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autistic adults more likely to experience hallucinations?

Alexa

I've just come across a couple of articles in popular scientific journals that claim that autistic adults are three times more likely than allistic adults to experience hallucinations. This gives you a flavour:
https://neurodivergentinsights.com/hallucinations-and-autism/?srsltid=AfmBOoqWoWghLoQP1ZWb7x4fYgCXDAX9Ik4DU7G_oHxR0MgXm2TABIG5

This is by one of the researchers, back in 2017 when the research was published:
https://theconversation.com/autistic-people-are-three-times-more-likely-to-have-hallucinations-77337

I found this repeated within the health service when I googled and downloaded a document from Oxford NHS Trust as a typical example. It stated: Researchers have shown that people with Autism are up to 3 times more likely to have hallucinations. Often when people with autism hear voices, they are hearing their own thoughts spoken aloud in their head. And quoted the second article I linked to, which provided the link to the original research paper:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177804#sec002

Now, the scary thing for me is the number of autistic adults who were part of this study. It wasn't hundreds. It was 30, 7 of whom were women. Yet NHS trusts and articles in science=based media are circulating this without qualification. In my experience, basing 'facts' on one experiment involving only 23 men and 7 women would be regarded as dicey when applied to neurotypical adults. What do you think? Have you experienced such hallucinations? Is it common? 

I'll post the poster derived from the research in comments (as images and texts put a strain on the forum)

Parents

  • Honestly, I have suffered with visual hallucinations. When I was 15 and 24, but both times I was under an extream amount of stress. Apart from autism I have suffered from OCD since I was 4, had my first panic attack at 11, and currently have agoraphobia, OCD, GAD, Panic disoredr and various phobias. I know where it came from though, I had a very neglectful and abusive childhood, went on to have a relationship just the same. The trouble I find is that doctors are lazy. Every physical symptom I have is put down to my diabetes and everything else is put down to anxiety. 

  • in reply to LateToTheAlphaQuadrant
    LateToTheAlphaQuadrant said:
    Every physical symptom I have is put down to my diabetes and everything else is put down to anxiety. 

    Neurodivergence is not the only thing treated that way. I have a massively overweight friend and every doctor she saw for years put her digestive problems down to her weight. She wasn't treated seriously until she nearly died. She had to spend 7 months in hospital after a touch-and-go op and, even then, it took a few more years to sort out. Yes, they treat her seriously now, but her problems had nothing to do with her weight.

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  • in reply to LateToTheAlphaQuadrant
    LateToTheAlphaQuadrant said:
    Every physical symptom I have is put down to my diabetes and everything else is put down to anxiety. 

    Neurodivergence is not the only thing treated that way. I have a massively overweight friend and every doctor she saw for years put her digestive problems down to her weight. She wasn't treated seriously until she nearly died. She had to spend 7 months in hospital after a touch-and-go op and, even then, it took a few more years to sort out. Yes, they treat her seriously now, but her problems had nothing to do with her weight.

Children
  • in reply to Alexa

    Oh I can understand social services unfortunately! Also the nurses. My mum used to need weekly blood tranfusions and she went in to the hospital on a Sunday. It used to really stress her out as she had to wait for hospital transport (Very grateful for their service but if you've ever used them...) and the nurses would rush everone as much as possible so they could go home asap. Often my mum would be the last one there and even at 3-4pm they would turn all the ward lights off and have her sat in a wheelchair outside by the nurses station so as soon as she was pickked up they'd be off!

  • in reply to LateToTheAlphaQuadrant

    Heh. I was my father's carer for a decade and experienced all sorts of demanding behaviour from hospitals and social services. I'm still shocked by the time a nurse applied emotional blackmail to force me to leave work to pick him up when they unexpectedly discharged him early. They treat relatives as people at their beck-and-call to do the things they want.

  • in reply to Alexa

    I think it's my black and white thinking-Caring profession=caring person to me. Obviously not! 

  • in reply to LateToTheAlphaQuadrant
    LateToTheAlphaQuadrant said:
    I always presumed they had a code of ethics?

    Well, they do, but we're talking about human beings, who will usually find an excuse for their bad behaviour. For example, the patient is too demanding or has deluded themselves or 'no one could identify that from those symptoms'. 

  • in reply to Alexa

    Wow, your post really opened my eyes. I always assumed becoming a doctor/nurse/etc was a calling, a vocation if you will. I always presumed they had a code of ethics? It's awful that there are doctors out there that don't care about mental health or autism. Frowning2 I mean I've had deep suspisions about a few drs (You never see the same one) and many mental health workers. I know I sound naive I guess I'm just too trusting.

  • in reply to LateToTheAlphaQuadrant
    LateToTheAlphaQuadrant said:
    Surely they entered the profesion to help people? 

    Not necessarily. I've known a few doctors as relatives, friends or the husbands of friends and they become doctors for different reasons - it's a normal middle-class profession (medicine, law or the armed forces etc), it offers status, independence, a career etc. Of course, many do it from the desire to help people. They're all people, with their own flaws. One I know hated anything to do with the mind rather than the body and wanted nothing to do with mental health of neurodivergence. A couple didn't bother to learn anything more after qualifying, so new developments in medicine passed them by completely.

    Most were young men who suffered from the frequent young man thing of being convinced they were right about everything. Those are the ones I loathe because its always a matter of "here's some pills, now go away" even if I return with the same thing again and again.

  • in reply to Alexa

    I understand completely. I'm sorry your friend had to suffer so badly. Frowning2 I don't know why doctors are like that? Surely they entered the profesion to help people?