Asperger Syndrome vs. Borderline Personality Disorder

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anxiety25:

That's so absolutely true for three sad reasons. First, clinicians are biased (like everybody else), and second, they too often consider their own judgements much more reliable than anything the patient might add. Third, until about 10 years ago, BPD was thought of as the dramatic manipulator disorder. In grad school in his psych program, my brother said he was taught that BPD clients are manipulative drama queens. He was taught that if he, as a clinician, feels an unexplained tightness in his gut wile diagnosing a client he should consider BPD. They were seen as the notorious nightmare client that they could neither help nor get to go away.

Tons of research has been done over the past 10 years, but that recently dominant prejudice concerning BPD patients remains very real and very destructive. Once some clinicians think you've got it, any sign of original thought is too often seen as an outward sign of yet another manipulation. This attitude is changing though, mostly due to the advent of a treatment that can be curative. Personality disorders have always been regarded as untreatable, but there's an awful lot of data showing that with the right treatment, BPD can go into remission, and after 5 years that remission can be permanent (which is what I mean by "curative' or "cured."

Hospital psychiatrists, IMO, tend to be the worst of the worst. They have no one challenging their diagnoses or treatment plans. They don't/can't get to know the patient, and they work in that environment that feeds the god-complex so many of them have. It's perhaps the least demanding of all medical specialties.

Knowing all of this ahead of time can help you become a more savvy medical consumer. If you need hospitalization, make sure they're consulting your regular psychiatrist or psychologist. If you've had a nightmarish hospitalization in the past, choose a different hospital next time, perhaps one recommended by your regular therapist or psychiatrist.

I'm so passionate about this whole issue. It nearly killed me and I've felt so alone so many times because no matter who I saw they gave me their own pet diagnosis which always missed the mark. But I know my writing can seem less coherent when I get more passionate. I hope I'm making sense and that someone might get something from my experience.

You are making perfect sense, to me at least, lol.

...and yes, even if they get rid of the manipulative drama queen thing with BPD, those were the markers for it for a very long time... and it wouldn't surprise me if despite that they are trying to change it, they are still teaching it to be the same thing, lol. I mean, honestly, after being on the forums for several years, I have a hard time thinking of it differently myself even. People either loved me or hated me, and if one person decided they hated me, then everyone hated me, lol.

It was actually someone on one of those forums that directed me over here because I was constantly getting attacked and she saw patterns in how I said things, a different line of thinking in how I responded, etc.

I agree, those wards... very frustrating. 3 days isn't enough time to diagnose anything properly, I don't think. ...and I dunno, maybe those docs see so many people who really have these things that they cannot distinguish the diff in people after a while. It's like they have a handful of diagnoses that they work with on a daily basis, so they pick the one that is the closest, throw you on some meds, and that's that, lol.... leave someone else to clean up that mess once you figure out that you don't fit what they pinned ya as.

anxiety25, in my 3 stays in the psych unit, I made the mistake of thinking I was there to be properly assessed, diagnosed, and treated, as they do in the case of other serious non-psych health problems. Alas, that's not the purpose of hospital psych units, not in the US anyway. Their purpose is to stabilize the patient so they can be discharged to outpatient care (usually with the same outpatient providers who have failed in their assessment, diagnosis, and treatments). That's their entire mission - to stabilize the patient.

That mission isn't very demanding of the hospital psychiatrists, most of whom spend less than an hour per day at work on the unit.

BTW, Luna Lovegood is my favorite aspie in fiction! I adore her! I'm more like Hermione when it comes to things like evidence and fringe theories, but I would LOVE Luna as a friend. To me she's like an aspie with really good self-confidence, and self-confidence is something I find really attractive in others.

I think younger people who were diagnosed as kids are a lot more like Luna than us older aspies who grew up clueless about what was so wrong with us. Early diagnosis means more support and validation, and therefore greater and more durable self-confidence.

What do the rest of us older folk do? Get old, bitter, wear a lot of black, and wish we could teach DADA instead of potions I suppose?

i wonder what it would've been like to be given a vocabulary for my experiences at a young age? i'm having a mid-life crisis.

yay Luna!
I love when she's reading the Quibbler upside-down.

Frankly, I am hoping for some easy death. I would wink at that, but you guys inspire me to be honest because you wouldn't patronize me. If I were a suicide I would have by now.

The only thing they usually have in common is having outbursts of anger, and this isnt even always true. This doesnt mean someone cant have aspergers and borderline, but they dont have much in common. out of the personality disorders schizoid has the most in common with aspergers but schizoid seems more like the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. People with aspergers do seem to score higher on personality disorder tests than most people though. I posted a personality disorder test on here before because i was wondering what other people would score and most people got a high score on at least one of them. The online test is invalid though and nothing like the mmpi which is what is normally used to diagnose personality disorders.

Most similarities between BPD and AS could probably be explained by extensive functions, or the lack thereof.

Thank you.

Disorders don't have outbursts of anger. People do. And, being human, people with BPD and people with Asperger's have plenty in common, even if non of it relates to the syndromes.

Though, you admit someone can have both. That seems to make the first sentence rather meaningless. It can't be you mean the people with each. And, like I said, abstract concepts (these labels we use) don't have outbursts of anger.

Autism represents a "spectrum" that fades into what you might call "neurotypicality".

What might someone on the borderline of neurotypicality be like?

Might such a person have enough social ability to initiate relationships, but not maintain them?

the word borderline as it's used in BPD refers to the borderline of neurosis and psychosis, not the borderline of autism and neurotypicality.

Actually, it originally referred to that, but now it doesn't refer to anything. BPD is no longer conceived of that way.

I wasn't suggesting an etymology for the term "borderline" as it applies to BPD--I "bolded" it simply because, well, it's a pleasing coincidence.

(Pleasing to me, of course)

Thanks for being confusing as hell, poke.

I almost think that any clinician who sees a woman who has social problems as automatically BPD. Aspie women are dramatically undiagnosed. I am hoping this is something that will change over the next 10 years. Of course, it'll no longer be called "Asperger's" then ...