Living with Autism: Autism & Asperger's Vs. Schizophrenia or You See and Hear Things I Can't See and Hear, Therefor You Are Crazy and Have Schizophrenia

Autism & Asperger's vs. Schizophrenia
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A short while ago, some one who reads my blogs and articles, sent me a question. The question, explained that they were 16 years old, and since the age of 6, had been "having visions". (They gave details of some of them.) They said that friends were saying they were schizophrenic, crazy, and had a "broken brain" (I've heard that one several times from church leaders, myself!). They went on and explained that, like me, they enjoyed writing and art, and spent hours involved in it, to the point that they forgot everything else. They did not think that they had schizophrenia, but did not know what else it could be, but being a member of the same writing group as me, they had noticed that a lot of things I said and did seemed to be similar to things they said and did, and thus, they asked my thoughts on the matter. Here is a copy of the answer I sent them:
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For nearly 30 years I was misdiagnosed (not by doctors, but by friends and family) as having schizophrenia - since I was 4 years old. Medical science has advanced greatly in the last 30 years. It is now known that children CAN NOT get schizophrenia - though most long-practicing doctors are still diagnosing as such, new practitioners will never do so.

I noticed you mentioned school - you are under 25 years old than right? You also mention this has been happening since you was 6 years old. That is the red alert bell that tells us immediately that YOU DO NOT HAVE schizophrenia. Your age is the determining factor that will tell wither you are Autistic or Schizophrenic. Your age here, is very, very, important. Why? Because there is NO DOCUMENTED CASE of schizophrenia having an onset for any one under 25 years of age.

In the past there were lots of cases of "childhood schizophrenia". Today however, doctors have a new name for it: Asperger's Syndrome. They now know that what was formally called "childhood schizophrenia" is actually a type of Autism. This "discovery" was only made in the last 5 years so it'll be a few years yet before general practitioner doctors stop using the term "childhood schizophrenia".

It is very difficult to tell the difference between Schizophrenia and Asperger's Syndrome because the symptoms are nearly identical. The treatment however, will tell you which it is. Schizophrenics respond to "schizophrenia medications" and Aspies do not.
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Schizophrenia is a metal illness (a chemical imbalance in the brain - in other words a disease) and as such will respond to medication, with the symptoms lessening or vanishing all together while the person takes their medication. As with all other mental illnesses schizophrenia is a disease that you can get, but you are never born with it.
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Asperger's/Autism is NOT a disease. It is a birth defect (a brain that did not develop properly before birth) - it is not a disease - you can not contract it later on in life - you are born with it. The symptoms will not lessen or go away with medication, because there is no disease there to medicate.

The difference between Autism and Asperger's is that Autism shows symptoms with in the first 2 - 3 years of life, while Asperger's does not usually start showing symptoms until the pre-teen, teen or young adult years.

Autism is rarely mistaken for schizophrenia. Asperger's is nearly always first diagnosed as "childhood schizophrenia" (by doctors who have not kept up to date and are still unaware of the fact that this disease is nothing more than an urban myth and slang name for Asperger's).

In any case, what you are describing is Asperger's Syndrome. I would recommend you ask your doctor about Asperger's Syndrome. However, keep in mind that very few doctors are trained to work with Aspie patients, let alone know that Asperger's Syndrome even exists, and it would be to your advantage to seek out a psychologist who has been trained in dealing with this disorder.

Do know that you are not alone, and there are lots of people out there who are going through this same thing, and as more doctors become aware of it, there are fewer cases of schizophrenia being diagnosed and an alarming rise in Autism and Asperger's being diagnosed instead. It is not that there is a rise in Autism, but rather that there is a better understanding of what is and is not schizophrenia. Because of the hap-hazard nature of schizophrenia, in the past it was simply easier for doctors the slap a label of schizophrenia on every disease they did not understand or were too lazy to try to diagnose properly. Prior to the 1970's pretty much EVERY person who wasn't "normal" was labeled schizophrenic, and scarily, it is now estimated that more than half of those people were not schizophrenic at all! It is probably the most misused, misunderstood, and most often misdiagnosed illness out there, because it's easier to call some one "crazy" than it is to find out what is REALLY wrong.

While there is currently no treatment or cure for Asperger's, many of the symptoms can be "controlled" with meditation (such as yoga) and training (same as training a puppy). For example you can with practice, train yourself to look for clues to determine if other people are seeing the same thing you are or not.

Some of the "visions" can be triggered by allergies - and can esp. be triggered by eating high gluten or high caffeine diets. Removing gluten, caffeine, and trans fats from your diet MAY help lessen them, though this does not work for every one, so be sure to ask a doctor who specializes in Asperger's, before changing your diet.

It is very frustrating living in a world where there are people/things/events that no one but you can see. Some people believe that Aspies are able to see into a "spirit world" and are seeing actual events taking place on a different plain of existence, while others believe they are simply having hallucinations. It can be confusing at times knowing if what you are seeing is something only you can see or not. I know this from personal experience. I am often reluctant to point out things, (such as - "Look at that cardinal in the bird feeder") because I'm never quite sure if it's just me seeing them or not. This was one of the contributing factors in why I stopped talking as a teenager - I did not know WHO it was alright to talk to WHEN. As a teenager I was unable to tell the difference between "real humans" and "people only I could see". Today, I have learned to tell the difference and am better able to go out in public now, but it is still difficult and results in me often not answering people when they talk to me, because I am not always sure that it is a "real" person talking to me. In my own home/yard, I talk to every one I see, but in public, I have learned it is HIGHLY DANGEROUS to talk to people, unless I am 100% sure that the person I'm talking to, is someone that every one else can see as well. (Real Humans, have a tendency to become extremely violent, and both verbally and physically abusive if you start talking to some one whom they can not see - so I'm usually too terrified of being beaten to dare to speak to any one at all.) As a result, over the years, I have developed Agoraphobia - a fear of people and a fear of going out in public when people are around.

You can live a more or less normal life with Asperger's, though some like myself require a care taker through out their life as we are prone to forget things - such as some times I will start writing and write straight through 48 hours with no food or sleep and will require some one to remind me to take a break to sleep and eat every once in a while; also I can not drive a car as I can never tell if what I'm seeing is actually there in front of me or not - there have been dozens upon dozens of occasions where I have pointed out things running out into the road in front of the car, when no one else saw anything there at all. These are among my most common "visions", and cause me to not be able to obtain a driver's license. My eye doctor calls these sorts of "visions" "floaters" and says they are caused by broken blood vessels in your eyes, only problem is, I've been tested many times and I don't have any "floaters" (dried blood) behind my eyes to cause these sorts of "visions".
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Someone once told me that they thought I was seeing ghosts - people and animals who had been hit by cars, and are continually now redoing the last thing they ever did: walking out into the road in front of a car, and that for some reason, I am able to see them.

In any case, ghosts or floaters, either way, I can not drive because I can not go more than a few feet on most roads, with out something that isn't there running out in front of the car. And while I can tell the difference between people I should and should not talk to in public - I have yet to be able to figure out how to tell if the people/animals I keep seeing in the roads are real or not. If they are not real, I can drive through them, but if they are a pedestrian in the road, I can't risk running over them. As you can see, this makes it nearly impossible to drive. Thus I am forced to walk every where, or go with another driver.

As you can see, this makes it nearly impossible to drive. Thus I am forced to walk every where, or go with another driver. This causes great distress for me, because it is a huge disability that greatly limit's the places I can go. Seeing how most folks think I'm "crazy", I do not have one single friend, and thus no one to take me any where, and I am usually forced to stay at home, when I would rather go some place or do something, that requires travel to get there. It is the worst part of my Asperger's Syndrome. I have tried repeatedly to explain this to people who know me, but they get angry with me and start yelling at me and say that I am just making it up because I don't want to drive. It is extremely frustrating because their false accusations hurt my feelings, and their not believe that I see these things, makes me feel too embarrassed about it to talk about it with them any more.

It takes a lot of training and discipline to learn how to function around the things like the visions, but it can be done. I'm living proof of that. They do disrupt most everything I do, but I have learned not to talk when people I know to be "real humans" are around, and that pretty much stops most of my problems, seeing how it's the heavy teasing and name calling that I have the hardest time dealing with. As long as I don't talk about the things I see and hear, most people think I'm "normal" and don't bother me.
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You should go to a doctor and ask about these things happening to you and also ask if you might have Autism or Asperger's.

Of course, all that said, there are other things that could be causing your "visions", including food allergies (peanuts, sunflowers, corn, wheat, mold, mushrooms, etc), natural gas leaks, riding in a car with a faulty gas tank or gas filter, living in a house with a leaking roof (mold spores in the walls), chemicals leaking into your drinking water (esp if your house has old pipes), asbestos siding on your house, and a whole slew of other things. So it is VERY important that you see a doctor, and have this checked out. You may need your house tested for toxins in the air/water, or maybe you just need to avoid eating certain foods.
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Vitamin or mineral deficiencies can cause hallucinations. The cure could be a simple as taking a multi vitamin every day.
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There is really no way to tell for sure, online chatting, what the cause of your symptoms is, you can really only come up with a list of possibilities to ask your doctor to run tests for. There's really no way to tell for certain what is causing your symptoms until you ask your doctor to run a series of tests and rule out all of the possibilities.
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You see and hear things I can't see and hear, therefor you are crazy and have Schizophrenia
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Since I was 4 years old, I have routinely been accused of seeing and hearing things that no one but myself could see or hear. By the time I was 14, I was being accused of being schizophrenic, however, 3 different doctors said that I was not schizophrenic. In spite of these doctors telling my accusers (namely the bishop of the LDS Cape Elizabeth Ward in the mid 1990's, thankfully since relieved of his duties as bishop) that I did not have schizophrenia, the bullying got worse and escalated into the bishop demanding that members shun me for witchcraft and poltergeist activities (and he calls ME crazy?!?).

Over the years there have been many views and theories regarding what it I actually see and hear when I see and talk with Etiole. The theories range from mild: people saying I have an over active imagination or suffer from fantasy prone personality disorder; to outright insane: that I talk to demons, have a pet poltergeist, and require an exorcism done on me! In the middle range are theories saying that I talk to faeries, have had contact with aliens, or have a rare ability called "second sight" which allows me to see into the spirit realm.

While the debates over who and what Etiole is, and how or why I can see and hear him while (most) others can not (there have been others who've said they saw him as well.), is certainly the most often discussed topic regarding the things I see and hear that others do not see and hear, Etiole is not the only thing I see that others do not see.

Okay, before I go any farther, some of what I say, may sound a bit odd if you don't first know this, so, I should point out one thing: I'm a Mormon. I'm a very strict Mormon. I am called by other Mormons "a fanatic", "a Jesus Freak", "a Super Christian", "an Amish Mormon", and the not often heard term "an Orthodox LDS Saint". I live the church laws the way they were written in the 1830's. I follow the rules to the letter. I do not interpret, translate, or avoid parts of scripture that are "inconvenient". I take the words of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrines & Covenants at their face value. This, it seems, bothers people, esp the other Mormons who find the strict and rigorous laws of the gospel to be too strict and therefor find reason to interpret the scriptures into "what God REALLY meant to say". Now that you have been made aware of this fact, some of what follows, should make more sense to you, I hope.

Okay, back to what I was saying: Etiole is not the only thing I see that other people do not see as well. Colors are another thing I see. I'm attracted to esp bright colors, and when I see a color I do not just see a color.

For example, when you see red and think, that's red, I see red and think: love, lust, passion, fire, or hate depending on the shade of red. To me colors and emotions are interchangeable and every color has a very significant meaning.

All of my life I have seen these "colors" and pointed them out to people, usually my parents, a relative, or a Sunday School teacher, and would say something like: "Look at that black man, how can any one be so evil?" or "That woman is awful green. Why do people get so jealous?" or "Why is that guy so blue?" The adults would look around for a man with black skin, or a woman wearing a green dress, and none would be seen.

I was not aware that others did not see these colors until I was in my late teens, when one Sunday School teacher asked me to explain what I meant when I had said one of the guest speakers in Sacrament meeting "was blessed". I said: "Only people who are blessed are pale blue like that. That's the first time I've ever actually seen any one that color. It's very rare." My teacher was puzzled, because he couldn't understand how it was that the man was pale blue, and I explained that "his color" was pale blue. My teacher asked, "What color, he was wearing a black suit?" And I suddenly realized that my teacher could not see "the color", so I explained that every person had a color hovering all around them and that it changed with their moods and emotions and that you could tell when people were happy or sad based on what color their color was.

My dumbfounded teacher asked me how long I had been seeing these colors and I explained that I had always seen them, and asked what was wrong with him that caused him to not see them. He than explained to me, that, no one saw these "colors" I was describing and what I was describing was what some people call an "aura", but that he'd never heard of any one who could actually see them.

After talking with him, I asked a few other people in church about this, and was stunned to find that NO ONE saw these "colors" I was seeing. This puzzled me, because I had assumed every one saw them too. However, it occurred to me than, that my seeing colors that no one else could see, was the reason for the event which had happened in the temple in 1978.

Like all "good Mormons" my family went to the Temple. It was what Good Mormons were expected to do. However, on this particular day, I was being lead by a temple worker into the sealing room, where a wedding was being held, and I suddenly froze. Nearly every one in the room, was black, and not a normal black like I had seen before, but a weird swirling coal black smoke-like cloud which was growing bigger and bigger and swirling up to the gold painted ceiling. I had never seen anything like it before, nor had I ever been so over whelmed with a feeling that not the people in it, but the room itself was evil, very evil, very, very, very evil, as though Satan himself was standing there in the room. I turned around and ran screaming through the temple with a line of temple workers running after me. I was 4 years old and it took 5 full grown men to over take me and forcibly carry the screaming and kicking and biting and clawing and scratching, freaked out and never more terrified in my entire life, me back to that room.

While I have seen others since than that has a black color around them, I has never before or since, seen anything like that monstrous black cloud that was swirling around those people that day.

This event however, was witnessed by all of our closest friends and family, and from that day forth, I was labeled as "the crazy girl who ran from the temple". This was a label that stayed with me, and which I was bullied and teased about until my mid-teens, when "the crazy girl who ran from the temple" was replaced with the word "schizophrenic" instead.

Because of this inncidant, I have never since been allowed to get another temple recommend and basically, I am banned for life, by the church, from ever again going to the temple.
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(Joseph Smith btw, saw and talked with angels, spirits, dead people, Jesus, and God himself or regular occasions, so if I'm crazy for seeing a few, than he's a whole lot crazier than me, because he saw dozens!)
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more info about things seen by me but "not seen" by others . . .
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Encounters With Aliens, Angels, & Water Faeries: I'm making this page about Amphibious Aliens/Water Faeries because . . . I saw one, meet one, made contact, had an encounter with one, or whatever you want to say it is that happened. It was late summer/early fall of 1979. I was four years old. It ha...
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The VISION-D8: I'm making this page about The VISION-D8 (a UFO) because... well, I was one of the people who saw it. It was late summer/early fall of 1983. I was eight years old. It had a lasting effect on my life, that still stands today. The events mentioned her...
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Copyright Info: The contents of this article, are taken from the second draft of the book "For Fear of Little Men" by Wendy C. Allen, and reprinted here on AC with permission.
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This article was originally published in October 2008 under the title Living With Asperger's Syndrome is copyright to Wendy C. Allen and The Twighlight Manor Press, and is reprinted here with permission.