Publisher's Synopsis
Travis compares and contrasts autism with schizophrenia. He is diagnosed with both and says there are many similarities between autism and schizophrenia with a few differences. Both have imaginary make believe world's that are not related to real life or people in the real world. The difference is autism's make believe world is a coping mechanism as to schizophrenia is from voices, hallucinations, and delusions. People with schizophrenia believe their delusions, hallucinations, and voices to be true. They have little to no control over their make believe world. When someone just has autism they have a little bit of control over what is and is not a part of their make believe world. It is interesting that autism used to be thought of as schizophrenia before they started calling it autism. Both people with an autism diagnosis and a schizophrenia diagnosis have great difficulty with social skills. People with autism have never had good social skills, while people with schizophrenia had good social skills in the past before they got sick. People with both autism and schizophrenia have never had great social skills and suffer in social relationships because they do not have the social skills or social thinking skills to relate to other people. It is equally important that both people with autism and schizophrenia get social skills coaching to help them with their social isolation and loneliness. Social skills coaching is hard to get because insurance does not want to cover it but Travis really believes with good solid social skills coaching that people can learn to live with autism and schizophrenia both. While there might always be hallucinations and delusions someone with schizophrenia can learn social skills to help them be successful in social relationships and on the job. This is a great book that teaches you the differences and similarities between autism and schizophrenia. Here is an excerpt from the book. "With both conditions it is hard to know that what you are experiencing is part of a make believe world. I think that I am more into my make believe world because of schizophrenia than I am because of autism. I am actually very high functioning for autism. I am able to do a lot of things like drive a car that some people like autism do not get the chance to do. People with autism often lack the skills to take care of themselves because they never had those skills. One difference between the autism and schizophrenia diagnosis is that a person with Schizophrenia actually had good social skills at some point and time in their life before their illness set in and interfered with their social skills."
