Aspergers and Borderline Personality Disorder

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you're lucky. I ended up fixating on someone and getting married to him at 25, then spent 17 years in hell plus dealing with all the aftermath of a really messy divorce. I wish I'd been raised differently, to be ok with and capable of being by myself. to do that, though, I would have had to understand I am neurologically different from the people I have to interact with so I could compensate in ways less damaging to me.

I think comparing the NT+trauma=BPD theory to AS+trauma=PTSD is an interesting one. people also need to realize that not all NTs who are traumatized end up with BPD. probably a lot more of them end up with PTSD.

if BPD is is a failure to resolve the separation issues you're working on during your "terrible twos" is BPD really likely in AS? do AS kids go through the same separation process that NT kids do in their early years?

With regard to OP - I was something like that - born with Aspie traits but I was told that I'm BPD (misdiagnosed to a point , though I do believe that some BPD traits were present at times due to my abusive childhood). However, my BPD traits are gone, Aspie seem to be more and more prevalent now. Every kind of communication is tiring and I'm not afraid of abandonment, I'm afraid of being liked and thus being forced to socialise. In the end I'm never what they expect of me to be - thus I gave up trying.

nettiespaghetti, best of luck to you.

That made total sense to me. I can "perform" well enough to appear sociable sometimes, but then I fear that more will be asked of me and that I'll once again reflexively want to withdraw, confusing and perhaps hurting the person who felt I was eager and capable of a personal connection.

When I find myself wanting to personally connect with someone, I sometimes am unable to synchronize with the person psychologically, and I feel like I'm being either overtaken or underappreciated depending on the person's reciprocity towards my idiosyncratic reaction time. These feelings of being "either overtaken or underappreciated" (when intense) sound like BPD symptoms that I've read about.

What I've read of personality disorders makes me feel that my autism spectrum neurology acts like a host for numerous maladaptive traits that sound like many personality disorder symptoms.

A lot of this seems to kinda relate to the thread I started in the Social Skills and Making Friends section, Do You Feel Guilty if People Like You? A lot of times I have this sense that of course people are going to abandon me, because if somebody likes me, I must have somehow fooled them into thinking I'm better than I am, so when they eventually figure out that I'm not what they think I am, they'll be perfectly justified in abandoning me. I relate this more to the fact that I have crummy self-esteem and that I always end up saying something stupid or wrong, so people do tend to stop liking me.
That's kinda the opposite of that "under-appreciated" thing.. More like I feel that if somebody likes me, then they over-appreciate me, so when they eventually get to know me better, they'll want to scrape me off the bottom of their shoe like everyone else.

When I was very young I was pretty self-contained. (actually very) But at a certain age I did feel a longing for a some special someone to be around. But of course no real person would ever actually work out to be like that -- there was always a feeling of non-connection, the misunderstandings, mess-ups, and just the different 'way of being' that made me feel like I or they were from another planet.

I also get very upset when I think I'm being abandoned. The slightest signs (which I seem to have a super-sensitive radar for) cause stress, and when I do get left, ZOMG, it's end-of-the-world time (imagine the trailer for that movie "2012"). Dying seems ineveitable at those times; the pain is insane. In a weird way I've been kind of protected about feeling like I might not be able to survive on my own, though, for not having had any relationships. But the few (one, really) close, connected friendship I had (AC person), that fell apart, showed me that I actually do tend to think that way (won't make it if I'm alone (though I am, and am surviving ok ATM, oddly enough -- I guess that means the fear of 'transitioning' to alone is 1000 times worse than maybe it really is.)). I do have a few family members around, though, which helps. (though a bit odd, as I barely talk to or interact with them at all; they probably think I want total isolation)

So, is it from lack of having emotional connections when young? The anticipation of wanting a friend/partner/emotional-connection for so long, not getting it until age 30? Or was it the neglect? BPD, CPTSD, or growing-up-AS in a non-AS world? It does seem awfully hard to sort out.

The distinction between Autism, Bi-Polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, OCD, ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder is not clear-cut.

There's a significant overlap in symptoms and genetic correlation between each of these "disorders". Co-morbidity is also very common.

Personally, I lean towards the notion that Autism, Bi-Polar Disorder, Schizophrenia, OCD, ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder are not individual conditions but as different expressions of the same spectrum.

I would also argue that these are not disorders, but normal variations within human behavior that have been pathologized for no other reason but the rather eccentric and unusual behavior of people within, which makes them more difficult to manipulate and control.