what is borderline personality disorder

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An ASD diagnosis in an adult is difficult. Coping strategies that might be seriously psychologically flawed can mask ASD and give rise to differing diagnoses.

18 months ago, based on loads of research and awareness of long term behaviour in "friendships" and relationships, I was self dxing with bpd or asd.

From all I have read and experienced, it is impossible for me to differentiate between a "I hate you, don't leave me" stereotypical bpd breakdown and an asd socially induced meltdown.

If i can't make this distinction in self after years of living with self and observing behaviour, then what chance has a shrink inside a few hours?

6 months ago my shrink was talking ASD within 20 minutes of meeting me. He dismissed the thought of bpd by saying I was not female nor had been sexually abused. To my mind, that was a flaw in his diagnostic capabilities - he was dismissing a bpd dx based on flawed dx skills and simple diagnostic prejudices.

You also have to remember that there is people out there with neurological or psychological problems that don't fit an existing diagnosis. I am an example of this. I was diagnosed with autism as a child even though I'm not really on the spectrum. I definitely had behavioral issues. A lot of the autism therapy is ineffective for me. I know how painful it is to be misdiagnosed.

I've been misdiagnosed in the past so I should not believe in professional diagnoses?

I've been diagnosed with everything that I've self-diagnosed myself with, and these diagnoses have been confirmed on later occasions as well as long-term observation during therapy.

So, you can be wrong if you self-diagnose, but being wrong doesn't completely undermine the notion.

Also, when you have anxiety, you know. It isn't just being hungry or having a bad day or wanting things your way all the time. Clinically diagnosable anxiety is quite tangible. Like, if you find yourself panicking at things and being afraid of things that might happen, and obsessing over things and ugh... it's definitely not easily confused with those other things (although I find that I hate change because of the loss of predictability and unexpected changes can cause pretty severe anxiety attacks, so it's not even that these things are automatically separate).

Where did I say you shouldn't believe in professional diagnoses?

Also I have been told I got upset over a change because I was hungry so I was acting a certain way or being told I was having anxiety when I was stressed out or getting anxious because I was not in control of the situation or things not going my way. Same with when I would be scared like the time I was afraid the the engine in the RV was going to give out and my mom got mad at me for being scared and said I was having anxiety or the time I got stung by a bee and mom had to take me into ER and mom said I was having anxiety because I was scared in there and then reacting to the pain from the sting and whatever they were doing to me. I look back at the times I have gotten upset or frustrated when not in control of the situation or getting upset over having water sprayed in my eye, I wonder if it was anxiety I was having as a child and my mom thought I was being naughty and doing it on purpose and her punishing me for it was never affective. It was as if I could control my emotions and it never made sense to me why I was being punished for my feelings. Now I have an impression people can control their emotions and have a switch inside them how they are going to act and feel. All I learned was to do the all or nothing thing, leave the situation and not do it if it's not going my way. My husband calls it me wanting to control the environment so I leave and do my own thing. Okay I don't know if that is anxiety or autism. I also read people with ASD want to control their environment and need to be in control to feel safe in it hence the reason why they want to take over or be the boss of something or else refuse to even participate in it if they can't be in control. Maybe it's both, I dunno. Also the fact on my bad days I would get told I was having anxiety. Okay was it a bad day I was having or what? I have no clue. Oh am I just hungry or am I having anxiety (because I am cranky and irritable, how do I know it's not anxiety?), I don't know unless I am starving. I rely on family or my husband to tell me what I am having (anxiety or is it AS or OCD I mean) because I don't know. I have been told OCD and anxiety was part of AS and a component to it and then to read online, especially on here that it's not a symptom nor is it part of it but it's a co morbid. Okay I don't know anymore. All the reading about ASD's and OCD and anxiety and how they overlap has confused me and now about myself I can't tell anymore with myself. Like am I stimming because of the anxiety or is it the autism. I thought autistic people stimmed because of the anxiety and a change in routine would cause it right or getting overwhelmed or having a sensory overload. Or am I just fidgeting or am I just doing a normal stim?

If I cannot tell, something must seriously be wrong with me or you are good at telling the difference like an expert.

can you have bpd first,then later get asperger.
can bpd turn into asperger

I think you missed my point. I was trying to illustrate the flaw in basing a belief on a single experience, or a small number of experiences. Like, there are so many people on this forum alone who have self-diagnosed and then been professionally diagnosed and it's so weird to see people say they don't believe in it or that it's always wrong despite that. Like it makes as much sense to not believe in self-diagnosis because you self-diagnosed yourself incorrectly as it does to not believe in professional diagnosis because of a professional misdiagnosis. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.



It's not a matter of being an expert. If people give you information that is inconsistent or wrong, that doesn't help at all. Like it sounds like your mother labeled a lot of things as anxiety, some of which may not have been anxiety, or possibly not in the way she said. I don't mean she was trying to lie to you - I would expect she was doing what she thought was best and saying things she thought was true (I don't know her, so I can only guess, but this is true of so many parents).

Even when I couldn't recognize anxiety as an emotion (before I was diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorders) I wasn't mistaking it for other things like hunger or whatever. I didn't really know what it was, just that it was very stressful and that I was reacting to physical symptoms that were probably not entirely "real" in the sense that they represented physical illnesses.

Stimming isn't one thing. I mean I've seen people describe all kinds of reasons for stimming. I stim when I am anxious, relaxed, excited, happy, and sometimes angry. Often I stim without any emotions that I am aware of (but I am not aware of many emotions so).

I think perhaps I should have made a different point: That symptom lists may be similar, but the experience of these conditions is not quite so overlapping. Like, I have basically seen no one describe their mental illness in a way that sounds like autism. I've only seen autistic people describe their issues that way. While ADHD and depression share a lot of overlap, I have never seen someone with ADHD who was not also depressed describe symptoms similar to depression., and the reverse is true of people who are depressed who don't have ADHD. The internal experience of having BPD is quite different from the internal experience of being autistic.

My mother is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She's crazy as a shithouse rat and mean as a snake, but she's got everybody thinking she farts sunshine and pee's perfume. She's manipulative, an attention whore, a professional victim/martyr who will only go through any inconvenience for her victimhood/martyrdom when someone is there to see it, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a vulture, loves drama - especially tragic drama, and will sit back and destroy somebody's life with a smile on her face if it 1. gives her something to do, 2. makes her look good to others, 3. offers any benefit at all to her, 4. shifts attention away from her bad traits, 5. gets her pity or admiration.

I don't see it as anything at all like AS. BPD's black/white thinking is more along the lines of how something relates to them rather than it's overall moral tone. An example would be that my mother will go out of her way to give a cashier back $5 when she's given too much change, because there are people in line who are looking and the cashier is there and can see my wonderful and honest mother return the $5, and she will tell anybody that's listening that she did it because it's the right thing to do, and stealing is wrong. Yet this is the same woman who hasn't filed her taxes in 20 years because she will owe money. It's the same woman who reported an expensive watch stolen after she broke it in a fit of rage and that way the insurance paid for it. It's the same woman who cleaned out my checking account when I left her my debit card over the weekend one year because she "didn't know she wasn't supposed to use that money and her dog needed to be groomed and some other things".

So, yeah, it's nothing like AS.

That's one way to be borderline, but I also know people diagnosed with this who experience a lot of emotional pain and turmoil, and have so much trouble seeing things without the shading of their emotions that they are constantly reacting to things even when they know those things aren't real. I don't mean delusions, like extreme anxiety/frustration/anger/jealousy.

There are several women on this forum who were incorrectly diagnosed with BPD before being diagnosed later with AS, as well.

I bloody well hope not!! !

Last edited by Jensen on 13 Dec 2013, 7:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is a documentary on BPD:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=967Ckat7f98[/youtube]

Gives a more nuanced view of the diagnosis and what it's like for people who have it.

I am one of those women. I came from an abusive childhood and have a father who is a convicted pedo. Odd thing is that he also has the AS nerve traits but is so old he was never DXd with anything other than PTSD from ww2. By watching him, I have realized it is very possible to be on the spectrum but have a psychosis as well.

All of that made me very worried that I would turn out just like my father. When I was in college, I had a counselor tell me he thought I was BPD. Nothing official. But I could not afford any other therapy. In fact, I would not have gone to that except I had my fiancee die in a plane crash and the school forced me to go. I was in very bad shape emotionally and such.

After getting into a stable relationship (15yrs now) and being able to hold down an IT job, I was finally able to go for real therapy after I had a burnout/crash/breakdown. The therapist told me I did not have BPD. He said I was too aware of others and too worried I would hurt someone on accident. Also I was too stable and did not have other symptoms. But I was suicidal (big time) and I was a perfectionist. He gave me the DX of PTSD with DID. (Dissociative Identity Disorder). But even he missed the AS.

We worked together 1-3 x a week for three years on the trauma / PTSD and DID issues to get me stable and give me some skills to handle that. But I was still having the other issues that were not being helped by grounding or anything else. Things like rocking in my seat , inability to hold conversations, and tons of other things.
I honestly thought I was just failing at therapy no matter how hard I tried.

I had never heard about AS issues and something happened that made me aware of it being out there. I took some on-line tests and they all scored very high for AS. I read things from others such as here and could relate to what was said in a big way. So I decided to find an EXPERT on AS just to "rule out" that as being a potential issue.
Much to my surprise he was able to confirm that I did have AS.

When I went back to my therapist with the DX he let me know that it was good I went to an expert on that. He said they "brush over" many of the topics in school. They know what things are, but they are not trained on the details.

Anyway, that is my input on this.

Interesting Documentary.

I have been accused of having BPD and/or by people online (not drs). These people are not like me in many ways.

1 I am not clingy usually...I run away from clingy people as I cannot cope with company 24 hours of my day. Yes I like to be out and about and I don't mind being around people but having to interact with them all of the time is tiring. Also clingy people often want an excess of emotional support...I am not always equipped to provide this. I get tired, bad tempered from all the pressure to have to perform socially, get upset and flee so I can recharge. This is often why I have my upsets and can go from liking someone to feeling like I hate humanity. They keep exhausting me and can't understand how stressed out and exhausted I am from dealing with their social stuff. I don't actually hate them, I just hate the way they are treating me and the fact they cannot understand and let me rest!

I want to socialise sometimes as I want someone to discuss the museum displays I visit with or to visit the coast with or just have a coffee with or share our thoughts on mutual subjects of interest with. I do not want people to fix my problems...I like to attempt to fix these things myself thank you. I may ask people for information though as information is always helpful.

2 I don't have my upsets in front of people physically if I can help it...If I can get away from people so they don't see it I will. I don't go off on one to get pity or attention, I am genuinely upset and not coping with what has upset me (emotional surge, too much stimulation from outside etc) and I will go off on one when there is no one around to see it. So how in the hell can it be about manipulation or trying to getting attention?

If I do have an upset in front of people or i talk about it or how Im feeling i am seeking understanding.

3 My hitting myself on my head when I am upset has nowt to do with a desire to self harm and is impulsive rather than planned. I don't think "Oh i will hit myself on my head now" I just find myself doing it.

And so on.

I can seem to have reactions that are over the top or exaggerated but that is because people are not understanding. Ie they disrupt one of my samenesses/routines over and over again and I get upset. To them I am over reacting..but I don't like my routines changed, especially if my brain has been expecting it and the change is sudden...it confuses/frustrates/upsets me. Same goes for when they damage an item from one of my collections. Ie I lend them a jigsaw and they lose a piece. I get upset and I am over reacting because, to them, it is just a jigsaw. Um I love my collections please and get emotionally attached to them. It is not JUST a jigsaw...it is on of my babies and I love it like I love a person.

I am fine when people don't bully me, pressure me to socialise when I am too tired or unwell or mess with my routines or my babies (my collections). People do these things even when I tell them it upsets me and ask them nicely not to please but they carry on anyway because they think it is funny or similar.

And people wonder I start to dislike them...

Aspergers is closely linked to social anxiety disorder.

Aspergers has characteristics of different psychological disorders like Social anxiety, borderline personality or anti-social personality disorder, etc. Aspergers is a developmental disorder and not a psychological disorder.

Last edited by Aspie19828 on 13 Dec 2013, 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Aye I am diagnosed with social anxiety but it doesn't explain all my issues even with depression added in. ASD is a better fit.

When I say fine I don't mean I turn into miss lets be overly social. I like my social interactions short and sweet and not everyday as I like to go do my own thing without having to interact with people. I simply don't want to spend hours sitting around making chit chat. I find that so boring...sorry but I do. It's boring and tiring and hard work trying to talk about things you don't really give a s**t about like social kudos, social games, the minutia of a peson's everyday existence such as what so and so said to so and so and oh and then so and so replied with so and so and so and so did that and I can't believe that and and so did this and that and...I don't care!! !!

I care about science and art and history and philosophy and nature and going out and doing things and having new experiences as long as they don't disrupt my routines and learning...

I don't care what so and so said about so and so and what silly social thing they did.

I listen to be polite...or pretend to listen to be polite, but I keep tuning out of the conversation.

And so on.

Intolerant moot...probably better off alone.

I realise people find me offensive, especially if I make the mistake of giving my opinion or stop to point out their facts or beliefs are incorrect. Even if I am actually trying to help in my own way. I don't do this in person unless it is to hold a door open or carry someone shopping. I keep to myself or I stick to formal polite and keep my chits chats short and sweet....

That way I can't offend everyone all the time and piss them off.

I was diagnosed as having BPD in college way back when. One of the reasons why I am suspecting a misdiagnosis is that I am more mature and grown up now and many of the BPD issues have calmed down a lot. People, particularly women, tend to get misdiagnosed a lot.