HOW CAN AUTISM AND MENTAL ILLNESS GET CONFUSED

Drat!

I've long suspected that I run out of some sort of vital brain nutrient, and start to "go down hill" with any sort of Positive Mental Attitude, a nutrient which I replace "by accident" at some point, through diet and suddenly recover. I seem to go downhill slowly but come back quickly, which is why I suspected a chemical nutritional cause. 

I'm not good at diary style record keeping (unless it's keeping hold of them, in which case I'm very good, as a pile of cardboard boxes hereabouts will testify!) So I've not been able to work out yet if that is the case.

I always thought my swings were due to external circumstances until 1998 when I found myself living the perfect life (as my preconceptions would have it) with the obvious metal fillip that gives until one day, I HAD TO take a day off from my very very lucrative (by my standards, I was the lowest paid guy in the place of course) and interesting work, "because I couldn't face going in that day".

Up until then the only really lunatic thing that I knew I did (outside of how use a motorcycle) was smoking the tobacco. Suddenly I had to add being "inappropriately annoyed about life".. 

Another 35 years passed, and then I finally got to understand...

I meant that I avoided the worst of a cold, and kept cancer at bay. 

Are you saying that oranges and cranberry juice have a measureable effect on your mental well being?

For me, I was diagnosed with Asperger's as a kid. But had mental episodes at the age of twenty; thinking to myself that I have schizophrenia. Now, I realise that it was one and the same.

Nowadays, the meds are just for show. I didn't get further repeat prescriptions. Then, I realised that an apple a day truly does keep the Doctor away. (for me, it's oranges and cranberry juice) 

makes me realise that other people have gone through it too, i understand where you are coming from

and i hope youu hav someone at least you cn turn to in times of need

People have been calling me rude names like "paranoid" for years, but since pretty much everything I was talking about has indeed come to pass...

(plus a few things I hadn't been concerned about like biological weapons being deployed against us, even I didn't think my fellow humans would be that evil.)

I was bullied, "gaslighted" and whipped at home, so by the age f six I was already in the hands of the MH professionals, who finally figured out that I had "Anti-social tendencies" by the age of 11. Which was a fair cop, I was stealing, fighting (mostly involuntarily against bigger people or groups, so hell yes, I had "Antisocial tendencies" at that time ! 

I had noticed that ALL of my big problems came from OTHER PEOPLE not liking the "cut of my Jib" a trend that has continued to the present day... 

An unfortunate consequence of my diagnosis is that I now KNOW it's the other people who have done me wrong, I can see vast numbers of occasions in my personal history where people have really "ruined" me in some way because of the way THEY perceive me in their little empty heads, so apart from my half day a month of "public service" and a few decent friends, I stay as far away from "society" as I can possibly manage.

A process that started about 13 years ago, and has been so successful, I get ZERO junk mail, was not invited for a "vaccination", I get no tax or other demands, and when someone tried to dox me a while back even given my name, occupation and home town, they kept finding other people. 

Of course my lifestyle excludes me form many, many of the dubious "benefits" of "society", but it's been made abundantly clear to me over more than half a century that it isn't MY society.. 

I guess that's why I spend so much time here...

WOW! As I was about to hit "send" something sounding like violence erupted outside of the garage in which I am sitting followed by someone crashing into my garage door. The autism seems particularly strong today, and by the time I'd emerged from the front door, I was already completely inarticualate... 

Wish Doctors looked at things like this, thanks for this way of looking things. My son's brain is right now very confused, more so off meds at the moment and so hope the brain is going to mend back to the supberb Autistic brain it was before

Yes, thats very interesting, both my sons are Autistic and i really get that how everything is coming to them at once. When i ask my eldest to do anything. I also get that inability to translate what they are feeling. It either comes out in a big panic, or suffer in silence, once my eldest had chicken pox and couldn't say he was feeling ill, he just kind of slumped, i will look up that link up you sent. Thanks

yes, definitely anxiety relating to OCD too can appear like parnonia, my son was also sleep deprived when he was assessed by crisis team in 2010.I don't know what they thought they coud see? Actually paranoia moments started when quite young, anxiety, noticed at about 8 years old. My son suffered cocktail of drugs from 2010, to just recently and now all drugs he is hypersensitive to even things like camomile tea, which caused him confusion, his brain receptors are very very fragile. Its now going to be a long slog, understanding patience and family support

I echo the other replies. The Mental Health Team deal more with a crisis but do not/cannot diagnose. You must be referred to the Autism Specialists for assessment then Diagnosis.

The main issue here being, the Neuro-Normative brain uses the brain differently to reason and perceive. So these blocks may work perfectly well for them. This Majority brain will filter out unwanted signals. It might simply use language and signs to reason, meaning that the use of words, or creating a word-based mantra, will impact how they understand a thing, a sort of hypnosis as it were. Autistics don't use these compartments / lobes in the brain the same. 

So these drugs may work on Non-Autistic individuals because they might be blocking regions not often used to perceive and recall. I'm trying not to be too technical. 

This is ALL part of the Double Empathy problem and its incredible impact on autistic neuro-wiring. 

There is this inability to understand what one has not been exposed to or cannot perceive. 

This is why MOST professionals who are not Autistic, ADHD or 'on the spectrum' (if you prefer) cannot possibly understand internally how we experience consciousness.

I am beyond irritated that Autistics are not being given even a micro-dose of anti-anxiety medication! Instead, Beta Blockers or Anti-Psychotics, which are USELESS. The issue is with GABA, not the occipital lobe or other regions in the brain we use to process, reason and relate with the world around us (which is what anti-psychotics will prohibit access to).

Please give everyone you are dealing with (nurses, assistants, doctors, etc.) a physically printed copy of this paper: https://t.co/SkgDzU97lz (it will download).

Autistics do not Filter incoming signals. They feel everything-all-at-once, which can slow down our ability to make sense of or understand the world which then slows down our ability to TRANSLATE what we're experiencing with forms of verbal communication. 

I usually put my Autism and mental health issues in the same box 

Heightened anxiety can appear similar to paranoia, this might have been at the root of the misdiagnosis. About 90% of autistics report problems with anxiety. If your son was very anxious about being in a hospital and around clinicians, this could have led them to believe that he was suffering from an 'unreasonable level of distrust' of them, i.e. paranoia.

I have suffered from a psychotropic drug, sertraline, which gave me horrible migraines.

Hi Julie and welcome.

NAS83382 said:

I suppose what I would like to know is when the Mental Health team spotted which was not Psychotic but Autistic

Is there someone within the team you could ask?

Was an assessment done, and if so, is there a written copy of it that you could access?