Aspies with bipolar disorder

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I just have to ask: doesn't it really complicate things when you have both schitzoaffective and ASD, as oppossed to just having one or the other.

Yes it does. It makes it much harder. Sometimes only one of the things is affecting me and other times its both. There are times that the autism is worse and other times that the schizoaffective disorder is worse. I don't always present normally because I don't always hear voices, in fact its rare for me. My main symptom of the schizoaffective disorder is my delusions if you want to call them that. I have believed a lot of them for many years now and its just a part of my life. I say my schizoaffective is very mild compared to others. One is because of the lack of always hearing voices or other vivid hallucinations (sometimes I do get some pretty bad visual hallucinations though) and when its at its mildest, I am able to do things in my life. Having just one or other other might be a little easier but they might have one or the other more severely though. My autism a long time ago was a lot more severe and now if people met me I don't act autistic all the time or look autistic or anything autistic. Mine is more like Aperger's Syndrome now. I used to be classic autism. Occasionally I do get severe in my schizoaffective disorder though and end up in the hospital. I have been in there around 6 times or more. I have a new psychologist and yesterday she called me delusional. Every single doctor always says that I am delusional or psychotic. I am used to some of my "delusions." With my autism its mainly the sensory overload, constant rocking, I am repetitive in things, and can't stand change and when I get stressed I don't make eye contact. When I was young I really didn't talk. It was when I got a dog that changed. Literally the next day I started talking. I was even in the newspaper for that. I started talking when I was 7 years old.

You have great insight FireBird, I wonder if this does come from the autism aspect of things. Psychiatrists have consistently said this to me also, and I believe one was unconvinced about me having bipolar due to my level of insight about my own behaviour. I wonder if the logical/objective/emotionless/disconnected thinking style of autism is able to transcend delusions, hallucinations, and extreme mood swings.

For example when I'm in a very severe depressive state and thinking about how wonderful it would be to kill myself, although most of my brain is occupied with this, there's always this small logical/rational/cold part of me that stays disconnected and analyzes things accurately as they occur.

What I hate is that I think very logical. I believe in logic. It makes things make more sense, and you find answers that way. I guess that's my asperghers part of me. So when I get so depressed that I don't want to do anything, feel like killing myself, or have meltdowns where I do something like taking scissors to my long hair, or scratching myself with the knife tip, I think later when I'm calmer and not going through an episode how ILLOGICAL that was. I can't figure out why I did it exactly. And then I get all the more confused and upset with myself for not being able to keep myself calm and logical. I'll go through a day where I"ll think it through, and I may've said something or done something that made no sens and was illogical for me, and it frustrtates me and makes me wonder "Why couldn't I have just taken a second to think things through instead of just jumping in and saying whatever pops into my mind.

I am thankful and glad for the logic, and that I believe in logic, because it has prevented me from doing some of the more irrational things that I may have done otherwise. It's like a safety net, except for the times when the mood swing is most severe (and logic is thrown out the window), because I can analyze every action I impulsively want to take objectively, and not allow myself to take the actions my brain has determined to be illogical in spite of a strong urge to do these things (as long as my self control is still strong enough to overpower the urge).

The worst self harming behaviour I have engaged in is scratching, digging into myself with my fingernails, stabbing myself with a lead pencil, banging my head against the wall, and scratching myself up and down one arm with the sharp end of an earring. Having this logical decision making has prevented me from doing much much worse, which I would have done otherwise.

I never have delusions, but I do feel disconnected from my emotions sometimes. That is probably from the alexithymia traits of autism. I try to gauge my mood based up my energy levels and how much I am sleeping, eating, and getting stuff done. When I was severely depressed in the past I thought: "okay everything in life is a complete failure, but wait a minute, a few weeks ago I thought life was good and nothing has happened". So I do analyze things a lot to determine how I feel. I express emotion differently and sometimes I'm not quite sure what my emotions are.

I have had some psychiatrist especially when I was younger try to misdiagnose me as schitzophrenic, even though I have never had any psychoses or delusions--I think just because they felt I was disconnected. I also explained what was happened to me in exact detail, which I thought was very helpful, however my psychotherapist did not appreciate the timeline and pie charts I sketched out. How else was I supposed to explain my history and how often (rough %) I spent in every mood? A lot of therapists want to go on and on about feelings and how they impact others. I now understand that my alexithymia and autism limits this approach.

And yes, even when I was suicidal there was a very small part of me that said: "this doesn't quite make sense--somethings wrong here" or course I still felt profoundly bad and motivation was approaching zero.

I truly did not really how stark the contrast was until I went to a bipolar support group. I'm not socially anxious but I don't like interacting with a lot of people. Anyway we had to take turns talking about ourselves. I assumed that the focus would be on my bipolar disorder. So I explained myself and I was politely thanked for my "case study, which was rather clinical and lenghty". In others I talked too much, was too detached and analytical for everyone. Anyways I asked questions of people that were too direct and was politely told that it was not an interview. The experience was unhelpful to me, but I realized that a lot of bipolar people are worried about people think of them and how it affects their relationships with people. It also reassured me that I have both Aspergers and bipolar.

and if you say it the way I do with a flat affect:
"I have had several instances of self-harm recently which included ..." followed by "I am greatly concerned becuase ..." followed by "I chose this method of self-harm because..."
Some therapists have trouble with this because most people don't talk this way and don't think like this. This might be why I have had so much trouble in therapy sometimes in the past.

Thanks for sharing your story. It is interesting how different everyone's stories are. When you say "I don't always present normally", I really know the feeling. I think people see Aspergers right away just talking to me, but my mood problems (which is why I see doctors) have doctors thinking in a lot of different directions. I am not a "typical bipolar patient" but I also have problems beyond a "typical aspie".

Thankyou too jackbus01 for sharing your story. I have been seeing psychiatrist after psychiatrist this year but they've all been confused because I don't present as a typical bipolar patient, for the same reasons you mentioned. I also take an extremely factual and objective approach to my own symptoms, which makes psychiatrists doubt bipolar because I'm not supposed to be so rational and self aware if I have it.

It's always seemed hard for me, because I know I have all these things wrong with me that I am, in fact "crazy', but people that are crazy don't know they're crazy. I should probably bring this up next time I see my therapist.

It's always seemed hard for me, because I know I have all these things wrong with me that I am, in fact "crazy', but people that are crazy don't know they're crazy. I should probably bring this up next time I see my therapist.