It's confirmed: I must get undiagnosed: how?

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That's barely 3. So maybe. A clinician's use of these criteria tend to be more restrictive than self-tests. So probably not. I think you have to see oneself as meeting at least 2 more than necessary of a DSM disorder in order to be fairly sure you have it.

Yeah that's true. When I had my paranoid behaviour, I could identify with 6 out of 7 and the one I couldn't identify with was: "recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual fidelity of spouse or sexual partner;" because I would have been too paranoid for a relationship from begin with.


That's why I don't like the DSM-IV too much, because you can get easily missdx with all kinds of PDs.

By the way that's the SPQ (schizotypal personality quotient): http://themachine1.110mb.com/spq.html

Don't know how to interpret this. Is that high or low?

You have clearly higher scores. The thing is that StPD has a huge overlapp with ASD.
Those points who have an especially high overlapp with ASD are:
Excessive social anxiety: 5 out of 8 (unsure: 0)
Odd or eccentric behavior: 5.5 out of 7 (unsure: 0)
No close friends: 8.5 out of 9 (unsure: 0)
Odd speech : 6.5 out of 9 (unsure: 0)
Constricted affect: 6 out of 8 (unsure: 0)

So considering that there is a very high propability that you have either ASD or StPD. Because of the overlapps in symptoms I don't think that StPD is the only possibility, but likely. Especially because you have also higher scores is: "Odd beliefs or magical thinking: 5.5 out of 7 (unsure: 0)" what can't be explained by ASD and is one of the key symptoms of StPD.

But I guess you need an expert to sort this out.

There is a video about Schizotypal PD I could totally identify with:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2kt2aiMAAo[/youtube]

No, that's not me. I actually know people like this. It's not me at all. My issues with others are more likely to be expressed outwards than inwards. Superficially, I'm somewhat social and normal-looking, though people do tend to view me as a bit eccentric, though not for odd beliefs (I was raised extremely religious, so I wouldn't consider my beliefs in spirits and magic to be exceptionally odd). And, in fact, my patterns go way back into childhood. The Schizotypal symptoms did not get worse in adulthood. What did get worse, much much worse in just the last 3 years, is the emotional instability, splitting, identity confusion, and rapid changes in perspective characteristic of BPD.

I don't mind people touching me; in many cases, I love it, even though I'm apparently afraid of intimacy. And I don't think people can read my mind. I just am afraid of them judging me for eccentric behavior or speech.

Sometimes, I think maybe you can know what you have just by with whom you identify in real life. Schizotypal is completely foreign. Asperger's is somewhat familiar. It's really borderline that is so familiar to me. I feel like I speak the same language as other borderlines, even if their manifestation is completely different. I also identify with passive-aggressive traits in others. I do not identity with narcissistic traits really at all.

Tyrion, I think it is an interesting learning tool in general to look at what may be behind what you are experiencing, but one question I have been meaning ask is how do you think a diagnosis could help you, and also, how do you know that kind of the same approach that might possibly help you could not also help people with other kinds of disorders? Of course a therapist's approach would probably be tailored to an individual client and diagnosis could play into it, but...:-)

And as far as not identifying with narcissistic traits, I recall you recently writing that you feel entitled. That would be the main narcissistic trait, wouldn't it? Why is such a person entitled? Because he feels himself to be entitled, so according to his own theory of mind that is true. I think it might be constructive to try to look at how such a dynamic might work....

Also, regarding theory of mind, I think the passive aggressive person may feel quite good about the way way he is interacting. It may even feel to him like he is expressing affection---and he may really be doing that, as in this kind of distancing he is making a connection but not getting too close, so it feels good, and he may without consciously thinking about it assume that the other person is feeling that kind of connection, too. Of course the other person is probably not perceiving it that way, though two people may have a kind of unstated agreement to engage in some kind of sparring activity, but it is not quite the same as they have both kind of agreed to be doing it.

Why a PD diagnosis would help

(1) Without a system, framework, or labels, I can't understand anything, and therefore, I am unlikely to take any sort of action to fix my problems. In fact, therapy itself could be completely useless as I don't have a good memory of what all my problems are at any specific point in time. I only remember certain problems at different times, so documenting them is important.

I am finding that as I study for law school exams, a recurring theme comes up. Other people can read the material, remember it, and apply it. I have disjointed rules and out of context phrases and quotes spinning around in my head until I sit down with a pen and paper and map out a framework to think about legal problems with the material learned.

The same applies here. I've just got a bunch of disjointed ideas spinning around in my head, and remembering what my problems are, let alone taking action on them, is impossible for me without a framework. This is an executive functioning problem, most likely. It could also be evidence of extreme systematizing/ASD.

(2) Asperger's is a distraction from my real issues. It causes professionals to make incorrect assumptions about me, assume I have problems I do not, miss problems I do have, and assume causes for certain behaviors that are incorrect.

(3) Borderline PD is curable through DBT. Asperger's is not curable at all. This can, has, and will influence how able I am to get professional help for my social problems. If they think "oh, he's just neurologically impaired. Let's just teach him some coping mechanisms to deal with depression and anxiety" (I am going to scream and throw things the next time a therapist starts to think in these terms), then I'm unlikely to get proper help.

(4) I need help with specific things that are not being identified. Others and myself have helped to identify in me the following characteristics of PD:



I have been able to identify the following neurological characteristics that may be due to either Nonverbal Learning Disorder, or less likely, an Autism Spectrum Disorder



Misdiagnosis makes it impossible to ever get help for category I, even though I believe that category I is much more serious, if for no other reason, eliminating category I problems would lead the development of more social relationships which would help eliminate many category II problems which could be due to limited socializing.

Hi Tyrion. I am intending to respond in more detail, but for now, some of the mental confusion could be from subliminal emotional pain. I know from personal experience that this can make it very difficult to focus, but it would be much easier to focus on something that is more pleasurable to do (than presumably studying for law exams is) as more pleasure would temporarily alleviate the emotional pain. Out of curiousity, do you really want to be a lawyer? How did you choose that and why? And re studying for law school exams, I am assuming you are not smoking pot at all, even a few days before:-)?

Second thing I want to mention is that you said you have unusual insight into the mental dynamics of various people. Actually being able to read people very well is considered to be a characteristic of those with BPD. I do not know if you already were aware of this.

Re Dialectical Behavior Therapy, I do not know if there is technically a cure for BPD but it is a way of regulating and modifying various responses. The thing is you may not be able to wait until you find such an approach, but need to start working on yourself now, whatever the individual disorder.. It seems like waiting to find a diagnosis is kind of like putting the carrot way far in front of your nose, but it is still a carrot. though it does seem to be to be very wonderful that you are trying to help yourself, and I believe you will succeed in finding help..

Anyway, my diagnosis,for whatever that is worth---BPD.

^ I agree. I can speculate as to the reasons, but in the end, the fact that I have Borderline is easy to miss. I have very strong emotions, but they are very repressed and not expressed in the usual way. They boil over into conduct and even bodily sensations but interestingly, rarely bearing or demeanor.

I don't know why. It could be trauma, or a severe/abusive upbringing. In a law school class the other day, some bawdy inappropriate guest speaker gave a graphic detail of an incident of child sexual abuse, and I was basically on the verge of crying and falling apart. Later, in an unrelated context, my friend said: "You look sick and tired a lot too. Like the other day in class when you kept covering your face." LOL

In the end, no psychiatrist may actually be able to identify BPD in me. http://www.psychforums.com/post1127457.html#p1127457

Law school....I have Nonverbal Learning Disorder. It's really the only fairly high-paying career I can do, aside from accounting.

I could very much identify with this:

http://www.aapel.org/bdp/BLborderquietUS.html

Basically, I now feel as if my parents lied and mislead me into getting an Asperger's diagnosis. Diagnosing me with Asperger's allows them to abdicate responsibility. A neurological disorder is not their fault. Abusing children and turning a blind eye to sexual abuse of children that leads to Borderline Personality and all the lives I've wrecked over the years, including my own, that is 100% their fault.

Blame it all on me.

Never mind that my brother also went crazy and is homeless somewhere in Georgia, or that my sister is essentially a Schizoid--a beautiful girl who has like no direction and has never dated anyone at the age of 27. She wants to, but all emotion she ever had has been killed, and she is left with virtually no mind or desires of her own.

Terrible abuse of children can mimic the symptoms of autism and Asperger's.

So you do have empathy-- for yourself,as well as for your brother and your sister, and I believe this to be the key to your healing...

It is worth noting that if it is BPD, that there is close to as large a genetic component studied with BPD as there is with Autism per over 40% weight of genetic factor as opposed to environmental factor.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 114100.htm

It also bears noting that there are no neurological tests for either disorder, and there is really no therapy for Asperger's or BPD for adults other than CBT or DBT.

I am seeing a therapist for Autism to regulate my emotions associated with Alexithymia and Autism, and after reading the DBT therapy description from Wiki, her therapy to help me with my Alexithymia is not significantly different than CBT therapy in respect to her unconditional acceptance of me as a human being, without taking an oppositional approach in therapy as well as helping me find Mindful awareness in living in the present moment with CBT therapy.

Tony Atwood's approach is also one targeting emotional regulation in Asperger's syndrome.

Much of what you describe about your emotions could be attributable to Alexithymia; particularly experiencing emotions as sensations in the body. Not being able to appropriately express anger and to set borders with others, is also commonly seen among people with Asperger's syndrome with the co-morbid Alexithymia assessed in close to 85% of those with ASD's.

There have been questions in the past per NLD, whether or not that is itself a form of Asperger's syndrome, but Asperger's is a DSM diagnosis, so it is more often the preferred diagnosis.

There are basic issues of emotional regulation including heightened emotional contagion from the personal distress of others, that are common in Asperger's and BPD.

It may be more of an issue in finding the right therapist to provide therapy and support for emotional regulation at this point in time, more than any other single factor.

I will share with you a couple of my blog posts here on this issue of Alexithymia and the similarities in what you have described in your emotions that perhaps you can relate to.

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/20 ... hymia.html

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/20 ... y-boy.html

Additionally, per my therapist and her clinical experience there does appear to be a substantial correlation of abuse or neglect in childhood and Autism.

My mother was extremely nurturing and there was never any fear of abuse, but on the other hand I received my fair share of psychological torment in the middle school environment, and work environment toward the end when I faced human exhaustion.

A nurturing environment in childhood may have been the difference in a diagnosis in my mid 40's rather than earlier in life.

Environmental influence in twin studies in the larger studies is almost identical in BPD and Autism.

The influence of the social/nurturing environment cannot be excluded as a contributing factor of influence in degree of symptoms observed as impairment.

I have another blog post specific to that area linked here, per a study on abuse and autism. There was a suggestion by someone highlighting the article that the children were abused because of negative opinions about the label of autism, which is not warranted by the research that exists in my opinion.

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/20 ... dhood.html

The apples do not fall far from the tree. Not many people with Asperger's syndrome express a desire to have children, as it is a very demanding task requiring 24/7social focus. And one that is incredibly demanding per social demand.

Some people are simply not born geared to nurturing behavior as some others are. This is seen throughout the animal kingdom, as well.

My father could not do it. He left. I could have ended up more like my father if he had stayed.

The nurture of my mother, made the difference in my genetic propensity of functional impairments toward Alexithymia and what Gillberg describes as Asperger's syndrome.

My father's mother was young and deferred her parental responsibilities to her parents. She was a compassionate person but far from a nurturing individual, when she was younger.

My father's identical twin brother stayed and raised his children, which impacts and lowers the testosterone level across the lifespan for nurturing behavior. They ended up looking completely different with my father having stronger masculine features than his twin brother.

I have the photos of my mother and my father when they were young on this link below about autism and respecting parents. One can look at my mother, and see there was no abuse going to come from that woman. My father was never directly abusive, just extremely distant unable to express any emotion, until one of his cats would die.

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/20 ... ctrum.html

As you will read in the post above, focused on Alexithymia as Divine Comedy, the apples, do indeed, not fall far from the tree. It took me longer to get there than my father but I finally arrived.

Additionally you mentioned Androgyny earlier and not strongly identifying with gender. That is an incredible source of internal conflict as well. You will see the little androgynous boy in the picture linked above. The adult that I became was a different human being that is in the photos of my personal facebook page linked with pictures of my family tree. The little girl is my sister who was diagnosed later in life with Asperger's and has symptoms of NLD, including the right hemisphere lesions I mentioned earlier in this thread.

I share a page with my spouse whose name is reflective of the name in my custom rank. My spouse does photos and I post them on a hobby page for nature photos on Facebook. My spouse does not do any writing on Facebook.

I have several posts about androgyny and other posts associated with Alexithymia, but this is the most recent one associated with androgny and what I call the broader biological gender spectrum.

http://katiemiaaghogday.blogspot.com/20 ... ender.html

Much of what you describe in this thread I can relate to on a personal level. Perhaps you will find something of help in one of these posts linked, that you can relate to and find some type of assistance in, if nothing but moral support.

Hi Raziel, sorry I missed your question posed earlier in the thread. Here is a link to the video where Gillberg goes into detail about what he describes as "the autisms", per the information I briefly mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... e-iik&NR=1

As far as to my opinion why, I suspect that problems with motor development could make one less aggressive overall, as there is also lack of muscle tone associated. That's a general guess.

To date psychopathy is most often measured in the prison environment than any other environment, so there is a predisposed notion that it is specific to criminal behavior to this point.

The new anti-social personality disorder in the DSM5 moves away from that criminal specific element in a diagnostic criteria designed to capture those individuals who might otherwise be described as sociopathic or psychopathic, as well as the other "non-criminal" elements of ASPD.

I think the new criteria is interesting because it could capture so many people in the general population per politicians, CEO's, etc. except that their behavior which is often criticized falls within what is accepted in the shared social-norm, which excludes one from a diagnosis.

There are two different worlds, the world of feeling and the world of data

In order for the feeling to become pure, which is the salvation and the healing, it is necessary to connect to data in a new way, but first the feeling needs to be separated from the 'previous' data. This is done by giving a different organization of data which is very simple and makes much more sense.

When Christ threw the money lenders out of the temple, that is allegorical material which will mean different things to different people, but one way of looking at it is that those people were using data as an exchange for feeling, so the dedication was not pure.

For what it's worth, my guess is that you really do have both. This is my intuition based on your writing and thinking style. Probably the Aspergers is mild enough that some will disagree on whether it's significant enough to warrants an official diagnoses, or whether it could just be classified as BAP.

As for your experience of getting inappropriate "social skills" class, the problem is you are too high functioning to not know the blatantly obvious things that anyone could tell you. Here's the problem IMO. From my POV most NTs are not even self-aware enough to be able to know exactly how and why they act the way they do and have the social instincts they do. Beyond a certain level there is really nothing more you can do to consciously "learn" to be more NT. People cannot teach extreme subtleties they aren't even fully aware of. The things that make your "energy" clash with others.

A BPD diagnosis sounds right to me as well. Being passive aggressive rather than showing outright rage is probably a coping mechanism.

I think you're right. It's also true, however, that BPD can cause social problems. For these reasons, I think my Asperger's is mild while my BPD is "moderate" (not severe enough for hospitalization at the present time though severe enough to cause major life disruptions, health problems, self-harm, and extreme problems in interpersonal relationships).

The more I read about the "quiet borderline," the more I realize that everything about it is me. The narcissistic, the passive-aggressive, and the avoidant traits all make sense now. The core, though, is boiling anger and emotional pain. I've read online that compensatory narcissistic traits are common in borderline males, so that makes sense too. My blunted affect and lack of outward emotional expression are disassociation, not neurology.

The correct diagnosis is one that ties everything together. IMO, that's what the "quiet borderline" or the "borderline waif" does. Anyway, it's interesting how I sometimes miss social cues due to slow visual processing and attention deficits but am very uncanny at picking up the emotions and intentions of others under the right circumstances. Not only does this go with normal BPD, it particularly goes with a BPD-NLD combo.

As for alexithymia, I don't think so. I am often too self-aware and too aware of emotions for that. I took an alexithymia test someone posted here and scored rather low on it. I think what makes me look alexithymic sometimes is disassociation due to intense emotional pain; alexithymia would be a more permanent condition. But I think disassociation is a better explanation.

Finally, at my core, I am far more drawn to and interested in people than I am to things. I don't have a hyper-male brain; in fact, quite the opposite. Particularly being a male, I think this indicates that BPD, not AS, primarily dominates my thinking.

Should I go to a new therapist (I need to), how should I broach the whole BPD thing? I did not mention it with my current one and then proceeded to get super frustrated when she proceeded to miss all the obvious clues to BPD and tried to fit everything into Asperger's. I need DBT with others who are similar in order to be able to recognize and deal with these issues, and the root cause, so I'm not just lurching from one thing to another making no progress, and to get into DBT, I need a diagnose of Borderline Personality Disorder, so my insurance can pay for it.