I think I'm on the autism spectrum

I don’t have the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. I believe I inherited the traits from my fathers side of the family. When I read the symptoms for autism I can relate to almost everyone of them. Does anyone else think they were misdiagnosed?

We have a few autistics on here. @shutterbug and @firemonkey have both Sz and autism.

I used to work at a school for people who had both autism and schizophrenia.

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I’m curious as to how they managed to get their austism diagnosis, like how you go about talking about it with your pdoc.

As an adult, you generally have to ask to be tested. Mr. Star was originally diagnosed with social communication disorder at his psych evaluation, and then he pointed out that it says under the diagnostic criteria that it can only be diagnosed if autism would not be a more appropriate diagnosis. And then his pdoc was like “oh yeah, that makes way more sense” and thus he was diagnosed with autism.

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maybe If I gather my reasoning and talk with my pdoc about it he might consider it a more appropriate diagnosis. I would feel much better about my diagnosis if it were shown that I’m on the autism spectrum because I’m rather high functioning and have never experienced delusions, visions, auditory or any of the positive symptoms associated with schizophrenia.

For me it was a long process that wasn’t helped by MH pros at my previous MH trust turning a deaf/daft ear to my mentions of autism .

Luckily the pdoc I have here is more open minded and intelligent . At my 1st appointment with him autism was mentioned, and my stepdaughter, who has cared for people on the spectrum, backed that up . Questions were asked, and the subject wasn’t just dismissed . 2 weeks later I got a date for being assessed . That was mid Oct2018 . By May 2019 I had an Asperger’s dx .

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How did you get diagnosed with schizophrenia if you have no positives?

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That’s a good question I would love to know the answer to that question too. I went through some ■■■■■■■■ when I was a teen and ultimately got pink slipped by the police because my mother was pulling strings. They discharged me 2 days later because I was perfectly normal.

I think they thought I had schizophrenia because I was non-verbal in the hospital (by choice).

A lot of the same medications are used in both schizophrenia and autism. There is a lot of symptom overlap. But yeah, if you were acting catatonic in the hospital I can see how you would get the label.

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Mind if I ask how old you are, and when you were diagnosed?

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I’m 26 I was diagnosed at 18.

you’re right in the youngest section of people who frequently fell through the cracks without getting diagnosed as a child. They started to really bolster up evaluations later on, but if you had already made it to middle school and your grades weren’t bad, a lot of times your age group just got written off as socially awkward and moody.

yeah that basically defines my experience in middle school. I remember looking at the other kids in grade school and I always was confused as to why I was not like them. I felt like an alien to them. The best way I can describe it is like if you look at ducks in a pond. You know you’re not the same as them and if you jump in the water they’re all gonna fly away. So you know you’re different from them and you don’t integrate with the rest of them.

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Difficulty interpreting what others are thinking or feeling
Trouble interpreting facial expressions, body language, or social cues
Difficulty regulating emotion
Trouble keeping up a conversation
Inflection that does not reflect feelings
Difficulty maintaining the natural give-and-take of a conversation; prone to monologues on a favorite subject
Tendency to engage in repetitive or routine behaviors
Only participates in a restricted range of activities
Strict consistency to daily routines; outbursts when changes occur
Deep knowledge of one particular topic, such as a certain branch of science or industry

This describes me basically to a tee.

Then you may want to ask your current pdoc for an evaluation. It’s not often that people get misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, but it does happen.

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My ADOS -2

Picked on conversational cues to expand answers but responses provided few leads for the assessor

Didn’t include many non-routine events

Speech generally had little inflexion and musicality , and increased in volume when passionate about a topic.

Eye contact not well modulated with speech.

In demonstrating task descriptive gestures had little definition to them.

Exaggerated quality to emphatic and instructional gestures throughout the assessment.

Interested in maintaining assessor’s attention but not much reciprocal communication .

Didn’t display any curiosity in the examiner nor ask for more information when given some obvious verbal prompts .

Throughout the assessment the quality of social responses were awkward at times.

Social overtures were mainly related to own interests .

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I just got a referral to see about getting a diagnosis

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I think I’m on the autism spectrum, too. But having testing done can take loads of money in my country and my parents won’t be able to afford it.

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Where do you live?
I’m hoping insurance will cover it
My primary care doctor is giving me the referral

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