BPD v AS
Hi, Just coming straight in here on my first post, sorry.
I've been diagnosed Borderline, I have accepted it because I want therapy, I've always questioned myself being AS and was wondering how closely they are linked in showing the same symptoms.
Is there any links on here? I dont even know how I would go about explaining whats in my head, so not really giving you anything much to go on. Im better when people ask me questions about it. so sorry again. Dx
On the contrary. ASDs in females are frequently misdiagnosed as BPD. This happened to both my wife and another AS friend. Teenage girls with ASDs show symptoms sufficiently different to the 'classic' list and to those displayed by boys that they frequently get BPD diagnosis as it doesn't take much to misinterpret it and BPD is sadly more 'popular' with medical professionals.
We had read this several times before my wife got a diagnosis and this was also confirmed by the psych who diagnosed her with AS. He specialised in diagnosing females with ASDs and said it was a sad fact that they nearly all get missed and given a diagnosis of BPD or other mental health problem.
I've heard it suggested that due to bad experiences which are more common than the norm, people w/ASC's can develop various reactions than can become problems. Depression & anxiety would seem the most obvious ones. Personality disorders don't seem out of the question.
There may be no direct connection, but that's a bit like saying that there is no direct connection between being a gay teen and suicide.
I have also heard that a autistic women are prone to being misdiagnosed as BPD.
I don't know if this is of use to the OP, but this thread (on another forum) had some interesting comments:
http://asdgestalt.com/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... r&start=60
Anxious as you were to begin with, your anxiety level is now going to soar off the Richter scale, confusion will reign, and you could be in for the longest "meltdown" of your life. (And most Aspies I imagine know about "meltdowns"). And most Aspie women when their emotion regulator gets stuck on meltdown, will be in such excruciating psychic pain, that they will be drowning in a sea of anguish. ( Anguish is an emotion - as emotive as they come.) Most of us flap our arms around (or some other quasi psychotic gesture) before resining ourselves to drowning; just that is enough "acting out" to get an Aspie women dx'd BPD. And she may be Aspie, but what the psy will see is that 1) she's a woman 2)there's trauma - probably gross sexual trauma 3) permanent freefloating anxiety 4) prone to states of dysphoric frustration or anger and then 5) then the idea of a HFA might cross his mind, but he'll remember again that she's a women, and hence will dx BPD and not Asperger's.
What I found insulting in the BPD dx is the popular view of impulsivity and of people going to bizarre lengths so as not to be abandoned attached to it. Examples I've found seem alien and insulting to my nature. But abandonment redefined as what one suffers in silence with obsessive ruminations over the one you've lost for months or even years - well I can relate to that. Also this idea of manipulation is absurd - stemming form the fact that neither BPD's or Aspies know how or dare to come right out and ask for something. If those with BPD were truly successful manipulators no one would feel manipulated. The sad truth is that they are in a lot of pain and so desperate to find someone who can alleviate the pain that they reach out/strike out blindly. This provokes intense "counter-reactions" and hence they are accused of manipulating. And Aspies are even worse off here, not able to have much of a clue to distinguish true and fiction in daily dealings, or how to provoke much of anything, and so totally vulnerable to predators of one kind or another.
My psychiatrist said this is the case with me, that several of my conditions (BPD among them) developed due to bad experiences living with untreated autism for so long.
My diagnosis of ASD with coexisting BPD, depression, and anxiety, has been confirmed twice by two independent sources, a psychiatrist and a phd psychologist.
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Darth Vader. Cool.
thankyou for all your replies, grafefully received. I will try and explain afew things, if I can.
my son is DX'd on the Autism Spectrum
I always remember as a child standing blank when other asked things of me. I never made friends and if i did couldnt keep them (its the same now). When i stand in a roomful of adults I feel like a child, its like ive never grown up. I dont understand if its from a childhood of neglect/abuse because of not learning social skills or because I didnt have any to begin with.
I was always told by my mum that I wasnt the type of child that you could hug or would want to hug and again this leads me to think was it me or her inability?
I get obsessed with things very easily, Car number plates have always been the main thing but numbers are very much important to me. Codes also. Dates (have done my family tree and remember all the details of B/M/D and can recall it all when needed without reference) Working out the pattern in things, phone numbers, which I remember but if someone says the number in a different way, I have trouble recognising. Dyslexia has been said to me, which I accepted also.
I have a vivid imagination, I can picture things off the news with me being part of it, to the point of scaring myself but when reading I lose track of stories. I love fact.
As for social chitchat, with people I am friends with, I can do this. Or when Im caught up in explaining something I love. I hate crowds, dislike meeting new people. My friends describe me as socially awkward. If I have to phone someone to sort household things, I have to rehearse what I need to say. Sometimes I can feel high and everything falls into place and I can do anything, I feel great but told I never listen to people and am aloof from everyone else, which has lead to years of debate to whether I was Bi-Polar???
I do have the reactional emotions that BPD display, I tick the boxes for the disorder but not under the impulsive bit of it.
I have so much more but..........................????????????????
I think it is perfectly possible to have both AS and Bipolar. I don't know how common this is though. Another thing that can muddy the waters is Cyclothymia which is an extremely mild form of bipolar with a number of symptoms that overlap with Aspergers. From the multitude of online tests I've done I seem to have both Aspergers and Cyclothymia but I'm definitely not bipolar for which I'm lacking several key diagnostics.
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I've left WP indefinitely.
I think the OP is using BPD for Borderline Personality Disorder, not Bipolar.
I think the OP is using BPD for Borderline Personality Disorder, not Bipolar.
Oops, yes sorry, a senior moment there - I am very very old you know! I still get these abbreviations around my neck sometimes.
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I've left WP indefinitely.
I think the OP is using BPD for Borderline Personality Disorder, not Bipolar.
Oops, yes sorry, a senior moment there - I am very very old you know! I still get these abbreviations around my neck sometimes.
If its any help Bi-Polar is another thing that is being questioned with me (for 3 years now) . Im multi complex