Asperger Syndrome Support Group

What's fascinating is this talk of "sinking into another little world for a while." It sounds a little like escapism, something that some non-aspies will do on occasion. So is getting into something like Air Conditioning because of a lack of other prospects. That's actually how I got into teaching. And so that's another thing that's really interesting to me--many of the things that an aspie will cite as an aspie-trait seem like things that almost anyone would do on occasion. I guess the aspie just doesn't know what to make of their own actions though?

Hi, Chris!

I'm sorry that you had that experience with the doctor. She obviously does not have enough information herself about Aspergers or Schizophrenia. Fire her.

I have a son with Asperger's, a sister with Paranoid Schizophrenia, and a brother with both Asperger's and Paranoid Schizophrenia. I've done a lot of reading on both so that I can be a better advocate for all of them.

There are symptoms of Asperger's and Schizophrenia that overlap. Schizophrenia, however, is a progressive disease. You could have it for quite a while and just be considered quirky before it becomes clear that schizophrenia is the correct diagnosis. Somewhere I have a chart that shows how this works.

For my sister, it didn't take long before it was clear that she had Schizophrenia. For my brother, it took a long time--very slowly progressed, which also made it hard to see the correct diagnosis because he just seemed to get more and more quirky.

The primary characteristic of schizophrenia, and how it shows that it is clearly different than Asperger's, is hearing/seeing delusions and believing things that are clearly not true for the rest of the world.

For my sister, she had "a friend" that she talked to constantly. What it looked like to us was a bunch of pacing, talking nonsensically, and laughing with "her friend." It was clear that something was wrong.

For my brother, he would tell me stories about police officers following him, librarians making calls to someone to provide an update on my brother's whereabouts, people talking on cell phones about him, etc. These were things he actually saw--police cars nearby, librarians on the phone, pedestrians on their cells--but misinterpreted them as being all about him. When it got worse, he said he could hear his neighbors whispering on the phone about him--through the walls of his apartment. Clearly, the rest of the world did not see the things that he thought he saw.

See how schizophrenia is different?

Now, to get you the treatment that you need, find a different doctor. Interview doctors as best you can about their experience with Asperger's and mental illnesses. You can ask them how they would define Asperger's Syndrome to see if they know as much as you do. And when you ask about their experience with mental illnesses, you can probe about different kinds of illnesses without divulging your "concern" about schizophrenia. There are quite a few overlapping characteristics of all mental illnesses, and schizophrenia is just one that s/he could check into.

You can also ask someone you trust to keep an eye on you and to be honest with you about whether you're crossing the line from Asperger's to Schizophrenia or any other mental illness.

BTW, I learned a lot of this (but not all) from a Family-to-Family class offered by NAMI. See http://www.nami.org/
That's who provided the chart I have to shows the progression of schizophrenia. If I hadn't just moved across country, I could put my hand on that chart and share it with you!

Remember to be your own advocate and to recruit others you trust to also be your advocate.

Best wishes to you. And since I'm also the praying sort, I'll say an extra prayer for you for clarity and for good healtcare.

~Cheryl

Aha! Here we go--from the NAMI web site:

The symptoms of schizophrenia are generally divided into three categories -- Positive, Negative, and Cognitive:

* Positive Symptoms, or "psychotic" symptoms, include delusions and hallucinations because the patient has lost touch with reality in certain important ways. "Positive" refers to having overt symptoms that should not be there. Delusions cause individuals to believe that people are reading their thoughts or plotting against them, that others are secretly monitoring and threatening them, or that they can control other people's minds. Hallucinations cause people to hear or see things that are not present.
* Negative Symptoms include emotional flatness or lack of expression, an inability to start and follow through with activities, speech that is brief and devoid of content, and a lack of pleasure or interest in life. "Negative" does not refer to a person's attitude but to a lack of certain characteristics that should be there.
* Cognitive Symptoms pertain to thinking processes. For example, people may have difficulty with prioritizing tasks, certain kinds of memory functions, and organizing their thoughts. A common problem associated with schizophrenia is the lack of insight into the condition itself. This is not a willful denial but rather a part of the mental illness itself. Such a lack of understanding, of course, poses many challenges for loved ones seeking better care for the person with schizophrenia.


So from that description, you can see how the "negative" and "cognitive" appear to be similar to Asperger's.

~Cheryl

Are people with negative and cognitive schizophrenia capable of becoming positive? That's my question. I would assume it's progressive in a way that it worsens over time if not treated? Because those symptoms could certainly describe me, yet I also have very strong AS symptoms as well--like OCD, becoming obsessed with a subject (like robotics, computer science, insects, Mayan culture and history, music production, etc. in my case)

The problem with me though is that I do have paranoia to a certain extent, but it's more of me being afraid of having something like schizophrenia (I think this could be explained by my OCD. In the same sense that I'm a germaphobe, I wouldn't want to have schizophrenia) where on the other hand I think I could deal with something like AS. It's just a weird mindset thing for me, like I have difficulty holding on to rock solid state of mind and AS is something that really explains me in an acceptable sense. Yet all of this sounds so schizophrenic, doesn't it?

I've never had hallucinations or delusions. I sometimes had delusions of grandeur when I was a teen because I wanted to be accepted by other people, but I also read that kids with AS can be susceptible to delusions such as those because of their "outcast" state of mind.

I'm just not sure anymore, and feel like I may lose grip on my positive outlook. It's just so difficult to hold on to. I hope I will make it through this life sane and of somewhat healthy state of mind. If anything, as I've gotten older, I've been able to get better just through pure "wanting to fit in" and I have been fitting in with the crowd at school and my girlfriends friends, and I have a mostly positive social perspective on life now.

All-in-all, I think that I would be fine in life if I never have the idea of schizophrenia put into my head, like truly being diagnosed with it, because I've only been getting better as I get older, it seems.

Wish me luck!

@moonwaxing

By the way, thank you for that information.

@Wendy

I guess one of the main things that I can do now that I'm older and have 'woken' up a bit, is to look back on my life and make an assessment of how I dealt with things; the way I acted in any given situation, or my perception of the world and the feelings, or lack of feelings that I had. By using my newly found cognitive functioning to compare myself now to the way that I was a couple of years ago and as a teen, I've been able to better assess and compare what differences I exhibited then to what my perception of other people is now, and I think it really is a better outlook on the world for me.

The process is iffy, but I've had better results than the other crazy people in my family. My brother seems as if he's Asperger's with ADHD. His Aspergers mixed with ADHD makes him seem as if he's a sociopath, but I think that's an inferiority complex (due to being put down and shunned by friends as a kid) and it's the best way he could think of to overcome it (by acting and eventually ultimately BEING uncaring). I know that he's not sociopathic or whatever the correct term is, because he does have a heart. He's 37 years old and he LOVES animals. He sleeps in the bed with his two dogs and one cat and they all get along. I've seen him cry and show his caring side, although it is very rare.

He also has the obsessions like I do by bringing on hobbies, sometimes multiple hobbies, but they are almost always centralized around something having to do with electronics or mechanics. He also bought a $5,000 telescope out of the blue one day. lol.The man is a genius with very little highschool under his belt!

My dad shows symptoms also, but he always seems more manic to me than anything else, but I think that's because he's had a lot of failures in life, mostly job related, that have beaten him down, and now he's just an Aspie that has given up on being sane. That's my internet-educated prognosis of some of my family. I could go into more detail but you guys would probably start ignoring me by then. lol.

Hey ya Chris!

Oh absolutely, I agree with you. Using your new awareness and cognitive functioning is very helpful to better assess things.

My mom has AS mixed with ADHD just like your brother. She doesn't quite come across as a sociopath (that would be more how my father would seem) but does have an inferiority complex that seems related to her AS. She knows certain things are different about her... the way she doesn't get the main idea of a discussion, the reason why not everyone will like her...but she has had many wonderful successes in the field of music. She just doesn't accept the limits and labels that might be put on an aspie in today's world--probably because she grew up at a time when people didn't recognize it.
She amazing found--and married--another aspie, and so it's been a very unique upbringing for me and my brother, both non-aspies, and adopted as infants.
Feel free to go into futher detail about your family. I'm sure there's bound to be a few things in common.

Hi Chris, I am really sorry for what you are going through. That is soooo sad that your doctor doesn't believe that you have Asperger's Syndrome. My mom has Schizophrenia and I have Asperger's Syndrome. I think you should find a doctor that knows about Asperger's Syndrome. Also, look up the symptoms of Schizophrenia and if you don't have most of those symptoms, then you probably don't have Schizophrenia. It realy seems like you have Asperger's Syndrome and NOT Schrizophrenia! That is my honest opinion. I hope that everything works out for you. Dawn

Wow... sorry that the dr. said that.. or wrote it. I have read that autism/ spectrum disorders were considered schizophrenic... but that was some time ago. I would think that you were diagnosed correctly the first time and not put to much stout into what the dr. said. Good luck with the psychiatrist. Denise

Chris, you sound to me like you've got a decent head on your shoulders. Also looks like you're doing exactly what you need to. Doing your OWN research is precisely what you should be doing. If that is what's leading your physician to place "Hypocondia(?)" in your file, I would, as another poster suggested, FIRE her. Get another doctor involved. Go for consultations, and don't worry they might be thinking that you're "doctor shopping." Let them think what they want. Find one that respects you, your desire to research your own conditions, and your RIGHT to find a doctor that will work WITH you, not as an authority figure, or as an "employee," but as a partner in search of answers to mutual questions.

Sounds like that is what you're doing.

If so, CONGRATULATIONS! You're on the road to getting some real useful answers, and discovering coping mechanisms that work for you.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness, however
Scitzoid or Schizotypal (sp?) are both personality disorders and are very different things...

My sister is Schizophrenic and she has paranoia, suspicion, auditory but afaik no visual hallucinations, among many other symptoms, but most of them are handled to varying degrees by the medication she is taking.

The two personality disorders aren't so much about paranoia, suspicion, etc, they're more about a spectrum of behaviour , like how you approach things and its also notable that at least one of them has Autistic-Thinking listed as a symptom...

I have a mild case of Aspergers Syndrome and a psychologist friend of mine was surprised and said if anything I come across as more Schizoid, as int he personality disorder, yet he didn't think I had the Schizoid personality disorder... just that fitted my behaviour fitted that kind of category more than anything else...

The Schizoid Personality type is more characterized by withdrawal, and cold/logical emotion... (as opposed to warmth and personability... )

Personally I think you may have got the wrong idea from her assessment, but I also think it wasn't presented to you in a clear way, so its not your fault...