I Hate my Brain: 49 y/o, borderline PD, now this??

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Greetings, all--

New here. Definitely feel as though I've been living on the wrong planet. Diagnosed w/ borderline PD at 23, and the diagnosis seemed to explain everything then. Years have passed; I've failed at just about everything I've tried to do; caught a whopping case of benzodiazepine/alcohol addiction along the way. Other diagnoses so far include major depression in partial remission and general/social/performance anxiety D/Os. I have never NOT been socially anxious. Recent events--a non-verbal learning disorder diagnosis and some unwelcome and hurtful commentary on my affect from an acquaintence--have me thinking that Asperger's may have been the issue all along. I've never been a hopeful kind of woman, and from what I've read about Asperger's, any hope I may have had to live an independent, sober and socially fulfilling life is now dashed further.

I don't want to offend anyone by expressing my desire to NOT have Asperger's, and I'm here primarily to learn how to adapt better to social situations (I am a musician, but my anxiety has kept me from fulfilling this core, abiding gift--had to be f*****-up to even try to play with/in front of others, and I no longer drink/use heavy benzos) w/o chemical assistance. What makes me think I have AD is this: I've always, always, always been found "weird" by my peers, mocked and ostracised by them as well. The word "different" hurts almost as deeply as "weird" does. Despite living in a major East Coast city for half my life or better, I am extremely socially naive. Small talk is nearly incomprehensible, and despite minoring in psychology and maintaining a lifelong interest in same, I truly have no barking idea why anyone would say "How are YEW?" and keep on going in the hallway, not wanting any kind of answer? The things ppl talk about in the workplace--nursing homes and Internet warehouses so far, interrupted by periods of unemployment and homelessness--baffle and bore me at once. I'm pretty clumsy. I have a LOT of anxiety around technology, so the good-with-computers-Aspie thing does NOT apply. I am going to ask my therapist to consider an alternative diagnosis so that I may learn to live in some kind of comfort with my social deficits for the rest of my life.

My father, 76, has a lot of Asperger traits. He was a computer programmer before he took the earliest retirement he could. He does not seem bothered by his lack of social skills and subsequent, if unintentional, rejection by my mother's relatives and friends. I love to learn, and psychology has been a durable interest of mine since my early teens--I wondered why I couldn't get along w/ people, why others found me so strange, why I was "crazy". Borderline PD is now amenable to treatment, and since I'm sober, I'm now eligible to do DBT. I've applied for SSDI, if only to figure all of this out to a manageable level. I'm now living w/ my elderly folks, a situation that pleases none of us, and want to achieve a level of independence that would allow me to pursue my musicianship to a level at which performance would not be as troubling as it is to me at present. I also write fiction and poetry, but the Asperger's thing has so confined my experiences, I fear I have nothing of interest to anyone to write about outside that very narrow experiential range. (I'd love to know about other, perhaps well-known writers and musicians who have, or may have been thought to have, Asperger's traits. I feel as though I'm laboring alone here, and that the fruits of that labor are consigned to have value to no one but me.)

This post mimics my conversational style--circumstantial as phuck--pretty well. I apologise for having bored opr otherwise offended anyone who is kind enough to read this. I don't get to computers real often--another goal of mine is to own and operate a PC w/ as little help as possible; much anxiety and bad mojo there.... .) Thanks for sticking with me; I look forward to any replies.

even if poetry having to do with AS only appealed to folks with autism, you'd have a good-sized audience.

best of luck pursuing your music. phobia's can be overcome with gradual exposure.

Try not to focus on something you cannot control, that being what the people you depend on to take care of you diagnose you with. A label change may or may not bring more help from them. I tend to doubt they will radically change what they offer you, as I think people who know how to relate to and support someone with ASD do this naturally, it's a skill they have and use when needed without a lot of conscious thought. But, if a label opens the door to other resources, it might make a big difference. And of course if you feel better understood thinking about the problems you have as related to ASD, a diagnosis might help you feel more comfortable.

I agree, it's the anxiety that's probably making you miserable. Gradual exposure is usually the best way to go about it.

Another diagnostic label isn't going to hurt you; it can really only help. After all, you've been living with those problems for 49 years. The only thing that has changed is now you have a name for it.

Sounds at lot like me and a lot of us.

Reminds me of how bad it used to suck having constant social anxiety, and anxiety in general.

SO grateful for feeling better now it's not even funny.

This seems odd to me since BPD and AS are opposites in a lot of respects. For example, people with AS have a very high level of self-control, whereas people with BPD are impulsive. Another example would be that people with BPD are often pathological liars, whereas people with AS lack the capacity for self-deception.

I have diagnoses fo both AS and BPD (and where did you get it that Aspies have goodo self-control, Rob?). I find that Asperger's makes therapy for the BPD much harder, but not impossible. I think too that an additional label will not harm you. It can only help in explaining things and getting you the help you need.

Oh, I was going to write more bu tmy Internet was down. I can relate to sometimes hating certain parts of your condition. I for one hat emy metldowns, which I believe are partly due to the AS and partly due to the BPD. I sometimes hate my entire brain too and wish I was an entirely different person. I do feel that independent life with AS is possible, but I can't say whethe ryouw ill ever reach it as I will most likely not within the foreseeable future. Anyway, wanted to say you're not alone. Talk to me if you want to.

Maybe you have it. Maybe you don't. I can relate to a lot of your feelings. I have been trying so hard for things to get better. Realizing that I have AS has been a let down for me to, but I have had a couple of year to process it. Now I am making decisions with my AS in mind. Being in recovery, I thought if I did not use and if I worked the program, my life would steadily get better until I became "normal". I am slowly coming to realize and accept the fact that that isn't the case. I also have been diagnosed as borderline. I also have a parent who I suspect has AS.

Welcome to wrongplanet! I hope you find the help you are looking for. Also, I like your writing style--very easy for me to read.

Welcome!

It is possible to learn emotional self-regulation. I have read that women with Asperger's can be misdiagnosed as BPD and that personality disorders can be a co-morbid condition for women on the spectrum - the result of having to 'create' a social identity to fit in with the rest. Other co-morbid conditions include eating disorders, depression, anxiety, ADHD and OCD. I myself have had issues with trauma (anxiety and depression). I do not have BPD even though my early traumatic experiences mirror those that have actually developed BPD. Have you read anything on females with Asperger's?

Here are a few links:
http://taniaannmarshall.wordpress.com/2 ... -syndrome/
http://taniaannmarshall.wordpress.com/2 ... d-masking/
http://autismwomensnetwork.org/article/ ... -and-girls
http://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com/201 ... les-girls/

Last edited by Sare on 05 Jan 2014, 12:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

A lot of that is the stereotype of BPD rather than BPD itself. Unfortunately, BPD has become sort of a diagnosis they give to annoying female patients, even when they aren't actually borderline at all.

BPD is a personality disorder, and yeah, impulsivity is part of it. The basic issue, though, is not having a really strong idea of who you are. So your identity kind of fluctuates, your emotions take control of you. Maybe you define yourself by relationships you're in, so you cling to those people because deep down it feels like they're part of you. People with BPD who get desperate to keep a relationship may try to lie or manipulate, but it's not a given. Risky behavior is common; self-injury is common too.

I've met a lot of people with BPD because I was misdiagnosed with it initially, because I have a self-injury habit. That's the only BPD trait I have, but the psychologists just weren't looking for autism in an adult female and when they saw one who had to get stitches for a self-inflicted injury they just figured "borderline". They were wrong, but I did get to meet people with borderline personality disorder, and I started to think they really get a bad rap. Sometimes I found them annoying, but they're also very empathic, almost feeling the emotions of the people around them as though they couldn't tell whether someone else was feeling those things, or whether they were feeling it themselves. When they were actually in treatment, in crisis, they were suffering just as much as anyone they'd ever tried to manipulate, or exploded at. Probably more, because it was like they were trying to deal with the world without a stable home base to work from. But the older they get, the more they learn, the more they seem to stabilize, learn to work with things. A 50-year-old with BPD is usually doing a lot better than they were when they were thirty.

So, yeah, I wouldn't go immediately to "manipulative liar" for BPD. It's possible; some are; but then so are some NTs without a single diagnostic label. Autism plus BPD seems like a weird combination, but I know some people on WP have been diagnosed, and correctly so, with both. Some autistics are flooded by other people's emotions, rather than oblivious to them. A few autistics report having little sense of self. It can happen.

Thanks again. Since the majority of those of you who welcomed me to WP didn't find my mixed borderline/Asperger's presentation that odd, I've been thinking about their comorbidity--in anyone--and it is beginning to make sense. I was a hyperverbal toddler/young girl, and my parents' response to that trait was to invalidate, however well-meaning that might have been, a lot of my attempts at self-expression, as well as the interests--reading and playing the piano--I had at that time.

Apparently, I was pretty uncoordinated, and hypersensitive to criticism--this, at the least, a borderline trait. Clumsy as I was, and thoroughly unable to catch or hit balls or other objects thrown to me, my parents still encouraged me to participate in sports. When I failed, as tended to happen, at this athletic endeavor or the other, they got on me about it, albeit mildly. (Me, I couldn't throw anything very far; they accused me of "throwing like a girl". I *was* a girl, and not at all interested in throwing or trying to catch things. I'd rather have been reading.

From kindergarden on, I was pretty shy around my peers, whose behavior I did not understand; however, I was pretty talkative with adults, some of whom encouraged my wordiness, and some who found me annoying. In class, which did not challenge me at all until I encountered pre-algebra, after which everything alternatedly challenged or bored me, I was a know-it-all, blurting out answers before teachers were finished with their questions, correcting their pronunciations and occasional misspellings, amusing myself behind a book while the other students read alound, and finding myself flummoxed in a world of my own making when my turn to read was called and I was spacing out somewhere.

At that time--late sixties and early seventies--i was not odd enough to attract further attention from teachers, but I was far enough from what was "normal" at that time to be ostracised by most of my peers. I was always one of the last kids picked for any team, a practise that I inveigh against to this day to anyone who will hear me. That hurt--enough to drive me to drugs and drunkenness for over 25 years.

I missed most of seventh grade because I injured my right knee very much on purpose. I'd been moved to a much larger school, one with a noteable complement of more socially advanced students, all of who seemed to find me loathesome. They called me 'sweathog", or "sweat" for short, a term that had nothing to do with John Travolta or 'Welcome Back, Kotter'. It referred to a fat--I was overweight, taking comfort in food--greasy, socially undesireable, possibly promiscuous (I was a virgin) girl. To this day, that concept remains wired in whatever parts of my brain are responsible for identity formation. Et cetera.

I never learned to express social, and later sexual, interest in ppl I found attractive. Again, to this day, they paralyze me and I don't talk to them at all. I've a long, tired history of settling for less attractive men.

(Sorry for the digression...I'm getting a little circumstantial here). What I originally intended to express was that I was wired in the womb, I think, for both Asperger's and Borderline Personality Disorder, and that the Aspie oddness prefaced a lot of the social rejection I've experienced. (Many borderlines have extraordinary difficulty in dealing with "real/perceived" rejection, turning, as I did, to alcohol and drugs and food.) All of this set the stage for my dive into substance addiction and any form of blatant rebellion I could access at the time.

My minutes are a bout to run out here--I'm at a computer lab--so I'll wind up with this: I am not remotely technologically inclined. Much anxiety around computers and other devices, none of which I actually own. Trying to stay asleep for the llast ten years has not left me with the finances I would need to explore and master those things. And I've noticed that a lot of purere borderlines are very socially adept, and that their flair for the dramatic hinders them not at all.

Again, thank you. I'm somewhat bothered by the numerous observations of experts that we are a selfish client population, and that our capacity for empathy is so far removed from that of neurotypicals that we might not waste our time trying to acquire any,......

kd

Callista, I think you're so right how people see emotional, confused, clingy women . But reading what you wrote, what I think about is some of the stereotypes of male Aspies. Is anyone besides me frustrated by the way the way labels are applied? Because it upsets me what in men is emotion regulation problems that are just part of ASD seems to get labeled part of BPD in women. And the confusion between self and others is BPD in women but in men, it's difficulty understanding emotion and its communication difficulty, again part of the ASD. And what is termed clinginess in women, in men is becoming overly preoccupied with another person due to social confusion. And descriptions are all over of how that occurs łwith aspie males. And then the treatment is to teach me men but avoid women with these characteristics. And then point fingers at the women when we are clingy after having difficulty connecting with others and term us as having BPD.

Has a professional told you you may have it or are you just being suspicious you have it? I heard that a problem with borderline PD is self-identity, so I can imagine reading an article on Asperger's or autism may throw one with borderline into a cycle of self-doubt. Social problems are common in a lot of mood and anxiety problems, simply having them doesn't give you AS. I would take a step back, contact your psychologist or psychiatrist, and let them decide what to do next.

@Callista I don't think Rob was trying to paint BPD as "feminine", and I do have to agree with main point in that BPD has many features that seem incompatible with AS, such as enhanced cognitive empathy, impulsive (beyond stimming), strong need to be attached to others, etc. It just seems so opposite, like a super-NT. I would find it hard to believe a psychologist has missed this for 26 years.

If you're autistic, you're autistic. Asking a professional to tailor their diagnosis to fit your desires and hopes is...unwise at best.

If you're autistic, accept it. It's not a death sentence, and there are people on these forums who are autistic and are satisfied with their lives. Even (dare I say it?) happy.

Your comment suggesting that you don't fit the Aspie stereotype of being good with technology shows something- You don't understand that people, even those on the spectrum, are individuals.

It's been said more than once "If you know a person with autism, you know ONE person with autism".

Just because you differ from how many are doesn't mean you can't be autistic, nor does it make you some type of failure in the Aspie community.

My suggestion would be to see if a qualified professional who specializes in autism feels you're on the spectrum. If you are, move on. You're the same person after the diagnosis as you were before, with all the same strengths and weaknesses. You just have a name to call your differences (from the average person) by.

If you are autistic and accept that, you might even open the door to hearing from others who've successfully overcome things you're working on, and you might learn how they did it.

Actually, being diagnosed can contribute to hope in life; it's not a reason to lose hope. Not at all.

Why? What is it about Asperger's that is incompatible with an independent, sober, and socially fulfilling life?

When I'm around people, they often feel like part of me. However, that causes me to want to be alone because it triggers my irrational fear of nonexistence.