Autism is just mild schizopherina not it own disorder

[Blujackaal]

TL;DU = Autism is just mild schizopherina that shows up at 3 years old, with slightly different symptoms.

Autism was supposedly was going to be classed as Early on set schizophrenia but with mild symptoms. But because of messing around & stigma in the 80s it was just classed as Autism by ones not reading old research papers. HFA & classic autism = mild schizopherina. Asperger syndrome not mlid autism it was a DSM V goof up it mild psychopathy with autistic traits. Mild autism is HFA but was binned a group that wanted Asperger's in despite Hans Asperger being upset at the idea.


Schizoid personality disorder - 95% of this disorder just sounds like autism.


What angers me is that they even suppressed that despite being mild you still hallucinate. I get mild feelings of someone watching me & very strong derealization but unlike with classic Schizo i can shake it off. And many other Autistic's i chat too need the same meds that schizophrenics need?, Could maybe explain why i get sudden chills or zone out randomly which happen more as an adult than as a teen.

Not sure if this is disturbing or gross?, At how schizophrenia is treated?.

 

[TimF]

There are so many that do not have it easy, that struggle with so much to get through each day, or each week. There are so many who find the neighborhood, the city, the local environment difficult to navigate, or almost impossible to navigate. There are many who regularly or irregularly have periods of great difficulty; and following those, must reconstruct their lives. We give identifying names to syndromes and disabilities, but you have to get to know the person well before you can begin the make sense of their struggle. Yes it is hard to communicate to another, especially someone who has not known struggle in their life, how hard it is for you to get by.

 

[Blujackaal]

Firstly, I empathize with your unique life challenges.
HFA is different, IMO and experience. You have heard this popular saying, right? - If you meet an autistic person, you have seen one type of autism.
Suppression of any experience is taking steps backward.
Probably you relate to a few of these lines?

Imagined reality

To see or not to see,
this cruel fantasy.
To hear or not to hear,
lies from a fake seer.

Buried deep within me,
many a deep-seated fear.

To sense or not to sense,
when your truth is rich,
mine not worth two pence.

The line is not blurred,
can't even see the line.
It's that absurd,
and you ask if I am fine?

Oh John, beautiful John,
you of the beautiful mind,
you solved the numbers' bind,
what about your daily grind?

You could not figure the portal,
what hopes do I have,
am but a mere mortal.

If I see the unseen,
hear the unheard,
sense the un-sensed,
feel the unfelt,
I am not god.
I have schizophrenia.

What telling Risperidone helps many Autism symptoms?.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I am on the (hugely broad and deep) Autism spectrum.
Whilst it has had some disadvantages I, like many Autistic people, see it more as a gift than an illness.
My ability to be more single minded than my colleagues and concentrate more deeply has been very helpful in much of my career.
My bluntness and total inability to read "body language" otoh has lost me friends and annoys my wife.
So it has been a two edged sword in my life.

I saw a TV programme about the way Autism is treated as an illness to be cured in the USA which seemed extremely unenlightened, antediluvian even, to me. I hope it is more sensible these days.
Here in Europe, soon to be left by us in the UK nobody tries to "cure" it.
A huge number of computer programmers, coders and engineers are autistic, it suits these professions.

 

[Monte]

To me, the movie "Temple Grandin" was a great first exposure to autism. What a life and what a woman. It wasn't easy being her.

 

[pozz]

I read a pretty good book once written by teachers who work with autistic children. Can't recall title or authors, but there was a line in there that went something like, "The point is not what we can teach autistic children, and the limits of what they can learn according to an accepted social standard, but what they can teach us, what we can learn from them about their experience."

Too often teaching, therapy or medicine just means controlling behaviour and directing it along certain paths. Schizophrenia and autism are so common but are really dealt with by making sure that experience stays private (through medicine, through partially enforced social exclusion, either in a facility or at home). I don't know of many people who are willing to spend the time to talk about it. Especially not at work or in public settings. There's too much lingering sentiment that an experience causing pain or suffering is an experience not worth having, and so isn't worth taking the time to understand. The fact that it happens and happens regularly is somehow discounted.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

So does this explain David Byrne?

 

[Blujackaal]

So does this explain David Byrne?

In basic sense yeah, since the Schizo symptoms are mild & not chaotic as classic version is with people like John nash. It also would why many Autistic adults have very poor grasp of reality that almost spooky depending on context.

 

[Luke Lemke]

Sorry to resurrect and old thread. My 11 year old son has autism and I try to help him navigate this "condition" the best way I can. He's obsessed with Godzilla/Kaiju movies, Snakes, Tornadoes, Airplanes, Trains and some other interests. He keeps switching from one interest to another every 3 months or so. Although I play with him using his airplane toys, action figures, etc., I try to get him out of his obsessions when I can so he learns other things and broad his interests a little bit, but it's very difficult to do so. He struggles in school and has no friends.

He also lacks motivation to do anything that is not related to his special interests.

At this point in my life I'm very pessimistic about him finding a job, a wife, having a social life, etc.

I don't want to "cure" him or anything, just want him to be happy and be independent when he grows up. Any advice that anyone here can give me? Is there anything your parents did that you think made things worse? Is therapy helpful?

I'm not planning to medicate him.

Thanks!

 

[Jimbob54]

Sorry to resurrect and old thread. My 11 year old son has autism and I try to help him navigate this "condition" the best way I can. He's obsessed with Godzilla/Kaiju movies, Snakes, Tornadoes, Airplanes, Trains and some other interests. He keeps switching from one interest to another every 3 months or so. Although I play with him using his airplane toys, action figures, etc., I try to get him out of his obsessions when I can so he learns other things and broad his interests a little bit, but it's very difficult to do so. He struggles in school and has no friends.

He also lacks motivation to do anything that is not related to his special interests.

At this point in my life I'm very pessimistic about him finding a job, a wife, having a social life, etc.

I don't want to "cure" him or anything, just want him to be happy and be independent when he grows up. Any advice that anyone here can give me? Is there anything your parents did that you think made things worse? Is therapy helpful?

I'm not planning to medicate him.

Thanks!

I dont know what country you are in but in the UK we put a bit (almost certainly not enough) of resource into schools to provide support to kids with various learning and social (dis)abilities including kids at all points on the autism spectrum. I'm assuming you have spoken to school about support available to him and yourselves? Like you say, its not about "fixing" him- but trying to help him and yourselves to get the best from life and make the most of his abilities.

 

[Emlin]

I'm autistic, so allow me to repeat the old saying: if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism.

We're all very different, and more different from each other than we are from you.

I think.

 

[DonR]

I'm autistic, so allow me to repeat the old saying: if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism.

We're all very different, and more different from each other than we are from you.

I think.

Yep, me and my son as well. While we are somewhat similar and very "mild" we have a family friend whose son is on the far end and now institutionalized. It's a very broad spectrum indeed.

 

[concorde1]

When I was a young child I would have phases of strong obsessions over things like "types of sharks" or "makes of cars" - I'm probably mildly autistic.

I don't have those much any more - except mostly high quality audio.

I also have paranoid schizophrenia which developed when I was a young teenager.

It has thieved me of any strong interests really.

 

[JP]

My ability to be more single minded than my colleagues and concentrate more deeply has been very helpful in much of my career.

Hyper-focus is awesome.

 

[ThatM1key]

Having mild autism (Diagnosed basically at birth) is somewhat horrible at times. Usually if you have unanswered question like "What's after death", they'll think about it more than others would. You can bury that thought but its still there, Because of that I am pretty much agnostic. I hate to mention this but when I was 15? I discovered I was bisexual, for a while I thought it was phase but nope. I mentioned that because years I read a study about sexuality and autism, and apparently most were bisexual.

The thing about dating, is that women that I felt were interested in me, were not, it was there "mother side" coming out because they felt bad for me.

In terms of talking to people, most people say they couldn't tell that was I autistic. So I don't bother telling people until very later. I just want to be seen as "That guy that acts a little strange" then be seen as "That guy has autism". My mother over the years tried to get me to watch media that autistic people in it but I didn't want to. I had a decent amount of friends though-out my childhood but I never experienced "Going over to a friends house" until I was like 17?

In terms of school help. I had speech help through out elementary to early middle school. We switched districts (Less funded) so I was sent to another middle school. They only thing they did was give me "less harder" classes, that's it no help. Many times at my old schools, I was told to "be myself", I did do that for a while and I got bullied hard for a long time but eventually when I got into 8th grade, I "changed my ways" and never got bullied again.

This is very hard describe to other people but I used to be able to listen to music while I was asleep. Deep down I still think about religion a lot and when you mix that with sleeping and music, the deep back of my brain goes wild. So when a certain "normal" song (Like for example "a fallen star by jimmy c newman") comes on, you wake up and it feels like "I'm dying and this is the end" and it feels like "Gods trying to take your soul away". These songs ain't death metal like cannibal corpse, no these are "happy songs". Its very comparable to the scenes in movies where a person gets tortured to "happy songs". Luckily this only happens if i'm super stressed about something.

Sorry to resurrect and old thread. My 11 year old son has autism and I try to help him navigate this "condition" the best way I can. He's obsessed with Godzilla/Kaiju movies, Snakes, Tornadoes, Airplanes, Trains and some other interests. He keeps switching from one interest to another every 3 months or so. Although I play with him using his airplane toys, action figures, etc., I try to get him out of his obsessions when I can so he learns other things and broad his interests a little bit, but it's very difficult to do so. He struggles in school and has no friends.

I don't know if other autistic people experience but my interests are usually linked together. When I was growing up (Especially schools), they wanted me to try new things like Art. When you "forced" to try new things, you sometimes might like for a while but eventually you lose motivation & interest for it. Some of his actual interests might stick with him for the rest of his life just like some mine did. If your school is "well funded" they'll probably help you out.

At this point in my life I'm very pessimistic about him finding a job, a wife, having a social life, etc.

Having social skills is #1, it leads to jobs and such. He'll eventually develop those social skills, it just takes time.

 

[Luke Lemke]

Having mild autism (Diagnosed basically at birth) is somewhat horrible at times. Usually if you have unanswered question like "What's after death", they'll think about it more than others would. You can bury that thought but its still there, Because of that I am pretty much agnostic. I hate to mention this but when I was 15? I discovered I was bisexual, for a while I thought it was phase but nope. I mentioned that because years I read a study about sexuality and autism, and apparently most were bisexual.

The thing about dating, is that women that I felt were interested in me, were not, it was there "mother side" coming out because they felt bad for me.

In terms of talking to people, most people say they couldn't tell that was I autistic. So I don't bother telling people until very later. I just want to be seen as "That guy that acts a little strange" then be seen as "That guy has autism". My mother over the years tried to get me to watch media that autistic people in it but I didn't want to. I had a decent amount of friends though-out my childhood but I never experienced "Going over to a friends house" until I was like 17?

In terms of school help. I had speech help through out elementary to early middle school. We switched districts (Less funded) so I was sent to another middle school. They only thing they did was give me "less harder" classes, that's it no help. Many times at my old schools, I was told to "be myself", I did do that for a while and I got bullied hard for a long time but eventually when I got into 8th grade, I "changed my ways" and never got bullied again.

This is very hard describe to other people but I used to be able to listen to music while I was asleep. Deep down I still think about religion a lot and when you mix that with sleeping and music, the deep back of my brain goes wild. So when a certain "normal" song (Like for example "a fallen star by jimmy c newman") comes on, you wake up and it feels like "I'm dying and this is the end" and it feels like "Gods trying to take your soul away". These songs ain't death metal like cannibal corpse, no these are "happy songs". Its very comparable to the scenes in movies where a person gets tortured to "happy songs". Luckily this only happens if i'm super stressed about something.



I don't know if other autistic people experience but my interests are usually linked together. When I was growing up (Especially schools), they wanted me to try new things like Art. When you "forced" to try new things, you sometimes might like for a while but eventually you lose motivation & interest for it. Some of his actual interests might stick with him for the rest of his life just like some mine did. If your school is "well funded" they'll probably help you out.


Having social skills is #1, it leads to jobs and such. He'll eventually develop those social skills, it just takes time.

First of all, thank you very much for your insights.

My son got his "autism diagnosis" when he was about 8. I kind of knew he was on the spectrum based on google research, so it was not a surprise. I also have some autism traits, so does my wife and other people in the family (I figured that out afterwards).
I've always considered myself an extrovert and "socially skilled". Ever since my son was diagnosed I started to question how much of my social skills was me trying to please other people or hiding my true self. I think everyone, one way or another, tries to cope with life, work, relationships, adapting ourselves to the environment. However, adapting to the environment seems to be harder for people with autism.

Regarding special interests: I try to get my son to do stuff not related to his "obsessions". I'm teaching him to play the guitar, which he didn't like at first, but it's growing on him. He's now playing some Beatles, Bon Jovi and Foo fighters songs. It's helping his self esteem since he's really good at it. I hope he doesn't lose his "interest" on this.

I understand your point about people "forcing" you to try new things, and I do that with my son sometimes... I'll think twice next time.

When it comes to social skills: That's still an issue for him. You've mentioned this comes with age and that's what I'm observing. As he grows older he's getting much better at it. I'm still wondering if Therapy helps or not.

Regarding schools. I live in Brazil, so public schools around here sucks. My son goes to a private school but they don't seem to be well equipped to deal with him.

Thanks!

 

[Killingbeans]

When it comes to social skills: That's still an issue for him. You've mentioned this comes with age and that's what I'm observing. As he grows older he's getting much better at it. I'm still wondering if Therapy helps or not.

I'm in the process of getting a diagnosis. It took me 40 years to get there. Mostly because I'm really, really good at pretending to be normal in social situations.

I definitely can't recommend that strategy. It might have helped me avoid prejudice, but has instead given me exhaustion, depression and suicidal thoughts in spades.

Do not encourage your kid to do so called "masking". It will destroy him on the long run. Put him in social environments where people accept him as he is or are willing to be deducated about his struggles and challenges. Help him feel included, but don't try to change him.

 

[Digby]

I'm in the process of getting a diagnosis. It took me 40 years to get there. Mostly because I'm really, really good at pretending to be normal in social situations.

Out of interest, what benefit do you expect from a diagnosis now that you're well into adulthood?

Do not encourage your kid to do so called "masking"

What is masking, is it trying to not present typical autistic behaviours? (talking at people about interests, too much information, not reading the room)

Apparently typical children intuit what kind of interaction they should be having, autistic children have to look for patterns that they can process. Some autistic people can turn their ability to understand patterns to understanding human nature and interaction more and more over time, so that they don't present to most, as different by middle to late adulthood. Maybe eccentric in their interests, but not outright weird.

I dunno, it seems sensible to me to try to socialise autistics as far as any other people, because most people, outside their own families, aren't going to put much time or energy into giving them significant consideration because of their condition (unless non-verbal, but that is different).

To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if 40% of this forum was somewhat autistic. I doubt this level of interest in any hobby is typical, let alone engaging or posting on a forum about it. This is completely different to the social environment of something like facebook, twitter, which is all about making connections with people, rather than sharing (often it's arguing about, lol) a common interest.

Regarding special interests: I try to get my son to do stuff not related to his "obsessions". I'm teaching him to play the guitar, which he didn't like at first, but it's growing on him. He's now playing some Beatles, Bon Jovi and Foo fighters songs. It's helping his self esteem since he's really good at it. I hope he doesn't lose his "interest" on this.

Does he have a gift for it?

I understand your point about people "forcing" you to try new things, and I do that with my son sometimes... I'll think twice next time.

I think everyone needs a push sometimes, perhaps it is just about it being measured about it. I wouldn't be surprised if autistic people, left to their own devices, often become hermits. This may be fine in their eyes, but the eyes of the world or their family might take a different view.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself about anything. You have taken an interest in the condition and seek to understand it as best you can, I imagine your child will one day thank you for that.

 

[Digby]

Wouldn't that perhaps limit his contact to other autistic children, family, family friends and teachers/therapists?

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

I'm in the process of getting a diagnosis. It took me 40 years to get there. Mostly because I'm really, really good at pretending to be normal in social situations.

I definitely can't recommend that strategy. It might have helped me avoid prejudice, but has instead given me exhaustion, depression and suicidal thoughts in spades.

Do not encourage your kid to do so called "masking". It will destroy him on the long run. Put him in social environments where people accept him as he is or are willing to be deducated about his struggles and challenges. Help him feel included, but don't try to change him.

Masking was the only way you stood a chance of being accepted, when you’re young peer acceptance is paramount. It never works as you can’t hide it 100%. What seems simple to understand to most quite often doesn’t mean anything to someone with autism. You develop coping mechanisms that later in life stand you in good stead. Fear of large gathering is a common sign and difficulty in maintaining friendships is another.