I developed psychosis when I was 14. It was characterized by delusions, disorganized speech, and inappropriate affect and lasted the better part of 2 months. Because I was guarded at the time, it went largely unrecognized and the delusions were seen as not well-established and as overvalued ideas, so a diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder was handed down.
Though I am not looking for a diagnosis, I am leaning toward thinking it might be a transient reaction to stress that can sometimes occur in autism spectrum disorder, rather than something like bipolar disorder or schizophreniform disorder, and I want to bring this up with my psychologist on Monday. I'm posting it here to know if the experience of anyone else on the autism spectrum who has also developed psychosis is similar.
In elementary school, though my social skills were poor, I did relatively well in academics. However, when I made it to middle school, I started slipping in academics. The work in elementary school tended to be simple and straightforward, but in middle school the work seemed to be much more complicated and multifaceted, and as I attempted to work I would feel very fatigued and it would feel like my head was overheating. I wonder if this is because of my slow processing speed; though my IQ is above average, my processing speed is kinda slow, and it may have contributed to difficulty adjusting to the work. I was tested on the Cancellation of Figures Task and was found to be accurate but slow. I started acting out more and I started to have more severe social problems during this time. By 8th grade, I was failing some classes, and was expelled.
I had always had a tendency to retreat into a private fantasy world and late in 8th grade while I was at a special school (after being expelled) I did get preoccupied by a group of fantasies. This time, however, they would take a different course. That summer I had a delusion of reference that caused those fantasies to become "solidified" in my mind and to become delusions. It was like they had become a beacon, a solid core for my increasingly ephemeral and fluid sense of self to reorganize itself around. I began acting on them in scary ways leading to my hospitalization.
The delusions seemed to be the main new development, as I had problems with appropriate affect documented back to at least 7th grade and flat affect documented in 3rd grade (and probably related more to autism spectrum disorder) and I had cognitive disorganization documented back to at least 3rd grade, as well.
After being hospitalized and being put on antipsychotics, I began to improve in a way typical for people on the autism spectrum at that age. My speech became more organized and "normal"-seeming (more so for both than I had ever been in my life) and though I've had overvalued ideas since then, I've never had a clear psychotic break. I had a major improvement in functioning and by 10th grade I was in regular ed all the way through graduation. I'm a college graduate and though things aren't perfect, they are better.
Have other people on the autism spectrum or even not had a similar experience?
02 May 2013, 5:33 pm
