantum mechanics etc. Thats why reptilian theory takes several hours of progressive explanation before it seems even remotely credible.

I dont see him as deserving of a PD DX, rather as someone who has completely stopped being scared of what other people will think of him - something i regard that as one of the pinnacles of self-development & a quality i hope to possess myself oneday As he says - 'once youve stepped outside the box of worrying what other people will think, you realise just what a tiny box youve been living in all these years'

Just about any personality disorder can be confused with Asperger's syndrome because some symptoms and commonly associated features overlap. The DSM-IV-TR's Cluster A personality disorders are an interesting case. As Diamonddavej wrote, schizotypal personality disorder is essentially a mild manifestation of schizophrenia. Schizotypals tend to believe in paranormal phenomena, karma, mystical occurrences that have special meaning for them, bizarre sensory perceptions (essentially hallucinations and illusions that they usually realize are not real), delusional and disorganized thinking, and often paranoid suspicion of others. A schizotypal's social isolation and other social deficits are because of their unusual thinking, behavior, and paranoia, not a lack of social understanding in itself or an inability to read nonverbal communication.

Schizoid personality disorder has some similarities with Asperger's syndrome except that schizoids often avoid social contact out of choice rather than a lack of skill. They essentially lack the ability to feel much of any pleasure and have very little emotional expression; they can sometimes have an active fantasy life, though.

Paranoid personality disorder is basically an organized suspiciousness of others, expectation of hostility, and inability to trust others. They will have delusional-type thinking without the sensory aberrations and other eccentricities of thought and behavior that schizotypals have.

An abnormal psychology textbook I have describes these Cluster A personality disorders as showing either the positive or the negative symptoms of full-blown schizophrenia. Paranoid personality disorder just has the positive (delusions and hallucinations); schizoid personality disorder just has the negative (flat affect, anhedonia, alogia); and schizotypal personality disorder has them both but to a lesser degree than schizophrenia.

I forgot to mention that a person can have Asperger's syndrome and one or more personality disorders as well. Asperger's syndrome is a pervasive developmental disorder; it is diagnosed by a delay or inability to acquire basic skills in social interaction, imagination, and language with the co-occurring eccentricities of interest and need for routine. The Cluster A personality disorders, though, are characterized by magical thinking, disorganization of thought and behavior, suspicion of others, and active fantasy life.

Yes--differential diagnosis is very messy business. As some of the early posters in this thread suggested, I think it's possible there is a "category" of personalities in which characteristics of both ASDs and thought disorders occur/are comorbid with each other. On the other hand, when I used to participate in intersocial therapy groups at my former university, I met a lot of borderline/schizoaffective/bipolar/etc. individuals who were anything and everything *but* autistic. They may have had social "problems" of a sort, but they weren't the kind of social problems which stemmed from a, well, basic cognitive impairment re: how to function socially. (Whether being without these instincts is really a true "impairment" is another matter entirely and best left to another thread, I think. ) For example, these people may have been hypersocial on occasion (e.g., when in a manic phase) and at those times may have charmed the socks off of everyone around them, "hooked up with" (consensually, mind you) several members of the opposite sex in one evening, etc. (While it's possible for an autistic person to be hypersocial and make poor decisions like these some or all of the time, [s]he is very, very likely not going to appear to be a "cool," socially normal person during those episodes.)

Also, it's important to remember the difference between, say, the vivid inner fantasy worlds or sometimes-seemingly-"paranoid" false beliefs about others' intentions which aspies might have (and would very likely happily give up were better evidence presented), and the true delusions/hallucinations/etc. which are necessary for the presence of a clinical thought disorder.

Sorry for babbling. I don't get to talk to people much these days, so I'm looking to the 'net for interaction (like I used to long, long ago).

As an addendum to my previous post--I remember reading somewhere in the mental health literature of about a year ago (for an academic reference course in library school--if someone's really curious, I can probably dig up a citation ) that the schizoid/schizotypal diagnoses were beginning to be viewed by many psychiatrists as somewhat dated, and individuals who might have been diagnosed with one of those disorders were being given other, more appropriate diagnoses (interestingly, AS was one of them.. hehe).

So--*shrug*--the mental health profession has a long way to go, because the brain sciences it's based on have to get there, first.

Mental health diagnosis is so subjective, and the overlap between DXs so wide that it wouldnt surprise me if at least half their labels were just surplus synonyms. Or perhaps they are all redundant, and a spectrum paradign would make more sense.

In the UK, mental health and PDDs/learning disablities seem to be operated independantly, with the vast majority of NHS specialists trained solely in 'mental health'.
What this means for us ASDers who havent even self-diagnosed yet, is anyone with a PDD seeking help in adolescence or late childhood goes straight to psychiatry, who (usually) slap a mental health label on you because they DONT KNOW enough about ASDs to refer them.

The OP surprised me thinking me might be Schitzotypal PD misdiagnosed as AS - its usually the other way round imo, at least in this part of the world.

Oh well, i dont really care much for the western medical model anyway..

Schizoid PD is just an old name for Asperger’s. It was popular in Britain where Freudian psychoanalysis was popular in the past. Schizoid can be imagined as a person with AS who is particularly inclined to be antisocial, they are not interested in making friends and find other people boring and stupid (I know one). It was formerly thought that people who were Schizoid went on to develop Schizophrenia, this is wrong. People who have Schizotypal PD have a risk of developing Schizophrenia.

The Icke information I found was from wikipedia, not a tabloid newspaper and Jon Ronson's documentry.

Wiki: The Green Party distanced itself from him in 1991 after he announced that he was "the son of God," [2] (video) and a "channel for the Christ spirit." [3] He began to dress only in turquoise and maintained that the world was ruled by a secret group called the "Global Elite", or "Illuminati", which he linked to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic hoax. [4] [5] In 1999, he published The Biggest Secret, in which he wrote that the secret world government consists of a race of reptilian humanoids known as the Babylonian Brotherhood, and that many prominent figures are, in fact, reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie. [4]

This does not sound like buddhism to me.



In Ickes own words:

Wiki: "I strongly believe that a small Jewish clique which has contempt for the mass of Jewish people, worked with non-Jews to create the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Second World War. This Jewish/non-Jewish Elite used the First World War to secure the Balfour Declaration and the principle of the Jewish State of Israel. They then dominated the Versailles Peace Conference and created the circumstances which made the Second World War inevitable. They financed Hitler to power in 1933 and made the funds available for his rearmament." [6]

Sounds anti-Semitic to me.

I accept that some of what Icke says is somewhat intelligent and plausible. But, as other main stream conspiracy theorists say - Icke drops a bomb in the middle of his well constructed conspiracy theory arguments when he starts talking about blood drinking reptilian humanoids.

Wiki Link: Wiki page about Icke

I'm not sure about the history behind the development of the Schizoid PD diagnosis, but currently it's still recognised as a PD.

It also shares similarities with ASD but as noted earlier by NeantHumain, their lack of social interaction is through choice, not a deficiency in communication. They don't have other issues that people with ASD may have, such as difficulty with eye contact. I believe a person with Schizoid PD also don't display the preoccupation with interests which people with ASD display.

Generally speaking, a person with Schizoid PD doesn't view their behaviour as a "problem".

I agree though that Schizoid PD probably has nothing to do with Schizophrenia and the name is therefore misleading.

How is that anti-semitic? He has simply claimed that SOME Jewish people made up part of a wider conspiracy. Thats not the same as critizing Jewish people overall, who he implies above, and states elsewhere were overwhelmingly the victims of those events.

It may be true that Icke is does not think himself as anti-Semitic but that his writings are used by anti-Semitic groups in support their agenda. The characters in Ickes writings e.g. the Reptilian Humanoids; can be easily replaced … if one is so inclined … to a Zionist/Jewish conspiracy. It is why Ickes writings are popular with anti-Jewish hate groups. It may not be what he or you would like.

More form Wiki...

Icke has further claimed that a small group of Jews, namely the Rothschild family — who are really a "reptilian humanoid bloodline" — secretly financed Adolf Hitler and supported the Holocaust. [6] As a result, Icke's speaking tours at one time attracted the interest of British neo-Nazis such as Combat 18, [5] and he continues to face opposition from Jewish and anti-racist groups such as the Anti-Defamation League in Canada. Icke has strongly denied that he is an anti-Semite, stressing that the Rothschilds are reptiles, not Jews. [2]

Remember I said - “sounds like anti-Semitic to me” I never said is anti-Semitic, a big difference.

To Racists, NeoNazis – Ickes ideas are popular because they sound anti-Semitic. But to me, he is just nuts and you are not going to change my mind, so let’s leave it at that… Please.

Fair enough, but if your not prepared to debate then i think its innapropriate to state, matter of factly that a person has a) a diagnosable personality disorder & b) anti-semitic tone. Those are only your opinions.