Female Aspies= Borderline personality disorder??

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Do you also have an ASD diagnosis?
Because all those symptoms can also be part of ASD and she should have known that.

Something interessting:
"Fitzgerald (2005) notes that borderline personality disorder
(BPD) and Asperger's can be difficult to differentiate in adulthood,
since both impair interpersonal functioning and share several
features: problems with identity, impulsivity, suicidal behavior,
mood lability, feelings of emptiness, uncontrollable rage, and
"transient, stress-related paranoid ideation" (p. 452)."
(Quote: Jeffrey Dahmer: His Complicated, Comorbid Psychopathologies and Treatment Implications Abigail Strubel, M.A.1, The New School Psychology Bulletin Volume 5, No. 1, 2007)

I believe in my case they couldn't possibly admit that I got a trauma from staying in the locked ward nearly two years ago.
Also they didn't toled me in the locked ward that I could have left according to the law after 72 hours and I didn't know at that time and just freaked out there because of my claustrophobia.

Also here:

"Depression quite often develops in the pre-adolescent or adolescent period in children who have high-functioning autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. This may either be a reflection of comorbidity with manic-depressive illness or be seen as a reactive condition following in the footsteps of feeling socially awkward and of being an “outsider”. Many adults with Asperger’s Syndrome or high-functioning autism apply for psychiatric help but are only occasionally correctly diagnosed as having an autism spectrum disorder. We have seen our previous patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, paranoid disorder, psychosis, and schizophrenia. It may be a matter of the adult psychiatrist not being familiar with the history and symptoms of an individual with Asperger’s Syndrome/high functioning which makes him/her liable to make a diagnosis of a condition with some overlapping symptomatology for which there is a well-known framework."

Asperger’s Syndrome and High Functioning Autism: Shared Deficits or Different Disorders?
Gillberg, C, M.D., Ph.D., The Journal of Developmental and Learning Disorders;5:79-94.

BPD goes back to childhood and manifests in adolescents. It may be caused (or partly caused) by repeated ongoing trauma in childhood. Or subjective trauma. But not a single traumatic event. And doesn't start in adulthood (though events in adulthood can worsen it).

Like I said, I'm going on what you say here. I don't know your whole story.

So... what do you do when a woman with Asperger's also has had to endure a violent and unsafe childhood, with broken trust and abandonment? I mean, it is highly likely that at least some aspies are born in dysfunctional families; what happens to them? It seems to me that, due to our difficulties with processing emotions, our need for guidance in so many departments, our need for stability and routine, that growing up in such an environment is highly destructive.

Wouldn't it be conceivable that Borderline (do I hate the word and connotations, though!) develops as the result of severly badly managed autism?

Just putting it out there, no pun intended at all...

Yes it is plausible. I picked up a (possible) BPD diagnosis after my ASD diagnosis. I disagree with the BPD diagnosis as I believe most of my behaviours can be explained by the ASD. However, the psychiatrist who diagnosed it said that it was likely to have been caused by the lack of recognition/misrecognition of my ASD and trying to deal with that on my own in an environment which did not "get it".

Well, answering or finetuning my own question, then... I did read up on Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD, the "C" does matter) and I found it illuminating. Some critics have argued that it is just another name for Borderline, but then without the harsh connotations... my personal view: it seems to me that some psychs and a large majority in the general public is determined to diabolise what they consider deviant behaviour, without considering what causes it. By no means can it be helpful to those affected by repetitive trauma (in addition to autism)... How are they're supposed to accept what's there when everybody is set out to hate them so much? I do realise (from personal experience, alas) that being in a close relationship with a Borderline person is almost impossible, but the general view on the matter is certainly not going to incite those in need of help to go and get it. And I do wish my ex partner would have been able to get the help, but the label was just unacceptable to her (she's not autistic).

Or am I being to hyper-empathic and naïve again?

@ YellowBanana: our messages must have been sent almost simultaneously...

You talk about growing up in an environment that didn't "get" it... that's bad enough in itself. But suppose you're "dropped" to grow up in a dysfunctional family, with parents wrapped up in their own sh*t, traumatizing even those siblings who are NT... what happens if you've got an autistic toddler running around there; what will it grow up into?

I do not have a vivid recollection of having read about people's experiences with those issues, in combination with their autism (but then again, I AM quite new here )

I think the problem was, that after the trauma I freaked out nearly every time I had to go afterwards ambulant in this hospital, because it triggered me so bad, that it was hard to believe that it was "just" caused because of the trauma in this hospital.
Also because I am allready strange enough with my autism.

But well, now I don't have to go there anymore and now I'm nearly my old self again.
(still some stress and stuff left because of the trauma, but I mean my behaviour, befor and after the trauma)

I don't agree with this opinion.
A good friend of mine has complex PTSD and just shares the dissociation with BPD, but those extreme. Even a lot of autistics I know share more with BPD at first sight(!) than she does. Also not all people with BPD had a trauma in childhood, but most did. Another girl I know with BPD didn't have a traumatic childhood and also her younger sister started showing some borderline traits. So BPD is somehow genetic, but traumas can happen to everyone, you can just be more voulnerable to them.

So those two disorders seem more overlapping in some points, but I think that BPD is diagnosed too fast and overdiagnosed in a lot of cases and diagnosed when noone else knows what's wrong with them.
Some psychiatrists also think too fast: "oh there is a trauma, oh this is a young person, so it has to be Borderline" This is total clichée and of course if you diagnose them all that way, then you'll also think that way.

After staying in that place that traumaticed me for nearly two years, my "Borderline-like-time" is over and no psychiatrist would diagnose me now on Borderline. So you also have to watch out carefully if a behaviour just occours in a certain environment, since when they are there, do they have a certain reason and so on, but this is hardly done and disorders get diagnosed too fast a lot of times. But this is a problem with all disorders in the psychiatric spectrum.

I also made the experience that the patient is very often not believed because a lot of psychiatrists think very much clichée and think: "oh this behaviour must mean the person has this and this disorder/syndrom/whatever" but in reality this is far more complex and even very often not that easy to tell. It is also neseccary to look out for differential diagnoses, but if the psychiatrist is once convinced that a patient has a certain diagnosis he/she will find enough "evidence" for it.

Last edited by Raziel on 18 Sep 2012, 4:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I got the diagnosis a few months after I was diagnosed with BPD. No professional who's seen me for any length of time agrees with the BPD diagnosis.

I never said that it's just a matter of semantics, that BPD and C-PTSD are the same. Some critics do, however, but I prefer to do my own homework... I agree with you furthermore that borderline is incredibly overdiagnosed and often used as a trash can for all sorts of behaviour, regardless of the source. I do believe clusters of behavior associated with the label can be observed in some people, but I am mostly interested to see what might have caused it (trauma for example) or if there's an underlying (genetic or) neurological (autism for example) condition. And if there is trauma, I believe the emphasis should lie on the trauma itself in therapy, not on the resulting behavior. But beware, if you've really lived intimately with someone who displays borderline-type behavior, you'll find it extremely unsettling. Even for aspies, who may be prone to meltdowns themselves. Or maybe especially for aspies, since they need stability, and that cannot be obtained with someone whose world is in constant disarray. I may be biased...

Raziel, I've seen you post many times on your trauma, I can sense your struggle with the BPD label you got at one point... I do not know you, but I think that, as you say yourself, it only happened once in your life, in incredibly unsettling circumstances, this is not BPD. This is 'just' trauma and dealing with the stress of coping afterwards. I hope you'll recover from it, and lead the life you're aiming for.

Yes, I kind of struggled with it, but today not that much anymore.
Now I don't have to go in this hospital again where I got traumaticed and this since 2 1/2 weeks now.
And today I hardly thought on it and calmed down a lot.
But I was also shopping with my mom, so this also helped.
My meltdowns and so on were very extreme every time I had to go ambulant in this hospital it was huge stress for me after the trauma and sendet them tones of emails.
So it was really no "normal autistic behaviour".

But since I don't have to go there anymore, my symptoms got a lot better.

But I think in my case the problem was that I didn't have "normal PTSD", but more DESNOS (disorder of extreme stress not otherwise stated), because:
1) I stayed in this traumatic environment (okay just ambulant and never again inpatient, so never again over night)
(but this is actually very typical for people who have a trauma frome being ceptured/locked away or simmilar)
2) With extreme posttraumatic stress I can get nearly psychotic symptoms

"The volume of studies with reasonable sample sizes and conservatice definitions of abuse that have replicated findings in this area suggest that a relationship does exist between trauma and psychosis for some people."

And I think those two componends (and some others) made it very hard to figure it out, if you don't see it from the outside.

Last edited by Raziel on 18 Sep 2012, 4:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Sometimes in connection with BPD it can be hard to really identify "a trauma", but it is rather a pathological form of upbringing.
There are different types of attachment and one is "disorientated/disorganized attachment".
This one is called per definition as being traumatic without a trauma in the closer definition of trauma having occured.
Secondly, but this refers close to "disorientated/disorganized attachment" there is the so called "double bind", in which the child is continuously receiving conflicting information from the attachment figure.
This can also be categorize as being traumatic, though no trauma per definition did occur.
These two can also result in BPD.

Oh okay, this is why they thought in this hospital that way and where totally astonnished when I didn't show this behaviour by other psychiatrists outside the hospital (I had to go there twice because of a second opinion) and I could go afterwards out of this hospital, after nearly two years staying there ambulant after the trauma.

Actually thinking about this, I find this a bit of an extreme situation....
But I'm still glad that it's over now.

This is important, that you are out of the traumatising environment and context, elsewise healing is difficult as your nervous system receives permanently triggers reminding on the traumatic situation.
Now you can realize: Es ist vorbei - ich muss dort nie wieder hingehen!

Yes I think they have made two mistakes:
1) not realicing in the locked ward that I have claustrophobia and get traumaticed at the very moment
2) not realicing the situation right afterwards

Even thinking about it, that I had to go there kind of triggert me.



YES!

But I'm still waiting for my report about my time there and I even don't want to.
I want that EVERYTHING is over what has to do with this time there and I hardly can believe anymore that I stayed there that long and that it's just a fiew weeks ago that I left.