Is Asperger's often confused with a personality disorder?

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Here is what Christopher Gillberg wrote:

Personality disorders are often diagnosed in individuals who have had autism spectrum disorders since early childhood. Unlike in the case of schizophrenia, such diagnoses are not symptomatically inappropriate: the patients actually meet criteria for many of these disorders (perhaps particularly obsessive-compulsive, schizoid, narcissistic, paranoid, schizotypal, avoidant and borderline personality disorder). The question is whether it adds anything to the understanding of the person with Asperger syndrome to say that he/she also has this or that personality disorder.

- A Guide to Asperger Syndrome, p.56

i have never been diagnosed AS, but i think i am something much closer to AS than to these things which i have been officially (but ineptly) diagnosed:

gifted (as a kid).
depression.
general anxiety.
bipolar (but with a rage state manifesting as the mania instead of the more common type of mania.)
borderline personality disorder.
Schizotypal personality disorder.
post tramatic stress disorder.

Many true personality disorders don't show up until the teen years...

Hi nominalist, you may be interested to hear that Prof. Fitzgerald of Trinity College, who I have met several times, says that the DSM-IV should be ripped up and burnt because several personality disorders are in fact modified expressions in adult, of developmental disabilities that exist from birth. I agree with this.

Another PD that Prof. Fitz added to the list, that Aspies can be misdiagnosed with, is Obsessive Compulsive (anankastic) Personality Disorder (OCPD):

MICHAEL FITZGERALD, 2002. Misdiagnosis of Asperger syndrome as anankastic personality disorder. Autism, 6(4): 435

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive- ... y_disorder

I have autism and BPD. Not a great combo but luckily for me the AS mutes some of the BPD traits and makes them not so harrowing...but INCREASES other traits.

Sometimes I'm just being innocent...other times I really have no clue what the **** is going on.

I actually had a personality disorder made up for me once. I have an illness perseveration (I have multiple genetic, autoimmune disorders etc) and was actually diagnosed with Hypochondrial Personality Disorder because I had health problems since I was little but they were undiagnosed but I knew SOMETHING was wrong.

I've even had a transient diagnosis of Munchausen's.

I've had many psych evaluations...and they're consistent (BPD, AS, bipolar, PTSD, OCD etc etc) so I am more than confident I've (finally) been diagnosed properly and can now learn to manage my emotions and behavior.

Personality disorders begin forming in childhood years but are at their worst in your teens and young adulthood. Even with treatment my BPD is estimated to go away on its own as well.

Compare that to AS which I was born with and have had traits of since I was a wee little lassie

It is estimated that I developed BPD because of being an undiagnosed Aspie all these years and being abused because I didn't know how to "behave"

But where is exactly the line between PDs and ASDs?

If I understand, development disorders (like ASD) have to do with objective impairments, while PDs have to do with subjective preferences and thinkings ("being bad at math" - objective impairment; "disliking math" - subjective preference).

However, many "official" symptoms of AS are (or could be) subjective preferences.

A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

1) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviours such
as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures
to regulate social interaction; > objective impairment

2) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental
level;> could be both

3) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests or
achievments with other people (eg: by a lack of showing, bringing,
or pointing out objects of interest to other people);>could be both: objective impairment (if you don't know how) or subjective preference (if you don't want)

4) lack of social or emotional reciprocity.> could be both (see above)

B. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interests,
and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

1) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and
restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity
or focus;> subjective preference

2) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines
or rituals; > could be both - objective impairment if you need routines, or subjective preference if you like routines

3) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (eg: hand or finger
flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements); > I don't know if how to consider this, perhaps an objective impairment

4) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects > subjective preference

Then, I think that the frontier between AS and a personality disorder is not much clear (btw, in the 90s, Sula Wolff sugested that AS should be reclassified as a personality disorder instead as a development disorder).

Note that many of the objective impairments usually associated to AS does not appear explicitly in the official diagnosis criteria (sensory issues - not appear; difficulty in understanding non-verbal comunication - not appear, at least explicitly; difficulty in understanding non-literal communication - not appear); I think that they appear in the diagnosis criteria of autism, but not in the present diagnosis of AS

Objective impairment is generally regarded as something a person cannot help. Subjective preference is something a person chooses of their own free will and which autistics and aspies should change to what is socially acceptable.