How many of you have diagnoses of ASD &schizophrenia?

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I have both. It was switched from schizoaffective to schizophrenia partly 'on account of the ASD diagnosis'.

I have an uncle who has it, but not ASD. My ASD son has it. Thankfully it skipped me.

I've heard before of how it can 'skip a generation'. How is your son doing?

I left the country just as they were preparing to send me to the psychosis specialist team. My medical history states schizophrenia as the main suspect (that or schizoaffective disorder). Luckily the last entry is merely "psychosis (further evaluation needed" atm, and I haven't returned since.

My new doctor recently cleared me of any suspected schizophrenia, so that's a good step. I'm on a wimpy 2.5 mg olanzapine dose now and plan to be off the medicine by next year.

Why did the ASD diagnosis prompt the doctors to change from schizoaffective? By the way, you don't seem delusional at all to me ...

To some extend, diagnoses seem somewhat arbitrary between different psychologists. Is it possible for one shrink to say, "I think you have PTSD," and another to say, "I think you have depression." for example ?

I ask, because I'm seeing a shrink, hoping to get my foot in the door with Autism. What he claims is he has the right to diagnose or not diagnose as he sees fit and that other shrinks may simply ignore his diagnosis and diagnose based on their own findings.

I told him flat out that I'm not fishing for any diagnosis, but it seems sloppy to have so much potential for inconsistency...and the whole situation seems conducive to misdiagnosis, and NOT actually getting a correct diagnosis.

Oct 2019: Changed from schizophrenia to schizoaffective based on further exploration indicating I'd had,in the past, both low and high mood while concurrently experiencing psychotic symptoms.


Oct 2020: No mention of past high moods as mentioned in previous letter. In the context of an ASD diagnosis having been made and past depressive symptoms deemed to be mild when they occurred(according to him) , he decided to change the diagnosis back to schizophrenia.

I don't think even back in the 70s you had ECT for at least 2 groups of 6 just for mild depression. Glaring inconsistencies, but that's par for the course with pdocs . He's polite,amiable, open minded, the best pdoc I've had so far. I don't agree with the switch back to schizophrenia, but it's not worth rocking the boat over.

Firemonkey, what are you saying about ECT? I don't understand.

Both of my parents (and other people of that generation) had many, many rounds of ECT in the late 1960s and early 1970s supposedly for "depression" and "schizophrenia", but it was actually for drugs or general misbehavior. There were some places around here (SW VA) that were pretty free with the "therapy" back then.

Sadly, once they had been shocked so many times, it was hard to tell what was damage from the "therapy" and what was damage from drugs or any other disorder the person may have had.

I had at least 2 sets of ECT with 6 per set

I don't have a schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder diagnosis and don't currently deal with any psychotic behaviour (though I had maybe some very minor issues in my early teens that have pretty much gone away). There's people in my family that have psychosis though, so I guess that's something I should pay attention to if I have kids.

What did it do in your case? Did it help or make thing worse?

^ First set in 1975 wiped from my memory most of the stuff I'd been learning for A levels. Otherwise much ado about nothing. No great improvement . The last set was in 1978. Nothing stands out re it being helpful or having a bad effect.

Psychiatric diagnosing is always changing. It's wrong to assume there is one, single, incontrovertible, diagnosis that all "good" practitioners agree on. Also, to diagnose or not diagnose as a shrink sees fit, actually works in the client's favor. In some cases a diagnosis might work against a client, in other cases work for them.

I guarantee you, in 20 years time the field will have changed yet again.