[alpot]

My 16 yr old son has flapped his hands and paced around in classrooms since he was in pre-K. As an elemetary school kid he had problems making friends and was always narrowly obsessed with odd things. In middle school he tried to make friends but that did not pan out and now he exclusively lives on the net as an escape mechanism from his peers who he thinks are immature for acting like clowns at the local mall. He has over the years cycled through many fascinations, obsessions and loves to read about consipiracy theories. It has reached obsessive levels so much so now that he has spooked himself into thinking that the folks at school are out to get him. They want to tattle on him, and get him arrested for being an odd-ball. He has watched so many police brutality videos that he seriously fears the cops and feels like any moment his actions will be misconstrued and the school will call the SWAT on him. Prior to this, he was obsessed with horror stories and the devil and I ended up attending church every day after school for a month. He even asked the local catholic priest if he could perform an exorcism on him.

The pattern I see with him is that he latches on to his obsession real hard bastardizes to the point of being paranoid about it.

Furthermore, he is lazy and has poor hygeine, does not care about homework or school and is not interested in making money or doing good for himself. Some might say, he has teen depression. BTW, he also has facial tics to boot.
He is also quite irritable. When someone disagrees with him, he breaks down.

It seems like he has a little bit of everything (trail mix). Recently I took him to a pdoc and obviously his paranoia and negative symptoms were the highlight and the doc wants him on anti-psychotics. Now I do not think he has early onset Schizophrenia. Because I would not consider his paranoia as unfounded.

I still believe he has Asperger with anxiety and depression but I can't seem to convince the pDoc to let go off the Schizophrenia angle. It is a scary one.

[Hellion]

Hmm well paranoia can be a symptom of schizophrenia, but it isn't always. People with autism do develop obsessions and i imagine if the obsession is rather threatening/scary in nature someone with autism could develop some paranoia considering that topic or whatever. Also does he have problems with other kids at school? like do the pick on him and what not....if so then its likely not so much paranoia as feeling threatened by people he doesn't exactly feel 'safe' around.

But yeah I don't know I'd think maybe trying an anxiety med would be better before resorting to anti-psychotics since those can have quite a lot of physical side effects especially with long term use but it sounds like he does get anxious over things and reducing the anxiety could reduce paranoid feelings

As for the laziness and poor hygiene I'd be careful about dismissing it as lazyness...many people with autism including myself have executive functioning difficulties meaning it can be hard to start a task even a simple one let alone finish it or it might not occur that a shower is needed for instance. Also with the depression depression can be a major motivation killer...on the outside it can look like laziness but there is likely more going on within. I myself on top of that stuff seem to process things slower...so I can get overwhelmed with too much input and then have a hard time knowing what to do might get stuck between needing to take a shower, needing to eat, having a phone call to make and plans later and be so overwhelmed I never get to the shower, hardly get a chance to eat and am barely ready for whatever I'd planned.

Perhaps you could look into finding another Pdoc to get a second opinion?