Other conditions that lead to autistic behavior

Post Reply New Topic

There's some people on here who suspected themselves to be an Aspie, but were diagnosed with another disorder. What are the most common diagnoses?

I've seen quite a few sole ADHD folks here, and I'd vote it most likely to #1.

In fact, you don't see OCD, BPD, SPD, or NPD here, or if you do they don't come out and say, "I was mistaken I have BPD instead." But you do see ADHD dx's come about and are announced.

Something I've noticed too is that there are quite a few ADHD people that join the board anyway, and are looking into AS as a possibility.

There was a Gifted person that thought they were Aspie, but it later gelled they were "different" for that reason.

# 1

Edit: & 2 Anxiety disorders.

There could be ADHD, ADD, OCD, social anxiety, depression or any kind of learning disability. Some people are similar to people with Asperger's for example if you're an INTJ according to the Myers Brigg test.

Various aspects of my giftedness lead to autistic traits, as have aspects of my depression, anxiety and psychosis.

Can anxiety cause narrow interests/obsessions or over-analyzing/organizing (non-anxiety related aspie traits)?

I don't know how to interpret 'reading people' but...
My social anxiety is caused by being bullied a few years ago, and I think I was bullied because I didn't behave like the rest.
As far as I know nobody has ever lied to me and everyone's being honest, I don't use gestures unless I consciously do it (but that could also be a part of social anxiety?) so I don't read other people's gestures (except for obvious ones like '**** you' etc.) and I need other people's help to find out people's intentions (People use me quite often, according to a close friend). I don't know when someone's flirting, or how to flirt - never done that :p
I don't know what people think of me and it's really frustrating, causing me the anxiety, people always 'wear masks' and you have to know a lot about people if you want to figure them out (and I don't ). Sometimes friends surprise me by not letting me know anything anymore, when I considered them to be best friends. I've had problems with understanding terms like sarcasm, irony, subtlety, manipulating, naivety... I hope one of these things I said is the answer to your question

I think I have AS, but if I don't, I think it's a mixture between AD(H)D, general anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder and borderline personality disorder. Or I'm just a normal freak I really suffer from all these things

I feel some learning disabled (LD) peoples can also have, on occasion, non-verbal learning disabilities and/ or aspergers. But this depends on the person and the LD handicap as these can differ.

I feel this is the case with me too. I observe many of my behavior described within these forums and sometimes I do not "get" social situations very well or I obtain an over load in some sensory information ie sounds.

I did not always understand why this is the case but coming here has helped a lot. It has helped me to create some coping strategies in better dealing with different social situations and understanding my needs better. )


---------
> LD is the interference in processing some types information ie in spelling, reading, memory or math etc. <

I had a cousin who had learning difficulties, and was intellectually below average all through school, and some of the teachers suspected a very mild form of AS, but wasn't sure because her IQ was very below average. She had to be put in a special ed group. The reason why she was suspected of AS was because she had trouble mixing, and she was (and still is) very bad with reading body language. That is why she is with the control-freak of a maniac she is with now......

I know this isn't quite what the OP asked, but the thread seems to have drifted a bit.

I was misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder a couple years before being diagnosed with AS. A number of the traits overlap, though it's clear that my care providers just weren't thinking of ASD's in my case. For some reason, they just don't seem to think of ASD's in adult patients. It's like they expect all of us with ASD's were diagnosed as kids, or that only kids have ASD's, so they don't have to look. But as we all know, AS wasn't a diagnosis until the early 90s, and some of us were already adults by then, slipping through the cracks. I imagine that in 50 years or more, when people who slipped through the cracks with me have all died off, most adults on the spectrum will have been diagnosed, but as of right now, I'm pretty sure most of us aren't.

Being misdiagnosed with BPD wasn't all bad. It made me eligible for a fairly new kind of group therapy called dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT. (My health plan would only cover DBT for people diagnosed with BPD because that's who it was originally designed for.) I got a lot out of DBT that helped me with everyday life. It's really practical stuff that probably anyone could benefit from. Most of us with an ASD also have depression and/or an anxiety disorder, and that combination can look like BPD. In my case, I also feel inside a lot of the things people with BPD are said to feel, and much of my self-talk is also similar. But after a few months in that group, I knew this still wasn't it. I was fundamentally different from the others in that group. I didn't complain though, because I was still getting a lot out of DBT.

I've always also had some form of depression, but now I know that it's secondary to my AS. At about the same time I was diagnosed with AS I was also diagnosed with anxiety disorder, NOS - also secondary to AS.

I got other disorders that don't define me. But I suspect my autistic behaviours are trauma-related. They're still autistic behaviours to me, though.

I know what I am going to say has already been covered. For me first getting tested into the gifted program in 3rd grade. 5th grade I got diagnosed with add. Around 8th grade I was misdiagnosed with bipolar.

For gifted program- In second grade everybody in my school district took the test. I supposedly scored around 70 on a part of it. I was able to take a second test because I had an IEP for speech. I scored highest in spatial, and the part of the test that I had scored 70 on in the second test I scored 120. Don't know what area of the test it could have been. The only major thing that had changed is that my reading level had gone up a lot.

I believe that I have mentioned this before--my cousin, who is an Aspie like me, was misdiagnosed with shizophrenia. He was given drugs that left him in a daze.

I've undergone severe trauma from my childhood/adolescence and was originally diagnosed with a list of psychiatric conditions, BPD and C-PTSD on it. Also schizotypal PD, avoidant PD (how I could have both!? at age 12... ) the only dx that is still valid is the C-PTSD (which affects core beliefs, etc.) and ADHD which I'm being re-evaluated for along with Asperger's.

It is still difficult for me to say if I have traits because of abuse or because of having autism, because I was abused as a child for acting out (whatever that was) and then released to the system when I was ten years old. You would think all my time in group homes, psychiatric hospitals and inpatient residential treatment centers that someone would've thought about autism with me instead of cycling through every dx in the DSM-IV. So, with that, I went about 20 years without any treatment whatsoever. but I healed in that time.

Wanted to second dcs002; I had done DBT and it really helped a lot. There were a lot of challenging moments in group, esp. when other women would come in and threaten staff with bodily dismemberment -- and I eventually ran out of money to keep going... but overall, it helped me.

One of the things that autistics all share, Mind Blindness... you mention you cannot "intuit" others... that "blank" feeling or whatever, that's unique to spectrum, this is beyond mental illness. You can be quite detached if you have schizoid PD, but you also "know" others' like ppl w/ an ASD can't.

I was told by my diagnosing psych that my ASD was obvious. There is no question about this diagnosis. However, I've had a really difficult time recently and getting the support I need has been frustratingly difficult.

My GP referred me back to the psych team and last week I was given an EDD diagnosis: emotional dysregulation disorder. Basically BPD by another name. She was also convinced of my ASD diagnosis, and said the EDD could come directly from the ASD or from years of emotional trauma from having had to live my life (especially as a child/teen) without having my ASD diagnosed and therefore never having the support I needed. She said the EDD diagnosis had been complicated by the ASD because my presentation of it is different.

I can't say I'm particularly pleased about having another label but I am pleased about two things:
1. My ASD was correctly diagnosed before I got the EDD/BPD diagnosis
2. The EDD diagnosis suddenly opens doors to support and treatment that were previously shut for me (funding for support from the local autistic society and also psychotherapy (not sure what form that will take but there is a good chance it will be DBT))

I am relieved that I will finally get the help I need to help get my life back on track and move forward.