Schizophrenia and Autism the same/related???

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Okay,so where do some professionals/educators get the idea that Lower-fuctioning levels of Autism and Schizophrenia are the same/are REALLY simular?

Is that even true or somewhat true?


-SpaceCase

I read somewhere it it winds up like that because of this:

"Do you hear voices?" (meaning in your head)
"Yes" (thinking that he can hear other people's voices)

Well, I got put on an antipsychotic.

I think they're entirely different things. Except for the voice example, I just don't see how they would be related.

Oops, double post.

Last edited by Lightning88 on 23 Feb 2007, 4:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

From what I think that I know: schizophrenia seems to be related to bipolar - "switching" states of mind. Except bipolar switches between mania and depression which can also cause some "symptoms" of delusions etc..

I think that a vague idea of schizophrenia as a personality are people that are capable of putting their thoughts into more of a past, present, and future tense. Meaning that they "know what they know". This appears to seem like aspergers sometimes except that aspergers thinking is more of evaluating what they know. This is how the mind organizes thought patterns. Everyone has this ability. But some people have more of a reflexive pattern going on so it comes naturally.

Heck, the way that I write may look "schizophrenia" to people but I do not have schizophrenia.

For one difference between aspergers and NT is that NT personality traits are more reflexive - not automatic per say: just more reflexive / reflexive in giving abstract meaning to feelings or ideas etc.. Perhaps there is a flat effect also to people who have the tendency to hullicinate and be psychotic. However, I don't think that its because their impulses are blunted - NT personality is to keep these traits of impulses intact. Many people who have these disorders are "gifted" writers / artists etc.. Their minds pay a lot of attention to abstract ideas - thought patterns that explain things - poetically or metaphorically etc..

Only when they (people with "schizophrenia") hullicinate etc do they have problems relating to people or knowing what is going on around them.

I think that the psychiatrist's conceptual vocabulary is undergoing a complete overhaul, and hopefully in 50 years time we will look back on 'headline' diagnoses such as schizophrenia and asperger's syndrome as unfortunate relics of an era in which our understanding of neuronic/ synaptic function was painfully lacking. Hopefully then we can conceptualise the spectrum of human behaviours as less of a spider diagram with Neurotypicals in the centre, and then various branches (i.e. ailments, syndromes or deviations) leading off of it, and more as a multi-dimensional (i.e. how is this behaviour expressed, how do we as psychiatrists perceive it relative to other behaviours, how does it correlate to neuronal/ synaptic behaviour) Cartesian graph which everyone can be thought of as bestraddling at some point, on each axis.

That'll probably come from being able to simulate the behaviour of a neuron electrically, and being able to do more sensitive tests on the way a brain/ nervous system actually operate in practice, and how exactly various chemical agents (both internally and externally produced, dimethyltryptamine, ketamine, LSD, melatonin, serotonin, dopamine, and a whole load of agents/ neurotransmitters we're yet to discover) effect this.

So, in short, I think there are shedloads of more basic mistakes that are being made, in addition to the autisms and the schizophrenias being muddled up.

See, those are THREE reasons I NEVER liked psychiatrists. BTW I only was to a psychiatrist once, and that was because I wasn't playing with the other kids. He asked me ALL sorts of questions(Including ones like what is glass made from), had me create stories, had me do a rorshack(sp?) test, an IQ test, etc... At the end, he figured I liked girls(That was all my mother mentioned to me)(Because a lot of his inkblots looked human, and had protrusions that looked like feathers and breasts. HEY, I thought they were CLEARLY indian squaws!) Anyway, the three things I hate are:

1. They may ask a question when they have NO basis for a conclusion. I once had a feeling my wall had a hornets nest in it. That was based on my HEARING sounds that seemed like hornets, my seeing hornets go under siding, and that they had an unhealthy interest in my house. What might a psychiatrist have thought if I mentioned the "fear"?
2. They don't ASK! Why didn't that psychiatrist ask ME!? I often say that, in regard to things such as the above(Because it is about ME and based on MY experiences), I am the ONLY one on this planet, even in the universe, that knows the answer. So doesn't it make sense that they should listen to my opinion?
3. They assume unusual things fit into their DSM? They may not. It is AMAZING, for example, what things can resonate VERY well. It is possible to create something(unintentionally and with no power of any kind) that can take a barely audible noise and make it very audible. You might REALLY be hearing voices. Wouldn't it be nice if psychiatrists asked things like....Are they REALLY intelligible? WHAT do they say? Are they obviously directed at YOU?

Steve

It isn't possible for a Pyschiatrist or Psychologist to be anything other than subjective. The reason is that all of their question basis and their assumptions about your answers are based on nothing more than their own experiences and what they have read (I don't add seen because it is subjective and based on the former two). When I read some of the things they have told people it makes me laugh because they are so far out in left field, but in truth, there is no way for them to really know outside of their own experience and what they have read.


They can't look at your neurons or synapsis and decide anything legitimately because that doesn't even belong to their field. Anything they come up with is pure speculation and has no more value than if your next door neighbor did it. The only thing that would change that is a consulting Neurologist, but even then, I wouldn't let a Pysch translate what they were told by a Neurologist because that's nonsensical.


The only difference between the disorder currently named Schizophrenia and any other disorder in which you are visual (up to seeing movies in your head like myself, Temple Grandin and a few on here) is that the person doesn't understand that what s/he sees is not reality. In other disorders, while they may see the movie, they know it is a movie and a product of their mind. They remain aware of what's around them unless they conciously block it out. For instance, Temple does that when she develops new livestock handling methods. She's blocking out the world while she visualizes it because that's how she designs. Another designer might put it down on paper or into a computer, but they are all just developing a design and conciously doing that. If I write and I see the movie playing in my mind, I am visualizing the story and the characters. I certainly never think they are real no matter how much I like the story. I might block you out if I'm concentrating hard to capture the details of the character or scene, but I'm aware I'm blocking you out to do that. It's the same thing I do at work when I have a really tight deadline to meet or I need to concentrate. I'll deliberately block everything out to concentrate on that piece or project. It doesn't mean I think I'm suddenly living inside an Installation manual. See the difference?

Writing is just a socially acceptable way to deal with the voices in your head. I might hear my characters "speaking" but I never think they are talking to me! LOL They are just running dialogue for what I'm going to write when I get home.

All of this is why no Pysch person is going to be attempting to look in my head. Sorry. Doors closed. They can go somewhere else along with all the high end feelers. I kind of put them in the same category. They talk, talk, talk for the sake of hearing themselves talk. I'm glad it makes them happy. I wish them well. Now, back to my story...

Last edited by ZanneMarie on 23 Feb 2007, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Actually, most psychiatrists know it is normal to see or hear things inside one's mind (people who can't internally regulate themselves through self-talk and the like have a severe developmental disorder of another sort). The difference is, for people who hallucinate, they don't realize their perceptions are mixing their imagination with external reality. Literally, the wiring of their brain is screwed up, which causes this mix-up. Sometimes after the fact a person experiencing psychotic episodes may realize their perceptions were distorted. In schizophrenia, by the way, auditory hallucinations are much more common than visual hallucinations. In severe cases, these auditory hallucinations take the form of command hallucinations, which compel the psychotic person to do something (usually they're terrified by the voices and afraid of what the voices will do).

Schizophrenia also has delusions (usually of a bizarre nature); grossly disorganized speech, thought, emotion, and behavior; and sometimes periods of catatonic stupor or activation. In addition, negative symptoms (meaning a subtraction from normal human behavior rather than a psychotic addition to) like a lack of facial expression, lack of speech, and a general purposelessness and lack of pleasure may be seen. A knowledgeable psychiatrist should be able to tell psychotic symptoms and schizophrenia apart from autistic traits although there are many incompetent professionals in any industry.

One doctor thought I was somewhat Schizophrenic because I said I had voices in my head, but I meant it as the OCD voices.

As Gilda Radner used to say, "It's always something!"

Asperger's syndrome and schizophrenia are two totally different disorders.

The similar thing is they both have low latent inhibition.