personality disorders or AS or FUBAR

Post Reply New Topic

I'm at a point in self-investigation where I can't figure out if I'm:

a. a clusterfrak of personality disorders

b. an aspie

c. an aspie drowning in personality disorders

For a couple of years, I've been waving the AS flag thinking, "Yes, finally! I know what's wrong with me." I had heard about personality disorders but never took them seriously, thinking that it was like cracking a mirror and taking a fractured piece and calling it "Borderline Personality Disorder" and then taking another fractured piece and calling it "Schizoid Personality Disorder" and so on. Like 3 people witnessing the same event and each one interpreting it differently from each other (i.e. Akira Kurasawa's Rashomon); except, in this case, psychiatrists "conjure" up diagnoses to create a more fragmented impression of what is considered abnormal.

I finally began reading up on personality disorders, though, (particularly schizotypal and borderline) because I'd read about things that were very familair to me that wasn't really emphasized in literature I've read on Asperger's. Such as:

Just by analyzing a textbook on personality disorders and their subtypes, I comfortably fit into: the Confilicted Avoidant, the Hypersensitive Avoidant, the Self-Deserting Avoidant, the Conscienious Compulsive, the Bedeviled Compulsive, the Accomodating Dependent, the Immature Dependent, the Selfless Dependent, the Infantile Histrionic, the Compensatory Narcissist, the Remote Schizoid, the Affectless Schizoid, the Timorous Schizotypal, the Insular Paranoid, the Discouraged Borderline, the Petulant Borderline, the Self-Destructive Borderline. I mean this is just ridiculous (There were many subtypes that did not fit with me, so it wasn't like I was blindly choosing any).

What personality disorders don't explain that Asperger's does is:



I have a Bachelors in Psychology so I'm embarrassed that I can't figure myself out even remotely I hate the idea of being one of those hypochondriacs that blindly attach to a pathology but I'm just at a point where what's really me and what's not, what I've been and what I haven't been, is so blurry.

Anyone else been at this point: personality disorders vs AS vs "I give up"? Is anyone diagnosed with both AS and a personality disorder? Anyone have any opinions or insight about the thin line between differential diagnoses?

Don't personality disorders develop in adulthood (or adolescence), whereas autistic symptoms would be present in early childhood? The presence of hand-flapping, touch aversion, eye contact discomfort, etc etc etc at a young age could differentiate out the personality disorders on that basis if correct.

Yes, that makes me wonder why they just stopped short of diagnosing me with Schizoid Personality Disorder ( because I was still underage) even though my difficulties dated back to age two according to my mother. Of course, this was 1972.

To answer my own question, I think because anything other than LF Autism wasn't even on the radar back then. Thanks to all the difficulties that I've always had, I am underemployed and not insured so a professional diagnosis is not an option now.

I think this statement stuck out most to me. I know when I went though my education in psych, I was constantly reminded not to diagnose myself. I do not doubt that you are very intelligent...it seems that you are by as much research that you've done. But I think that we have just enough education to know of all the possibilities, but we lack the proper insight that a person who has gone through post graduate education and actually knows, in depth, the differential diagnoses.

I can't give you an opinion on aspie vs. PD....but I can tell you that you are NOT a hypochondriac (or FUBAR) and you shouldn't feel embarrassed. I just really think you have an abundance of information.....and frustration.....and you just want answers....but there are too many variables for you to deal with. I just don't think self diagnosis is a good idea.

I do think being educated is a great idea, but I think that in your circumstance, it is doing you more harm than good.

This.

It sounds like you're struggling to fit yourself into somebody else's label without really understanding what it means to be AS.

Nature and neurologies follow spectra, not discrete categories and labels that individuals need to stay within.

You have to somehow get away from the notion that AS is an abnormality or a disorder, and instead think of it as just one way of doing things. You also have to take into account that as you grew up, you probably picked up social skills here and there, learning some ways and values that are more consistent with the NT way of life. We're all going to be mixes of AS and NT values and traits, whether the die-hard AS and NT folks admit that or not.

It is also helpful to understand that "personality disorders" are often gut reactions that are attempts to mask or rectify some kind of unmet needs in our lives. Everybody grows up and lives with needs, oftentimes without understanding what those needs are. Instead we just feel empty inside, wandering around almost endlessly in search of something that will happen to meet our needs. If you think of people's behaviors in that way, something that more broadly encompasses the full variety of personalities, then I think you will begin to find it easier to comprehend how people are, how you are, and whether any one particular label will fit you or not.

I would not say it is doing harm, but just that it is not being helpful. No doctor customarily treats himself, and even attorneys hire attorneys to take care of their affairs for them.

I do not have your education, Aguales, but our frustrations are almost identical. One thing that is definitely different between us, however, is this: My inability to sort things out and arrive at a firm conclusion here includes my inability to even handle reading all the "options"! To keep from being overwhelmed by something so large and new, I must begin at the top of the mountain and explore it on the way down after first taking long and hard looks in every direction to obtain a viable overview. So for now, that is where I am stuck ...

... yet over the years I have at least been able to deal with certain "character defects" or "personality issues" that are not actually hard-wired traits or characteristics. For example, trying to place the welfare of others ahead of my own has at least diminished the selfishness and self-centeredness that only exacerbated the effects of my lack of social ability. So, becoming more "functional" in society to at least some degree has yet to be found dependent upon a clear diagnosis ...

... and no, I did not just write all of this to say you have character defects! I only mean to say some of the issues we face are relatively simple and no different than those of any other human being.

Last edited by leejosepho on 28 Oct 2009, 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

oops

That's a MUCH better perspective than my own. Thank you. I have all these thoughts rolling around in my head, but by the time they get from my fingers and to the screen, about 75% of them are gone...or I say them improperly.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

Thanks, ya'll. I appreciate the responses