Autism and Borderline Personality Disorder

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Narcissism as a personality type, as opposed to a personality disorder classification, is most definitely present in people with BPD. Some of you have pointed out that people with BPD often try to overwhelm others and it is perhaps this desire to thoroughly engage that their autistic partners find attractive. A BPD spouse can make up for where an autistic individual lacks and autism allows for the acceptance of and perhaps even creates the need for such domination. For two people to get married, form a family unit and raise children, their impairments are unlikely to be disabling. Nonetheless, if the children are on the spectrum, then having a parent who is BPD creates special issues pertaining to abuse and neglect. It would help explain why some autistic adults express such cold white rage against their caregivers even to the point of disowning their families and parents.

Zeno, you make a lot of very broad generalizations that don't take anything at all into consideration so I won't even touch that. I would only say the only thing I found attractive was the incredible charisma. I can see where this is going so I will leave you to judge.

In less than 150 words broad generalizations are a given. I am not trying to provoke a discussion on any one individual but looking instead at the situation from a top down perspective. Autism and BPD are two of the most common psychological maladies that afflict any population. I am simply saying that people on the spectrum and people with BPD are likely to find each other mutually attractive and that has consequences for the children which result. If being autistic is difficult to deal with, then being autistic and having a parent who has BPD can have incredibly painful consequences for the autistic individual.

Anecdotally, I do hear a lot of stories of how much some parents have hurt their autistic children. Or perhaps if a degree of abstraction helps, take the case of Vincent van Gogh for instance. He was a genius who was potentially on the spectrum but was raised by a mother who appeared to have signs of BPD. Vincent van Gogh famously could not hold down a job and returned to his family home in his twenties after burning through his family’s bourgeoisie connections only to be turned out when he refused to accept the unwritten rules. He was supported by his brother Theo, living in poverty while painting some of the greatest master pieces the world has known. He broke down psychologically in his thirties and committed suicide. His brother, who was married and had a child, died a few weeks later from despair. Much has been said about the woman who mothered Vincent and Theo who lived a very long life and witnessed the burial of two of her adult sons under such heart wrenching circumstances.

I am interested in understanding why so much abuse is directed towards autistic children. Having a parent who has BPD would help explain why these kids show obvious signs of distress. When these children grow up, they express so much hostility towards their caregivers that it is difficult to brush it aside as willful resentment. Nor are the instances of rage towards parents isolated, it is perhaps the most common underlying theme in the autism community.

Do you have any links in statistics or articles to prove the "high" correlation between child abuse among autistics and BPD parents and spouses Zeno?

Just curious as I know I think my last abusive relationship involved a guy who might've had this BPD but I don't want to generalize or assume. He did have sociopathic tendencies.

Last edited by MissConstrue on 10 Feb 2010, 8:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sounds about right based on my experience:/

Do you mean Borderline personality disorder or bipolar depression? Because Bipolar depression actually runs pretty strong on my mother's side but she herself hasn't been diagnosed and I do believe my AS came from my father's side. Although I've often found her a little unstable, frequently throwing childish temper tantrums over little things like when people comment on her impractical rear view mirror positioning.

Last edited by Darkword on 10 Feb 2010, 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are no statistics available on this. But if you are interested I think such a study would be worthy of at least a Masters degree or even a PhD if you drag it out long enough. To the best of my knowledge, no one has looked at the sort of partners that autistic individuals choose as spouses. So you can take what I have said simply as a speculative hunch. But even though the assertions cannot be backed up, it does resonate to some extent with empirical experience.

Last edited by Zeno on 10 Feb 2010, 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not knowing my outcomes just yet in my quest for the truth, I can certainly identify with this. I divorced my mother for 10 years. Absolutely no contact.......and it was within the confines of my psych unit stays, that my mother was informed by my doctors to never approach me either in hospital or out......for her own safety. And so, with her removed, I took it out on others.

The rage I directed at her was tunnel vision, linear and without constraint. I did not possess clarity, the knowledge of consequence, or the aftermath of my actions. My rage was so concentrated it was hell bent on destroying me. Oh the stigma I suffered.......one cannot admit that they feel that way about their parent.

It is better now.......I have forgiven her, and she has forgiven me.......but residual still remains. Working on that.

Mics

It is difficult, if not impossible, to admit to having such feelings towards one’s parents. There is shame because children are taught intuitively to appreciate what their parents do for them. But many autistic individuals are expressing intense hatred towards their caregivers, even if they do so only obliquely. The problem is so prevalent I would say that it is a motif in the autism experience.

Thank you, that was extremely well written and is understood.

I loved my parents irregardless of the abuse. It is only in my adult life after continued abuse and abandonment by both that I understand my love for them has been misplaced.

Zeno- in the US Narcissism is not a personality type it is part of the Axis II diagnoses in the DSM IV under Personality Disorders: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_disorder

Personality traits are another story.

Since when did mental illness become a synonym for abuse? Don't NT's become abusers too? Not everyone with BPD is an abusive partner or with any other mental illness for that matter.

BPD may mean emotionally unstable, etc., but they tend to be some of the most empathic human beings out there. Maybe that's part of the problem--they feel other peoples' emotions so keenly they never really develop an idea of who they are.

Agreed Ethos.......totally.

My level of violence was a bit of an anomaly(even the shrinks said so).......and did nothing for the terrible stigma of BPD that already existed. I have never met another person with BPD who was as outwardly aggressive as I was (Not saying it does not exist in others, I have just never met them).

When I was dx a long time ago, BPD was synonymous with volatile and abusive behaviour........I was treated like a leper for BPD was very rare......which did nothing for my general disposition.

And so it goes around......

Take care.....

Mics

thank you

sometimes I wish I could do for BPD what has been done to reduce the stigma for ASDs. Not that it is all sunshine and rainbows, but just having this website says something.

BPD shouldn't be classified as a disorder imo, it is a personality type. It's true borderline people like myself are extremely empathic.

That's the thing about BPD is it doesn't read like other personality disorders. All of the other ones are one trait sort of to the extreme.

What do you mean by its more of a personality trait?

A lot of people who are into psychology are nuts. That's where I leave it.