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Thinking about Abed Nadir’s psyche.
He starts off as a very socially awkward, gullible and stiff guy with a restrictive interest that he uses to try and understand the world. Very blatantly autistic.
He’s a leading force in the show. He gets the group of unlikely friends together in the first place. He spends episodes navigating is own desire to fit in and often ends up discovering other characters insecurities while doing so.
He’s brave. He’s smart. He’s confident.
Then by season three, you see him leading the others through the crazy world that is their life at Greendale. He’s accepted and loved. He’s almost a breaking the 4th wall superhuman. Almost. You still see his struggles through Annie’s coming to understand him & Troy. Speaking of Troy, you can see Abed’s need for him to balance things out. He relies on Troy in a way many autistic people have to be able to trust those around them to do. When Troy leaves for the air conditioning repair school, Abed is devastated. His best friend, the one person who understands him more than anything, has to go. When he comes back, it’s okay again and he’s stable again. He understands that life isn’t always going to be awful and that good people will be out there.
Season 5 he has to lose Troy. This time, he’s not coming back. He tries to not be crazy and see the lava but he is crazy. So he makes the game so that everyone will be reacting to the world the way it seems to him. He’s hallucinating this lava basically from what we as an audience are shown.
That episode, plus the Christmas special in season two, heavily suggests that whatever is going on with Abed mentally isn’t just him being autistic. He has psychotic breaks and sees things that aren’t there for other people.
I often wonder if in making Abed more fantastical in belief they strayed from a depiction of autism to a depiction of schizophrenia. The two have an overwhelming amount of overlap, autism used to even be consider a type of schizophrenia.
Things with Abed settle down again in season 6 though. He’s back to being awkward and trying really hard to be grounded and accepting of reality. No matter how boring it is to him, he trusts Frankie to keep him grounded. We still witness a bit of his psychosis in season six episode 10. When he can’t pull out of his flashback “gimmick”, it takes Frankie involving herself in it for him to be able to help.
I know other disorders can cause psychosis, I’m just not sure the ones I’m aware of fit what we as an audience are shown of Abed.

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