personality disorders vs ASD?

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So a few months back my therapist and I were discussing AVPD (avoidant personality disorder). It seemed to be a perfect match for the symptoms I was experiencing at the time, and I ended up all but officially diagnosed with it. (It's not on paper, but my mental health team basically said this seems accurate but your current treatment plan already fits the profile so we don't really need to change anything.)

Now that I'm researching ASD, I'm not sure if I have AVPD, ASD with a side of RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria), or a mixture of both disorders.

For the past 3 or so years I have been intensely reacting to any sort of rejection, real or perceived, from friends. At one point this landed me in inpatient care for a 24 hour hold. I am incredibly inhibited in social situations, and have been kinda socially anxious since early teens.
But these things could also be explained by ASD and the RSD that can come with it, I feel. I have learned to compensate for my lack of ability to read social cues by being overly polite and cautious.


In your opinion, what is the fundamental and/or main difference between a PD and ASD? I thought I had found the answers to my life when I found out about AVPD, but now I don't know.

It's kind of hard to explain, but from my understanding AvPD involves severe avoidance of social situations in an effort to avoid rejection/embarrassment/etc., feeling like you are more socially inept than you are, etc.

An excerpt from a website that explains symptoms/behaviours a lot better:

Yeah seems like I have both

I have severe RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) which I heard is a very common ADHD trait. It can be so intense, that sometimes I wonder if I do have a personality disorder, but whenever I research personality disorders online it seems I'm missing most of the symptoms.

Yeah I was diagnosed with two personality disorders before aspergers and since then a psychiatrist and a psychologist has disputed the aspergers and I've since been diagnosed with something else so who knows.

I was also diagnosed with adhd but I'm even thinking that wasn't right as well.

Idk it's difficult and I don't wanna go into too much detail about my personal circumstances but it's pretty complex.

You can also have TRAITS from PD's without it being severe or intense enough to be pathological - anyone can. ND, NT it doesn't matter. No need to play "Dr. Google."

I actually have talked to my therapist and entire mental health team about it, months back even. It's not "just google". Symptoms have also been severe enough that I spent a small amount of time in inpatient.

Oh, I wasn't implying it was anyone doing that, its just that anyone can have symptoms or traits of a disorder without the need to pathologize them.

Clearly if anyone is symptomatic to be troubled by something the should address it, but things can be mutable and change in intensity or even resolve. Over time a person can collect a lot of labels, and sometimes those labels no longer fit.

I've talked with my own therapists about "is it the autism causing this or is it "X" ? and the response is "does it matter"? Ultimately, its the symptom(s) that need to be addressed not the labels we attribute them to.

Why not both?

Personality disorders are diagnosed at ages 18+, where an individual's personality is more solidified.

ASD is a developmental disorder that is present in childhood that may or may not appear in varying ages.


Personality disorder is about the person's genes and their environment related to their behavioral emotional reactions and social interactions with others and their circumstances.

ASD is about their cognitive strengths and weaknesses, their sensory experiences, their perception and perceived contexts regardless of their circumstances.


A person with personality disorders are mainly made.

A person with ASD is born.



I'm an autistic who doesn't have this PDA (demand avoidance) profile...
"Unless I'm very severely stressed/helplessly awkward because my head is foggy/actually traumatized and in a wrong headspace/overly dysregulated and will make a fool out of myself if I don't ; but unlike usual cases, I don't have chronic cases of that.

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Antisocial Personality Disorder is the only personality disorder which requires the person to be 18 or over to be diagnosed with it.

Sometimes a personality disorder can be a response to the ASD condition.

So a person with ASD could have experienced alienation and as a result developed Borderline Personality Disorder, a core feature of which is intense fear of abandonment.

Or a person with ASD could develop Narcissistic Personality Disorder as a way of overcompensating for feelings of inferiority caused by the ASD.