Aspie view of NT's

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I've got a personal theory about NT's and am curious if you guy's have seen this as well. It occurs to me that anyone can be classified as a "person with High Functioning X Dissorder". In the Aspie case, X is roughtly Autism. But for NT's I've gotten close to, X seems to be "Borderline Personality" from my apparently Aspie perspective. Wikipedia only gives the full BP case, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality. High Functioning BP isn't as scary. The relationn to HFBT is primarilly due to the "emotional dysregulation", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_dysregulation, that I see. They have a terrible time controling their emotions and making rational decisions. Remember, this is from an AS perspective where emotions are very well controled in comparison to NT's. As these are comparative analysis to some "norm", if you change the ruler, the diagnosis shifts to the NT's having trouble coping on an AS scale.

I found the workbook for Stop Walking on Eggshells (ISBN 1-57224-108-X) by Kreger & Mason very helpful in understanding my wife better. Am I the only one around here who see these traits in NT's? I've developed skills for talking her through her emotional issues and understanding that her HFBP is affecting her.

In hindsight thinking about interviews where I work, NT's have a terrible time getting through them. We line them up with 8hrs of interviews so each person in the team has a chance to talk with them. Many of the people in the team show signs of AS. The NT's don't have the proper skills to do it; they show no specific interest in any subject, don't display any depth or breadth in their specialty, and have a difficult time making logically reasoned responses when under pressure of an interview and instead rely on emotions. Commonly the interviews raise issues about whether they'd be able to integrate well with the team. I've had a terrible time agrueing that some of the candidates we've interviewed could make a great contribution as they saw things differently and could help communicate some of the technical ideas to people outside our specialty in ways we find difficult to master. I've been told that some people had broken down into tears after I was done interviewing them (in this specific case, I had already recommended highering her). I am always nice and curtious, but I want to know at what point their knowledge of their subject breaks down. Oh well, maybe they can get to a support group to help them master the proper interview skills.

Makes sense to me, I can really see it. The cause of conformity (and how to "cure" it )

I'm quite serious. The workbook was targetted for the "NonBP" and how the BP behavior affects you. I found that I matched the NonBP description (in my world view) rather well, and the descriptions of HFBP matched people I've known well. Now I recognize the "I hate you; don't leave me" behaviour may have been due to her being pregnant at the time. But the symptoms of Emotional Dyregulation fit in general:

"Emotional dysregulation is characterized by difficulty regulating one's emotions: an example of this might be rage over a broken nail, or hysterics over a missed appointment. Emotional dysregulation is seen across both positive and negative affect (expression of emotions)."

and affect regulation,

"Affect regulation is the relative ability to tolerate painful affect, also known as affect tolerance, and affect modulation, which is the ability to internally reduce distress without resort to defensive mechanisms. Emotional dysregulation or affect regulation problems are often caused by early trauma exposure."

I've noticed that in relationships that have gone bad (most all of them actually), the following pattern in the other person seems to match. Remember to replace "other" with "Aspie" and "BPD" with "NT" while reading this in order to relate it. Consider this in the context of a world where everyone is an Aspie, but there are a few NT's.

"People with BPD often have highly unstable patterns of social relationships. While they can develop intense but stormy attachments, their attitudes towards family, friends, and loved ones may suddenly shift from idealization (great admiration and love) to devaluation (intense anger and dislike). Thus, they may form an immediate attachment and trust for the other person, but when a separation or conflict occurs that others may see as slight, they can lose their sense of attachment and trust and may become withdrawn or angry."

"As a consequence of difficulties with emotional regulation and maintaining some social boundaries, people with BPD can sometimes make rapid and seemingly deep connections with others, marked by unrealistically high levels of mutual admiration. When very open and in need of reassurance and love, they can sometimes overwhelm others with praise, attention and intimacy."

Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't seem to go into the NonBP case (possible "Aspie") as I think this would be far easier to identify with rather than trying to figure out what other people are doing.

Has anyone else her looked into "Stop Walking on Eggshells"?

For a long time I've wondered why the people I get into relationships with have problems with emotional stability. I figured I was just really bad at picking partners. But with the idea that my brain is just wired differently, it makes more sence why everyone else is "crazy". We're just different. Knowing about this and addressing those differences as part of my interests helps in understanding and comming up with successful responses. But the available material for Aspie's to relate to the NT world are scarce. I find that seeing myself as the "NonBP" in a world of "people with BPD" helps understand them and provides specific tactics for how to handle their emotional issues and talk them through it.

Do you agree? disagree? Why or why not? I'm curious. But don't say "yeah dude, that's great", or "no, you're wrong". Instead, explain and discuss.

"no, you're wrong"

An NT isn't much more likely to have a high-functioning form of borderline personality disorder than they are to have high-functioning schizophrenia. The DSM-IV-TR lists ten personality disorders (as well as four more in its appendices), and many people (including people on the autistic spectrum) show symptoms of one or more of them. This website, for example, essentially defines extreme "NonBPs" as having a different personality disorder (this time antisocial personality disorder for their indifference to others).

Borderline personality disorder is a serious psychiatric disorder, and people who've met someone with it and gotten to know them have met a very "unstable" person. In my abnormal psychology textbook, the example of a case of borderline personality disorder was described as constantly complaining to friends about her "inner void" while accusing them of no longer liking her whenever they were so much as a minute late to something; they eventually stopped associating with her because her complaints and frequent parasuicidal gestures were too much for them.

Emotional dysregulation and high emotional reactivity are a dimension of normal personality called neuroticism. Most people who happen to be high on neuroticism do not have borderline personality disorder although many of them probably have at least some psychiatric disorder (or are likely to develop one later or have already had one in the past).

It's very borderline-esque to split everyone into either HFBPD or aspie (or NonBP). The world isn't all black and white. On LiveJournal, you can meet many aspies with borderline personality traits—and some even with the full diagnosis. I personally can think while letting my emotions inform me (and then drop the unhelpful ones) rather than control me, but every once in a while, I do have an extreme emotional reaction to something, and I can't convince myself otherwise just by thinking about it.

True, and I do think a significant fact is that NBP is generally the result of childhood trauma or abuse, and many NT's are beautiful people, believe it or not.

There is some suggestion of BP cases that are neurologically based and not necessarilly due to childhood traume or abuse. To test the theory would require distinguishing between the cases which may be difficult.



Agreed. I'm married to one of them.

Most likely. I'm making an analogy, which probably isn't perfect. It's interesting to explore how much of the analogy matches and at what point it breaks down.



I'm not saying they have HFBPD. I'm making an anology between the perceptions of Aspie to NT and NonBP to HFBP. The analogy suggests that Aspie's could learn methods useful in relating to NT's based on methods developed for NonBP's in coping with their situation.


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It's very Aspie to miss an analogy and instead take it as literal. We agree that BPD comes with having a black&white view of the world. AS commonly comes with a highly detailed view of the world. An NT perception of someone with BPD is that the BP has an underdeveloped view of the world. The same statement applies between AS and NT: An Aspie's perception of an NT is that the NT has an underdeveloped view of the world. It's an analogy. I'm suggesting that some of the techniques NT's use to work with BPD could also work for Aspie's in relating to NT's. I'm clearly not saying that NT's have BPD.

You have a good point in identifying aspies with borderline personality traits. This may be due to seperate causes of BP symptoms; one being trauma, and the other cause of BPD being a neurological difference in the brain. It'd be necessary to control for the trauma cases to focus on the BPD cases due to neurological differences. Are AS and BPD neurological differences mutually exclusive? I've no idea. If not, then this is a case where the analogy breaks down. Yet, might we learn something useful from the work done in studying HFBP?

We Aspies do have meltdowns, though--I don't think that's very good emotion regulation. Sure, we make decisions logically, but put us in a stinky room with flourescents and scratchy material, and we look just as irrational as an NT whose favorite team just lost a major sports game!

The proper Wiki link you wanted to post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline ... y_disorder

The ones under 16 are jerks, and the ones over 16 are nice.

I think you may be right. I have just been to one of their forums and they seem to be quite the opposite of us here... hmmm I'll have to reserch this subject...

i'm not one to pay too much attention to people. i do notice people that seem to be downtrodden though, usually its eaiser for me to strike up anykindof meaningful conversation with these people than normal people. just last week i had a long conversation with a war vet. and alls i remember was feeling very comfortable, and not nervous at all talking, switiching subjects to him etc.