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

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ahogday, I don't remember if I mentioned before or on another site, but I think many people confuse BPD with Antisocial Personality Disorder, especially since many people have both (HUGE overlap between the two):

(1) lack of remorse for harming the rights of others; (2) physical violence; (3) conscious manipulation

Furthermore, many people confuse BPD and Histrionic Personality Disorder: (1) manipulation through extreme public displays of emotions; (2) constant attention-seeking

So the professional you saw may have experienced people who were actually ASPD or BPD + ASPD or had HPD. I had some long Skype chats with a girl from Wrong Planet who was ASPD + BPD + Aspie, and she met all the traits listed above for ASPD.

I also put little faith in professionals who do not specialize in BPD and maybe even some who do. It's about as misunderstood as Asperger's Syndrome. There are several myths that even many professionals succumb to: (1) manipulation (it's not in the DSM criteria); (2) males cannot get it; (3) it's exactly the same as Histrionic Personality Disorder; (4) there is no such thing as the "acting in" type; (5) it's exactly the same as Antisocial Personality Disorder; (6) it requires visible temper tantrums

I think the issue is the DSM tries to classify disorders into distinct compartments. In the rarer case where someone doesn't fit into a single compartment, using DSM criteria alone fails. On the surface alexithymic responses (bottling up emotions, expressing confusion, or having a delayed processing of emotional events) make a person look very controlled and unemotional. In reality the person could experience the exact same extreme emotional distress characteristic of BPD that leads to "unhinged" behavior in some people, but it merely stays hidden most of the time. I think the difference is alexithymia is usually considered a very stable personality trait whereas those symptoms are more on and off with people who have experienced trauma. It might be that a person with even very very mild autistic traits is more likely to respond to trauma in that way (internalizing) than a very warm/open extroverted nurturing person with high empathy and social skills. I'm assuming the latter describes your wife.


I appreciate that you see me that way. The problem is in real life I have trouble connecting with people. I’m not at all comfortable with touchy feely social situations. In real life social situations I have all the typical aspergers issues, like having trouble making myself smile, going off on complex thought tangents, and talking about myself rather than asking questions. I have to consciously combat all these instincts to even begin to “appear NT”. But strangely I have high sympathy and sometimes a high cognitive empathic ability when analyzing things from a distance. At times I can figure out what people are really thinking and feeling better than some NTs. The problem is it only works from a distance, not when I’m directly interacting or emotionally involved with someone.

I think in writing I can communicate more effectively than in person because I can filter out extraneous ideas that pop into my head. I don’t type as fast as I think and that helps me be more concise and choose my words more carefully. It also helps not having to worry about my body language.



I can see that. I actually enjoy the more detailed/analytical writing style of people on this site. It occasionally leads to me not reading a full post, but I still get more out of it than typical Facebook nonsense or clicky forums filled with horrible spelling, text-speak, mindless banter, and overused emoticons.

Yea. My thoughts and feelings are a complex muddle for which I don't have a direct steering control over. A friend of mine with bipolar once told me her opinion was that some people are too smart for CBT to work on. You'll end up annoying and arguing with the therapist. I have to find sneakier ways to change my thinking.

I have some issues with this as well. But they have got to have devised something because what I have (disassociation from emotions) is very common with C-PTSD and other types of PTSD, as well as DID. That's why I think talk therapy would not be helpful to me. But DBT in a group might be -- since other people's experiences and feelings are often triggering to me.

What I have--and what sets BPD apart from Asperger's alone--is high suggestibility. It's a classic symptom of DID, which runs strongly in my family. However, even though I do not have DID, my BPD is just an embryonic form of it--where the splitting never occurred completely, so my alters are not fully developed and I have only slightly impaired memories across them-- a lot of the same tendencies apply.

It's important for me to be in a therapy with a group of others with Borderline Personality Disorder because I am vulnerable to contagion, and then it's usually possible for me to sort out what is really applicable and what's not. I just can't get to it on my own without prodding. This is one reason why a BPD diagnosis was important for me -- so I could do DBT, rather than just doing individual therapy.

I'm the TOTAL opposite and I'm totally stubborn that I even can't control it myself, maybe that's why I'm getting aggressive when psychiatrists talk in that DBT manner to me!?
Why is it a classic symptom of DID though?
And in how far is BPD and DID related?

I think that BPD is just a milder version of DID, and it has been clinically proven that DID has high suggestibility (implanted memories and whatnot). Since I have family members with DID, I would imagine I have the genes for it and that some of the same tendencies would apply to my BPD. I think this is one of them.

I do not have DID because I did not split all the way, or even close. I am surprised to be the only family member with BPD; out of the 3-4 in the extended family who suffered sexual abuse, I am the only one who developed BPD instead of DID.

Perhaps the fact that you have mild aspergers prevented it from developing into full on DID. Just a wild theory of mine.

I could imagine the same. So far I know is DID and ASD together very rare.
In general speaking a personality in autistic people develops different than in NTs. I myself define very much over my special interests and so on and I've a highly stubborn personality (so stubborn that I even suffer from it very often myself and can't controll it fully myself) from very early on and not that much I identify with and a high need that everything stays the same and that I can control my life and not someone else for me. Of course with bad childhood experiences I would have turned out different, but you can always change some aspects over time and never the entire personality.

Last edited by Raziel on 14 May 2013, 1:37 am, edited 3 times in total.

I can identify and relate closely to almost everything you stated, and think they are all reasonable points.

Last edited by aghogday on 14 May 2013, 3:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

I found the link below that qualifies the issue as one of definition of manipulation. The unhinged reaction to not getting one's way which can be desperation to escape psychological pain, is not described as manipulation, which I think is reasonable the way it is defined in the link below. It is almost like the difference between emotional contagion and empathic concern, where one requires feeling and the other requires cognitive effort.

It appears to me that individuals who do not experience the same connection in language and complex emotion would be more likely to operate in life with an algorithmic process of step by step cause and effect planning rather than a flow of "touchy" "feely" stuff.

The INTJ personality profile is associated with this "master mind" type of thinking, which is a cognitive effort to find order in one's environment over and above the "touchy" "feely" stuff. It is no surprise that personality is dominate on this site per the over 1500 response poll done here by over a third of the people participating on this website, vs. the 3 to 5 percent one would expect in any general population sample.

If you don't mind sharing, do you know what your briggs meyers personality profile is ?

The Placebo effect and hypnosis will not work on me. I attempted hypnosis to relieve pain with one of the best therapists that use that technique and I cannot come close to understanding how anyone could be hypnotized, because it is not in the realm of my life experience. That quality of power of suggestion does seem to set you apart from the "typical" Asperger's profile.

Manipulation per the non-pathological type, that is generally referred to as positive influence, can be used for positive effect in life rather than negative effect. That is where the established positive moral code from childhood as a guidebook for the future influenced by nurture can make the difference I think, between potential anti-social behavior vs positive conscientious effect toward others, that is also associated with empathic concern and compassion.

It is interesting that Gillberg suggests that it is the motor development difficulties that is an inhibiting factor in psychopathy and disturbance of affective contact with people per Kanner's description and "Autistic Psychopathy" per Hans Asperger's description.

I suspect that may have something to do with impairments in non-verbal communication per fine motor control of facial muscles required for that type of communication and certainly required to effectively manipulate the emotions of other people in face to face interaction.

On the other hand it is just what the "doctor" ordered for the "Poker face" and playing cards or the exhibition of face to face dry humor.

That said, it seems if there was negative intent of manipulation it might be more effectively done through written rather than face to face communication, which might, in part, explain why there is so much apparent manipulation in negative intent prevalent on the internet vs. real life, among those individuals that may lack a pro-social moral code of ethics, which definitely is influenced by nurture.

I was raised as a Catholic and my grandfather was actually a Catholic Priest who was excommunicated for getting married, who ironically tried to convert people to the protestant way the rest of his life.

The structure of the Catholic church is rigid and extreme per enforcing a moral code, in the numbers of "Hail Mary's" one is required to say with admission to every "deviant" thought in straying from a strict moral code. I can't help but to think, it is like an RRBI for me from childhood to maintain a spotless soul, even though it has been decades since I attended church.

I cannot imagine what I would be like now if I had not had that basic moral code per Catholic "brainwashing plan" installed from early childhood through young adulthood. It seems to have had the same effect on my mother and sister, if not one influenced greatly by nature.

http://www.toddlertime.com/dx/borderlin ... lation.htm

Theodore Millon thinks that BPD is overlapping with every PD, just two exeptions:
schizoid PD and antisocial PD.

I don't know the exact reasons, I haven't read his entire book.

He especially found overlapping traits between BPD and AvPD, negativistic PD and histrionic PD and his opinion was that BPD and StPD had a lot in common and where both severe PDs because StPD is something between schizophrenia and PD and BPD on the other hand is something between mood disorder and PD.

The diagnostic criteria most psychiatrists see as the typical diagnostic criteria for BPD is this one: "excessive efforts to avoid abandonment"

I suspect that there may be common genetic similarities too, where environment may mold people differently. For instance if a person had a nurturing stable childhood vs a turbulent one, the issue of abandonment might not be the same, but issues with emotions associated with the structure of the brain that has been noted as different among individuals with BPD, could still be the origin of a different disorder if any at all.

I thought the story linked below about a neuroscientist studying the structural differences in the brain among assessed psychopaths was interesting as his family tree was full of killers, and he found he had the same structural differences in his brain as the individuals with psychopathy that he was studying. His children and mother did not have the anomaly, and he had a very nurturing childhood, which appears to have made a difference.

Interesting to me is he looks a linebacker on a professional football team more than a neuroscientist. It wouldn't be hard to imagine him as an aggressive individual depending on environmental circumstance.

His mother is brimming with "sweetness" in her old age in the picture.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =127888976

I strongly agree with this article and have the same fiew on this topic.
How I showed in my own example about my own life it can be highly harmfull when a professional thinks that a patient is manipulative when this is not realy the case.



Yes, I've already heard about James Fallon and I guess that's the point why Theodore Millon fiews AsPD as something complitely different than BPD. Of course when you see AsPD just as a type of chronic criminal behaviour than there will be even a huge overlapp, but the next DSM, the DSM 5, is going back to the theory of psychopathy and is changing the diagnostic criteria for AsPD into this direction and psychopathy and BPD are something complitely different.
Also there are a lot of negative clichées out there about BPD who are just partly true, because their behaviour migh be very difficult to deal with when you are not experienced in it. After my trauma I showed a long time very similar behaviour. Well maybe partly out of different reasons and mainly just in the traumatic environment, but because of that I'm a bit aware of high emotional uncontrolable behaviour and how distressing it is for both sides, but especially for the person who suffers from it.

I wonder what Tyrion thinks of this.

I think I used to define myself over my special interests but I've changed as I've gotten older. Now I get jaded too quickly when not enough people seem to give a crap so I have to find new obsessions. I'll never be able to care about "typical" interests like f***ing spectator sports. I can understand playing a sport that I'm good enough at, but people like my retired father who sit around watching it on television constantly just grate on me. But really, the older I've gotten the more changeable I feel on the inside and the more compartmentalized I've become with what aspects of my life I actually bother to share with people. I do think if I had less family support and more traumatic experiences the effect would lesson my extreme self-conscious inhibition and I would start to verge on getting more loopy and confused on the inside. I've only experienced this in brief episodes, like when I was under extreme stress in graduate school and completely lost interest in my studies. Having to follow through with my thesis when I really just didn't care at all anymore was the hardest thing in my life. I'd have been so devastated if I hadn't finished so the rational part of me prevailed. I still haven't recovered.

Tyrion, as you know my original diagnosis was DID, and then I diagnosed BPD. How did I see DID? Cannot say exactly but it was obviously from some stuff you wrote--could suddenly see it clear as a bell, like looking through a tiny crack in the wall into another universe, and what I saw was very clear (though of course it could be wrong...people see all kinds of things:-). Then later as more info emerged I said BPD. However these two and many others things can overlap.

Re the partially formed identities you say you are playing, this does not mean much. One alter could be doing all of that. Imo a person can have slightly impaired memory and still have full-blown DID, plus it is difficult to know what you remember or not, as the details forgotten may be very small, even seemingly trivial--just enough to maintain the particular dynamic which is that one alter, the protector, is keeping another part of oneself from seeing and facing because it is unbearable, and it does not even necessarily have to be,the original trauma, but rather the psychological implications for oneself (meaning who one really is) in relationship to that. Also the host personality that the main alter is protecting is not really oneself but rather a whitewashed version of oneself as the two aspects (of 'bad' and 'good') are not integrated into a whole functioning comprehensive and individualized self. This latter is also true with BPD.

Was and am skeptical about DID. I think it's possible to have mild traits of it without having the full deal with child alters and such. If I do have primitive alters, one of them is a girl. hahaha Anyway, even if it is, BPD is still correct. Something like 90% of those with DID have BPD also. Therapist said I definitely disassociate and have identity issues but it could take months of observation being in one place to figure out if any of the disassociation disorders apply (probably meet the criteria for Dissociative Disorder-NOS but IDAF) -- and what would be the point anyway? I have C-PTSD; that's the core of my issues. Everything else is just a label used for insurance purposes. PTSD, BPD, Disassociation, etc. are just labels slapped on to code my C-PTSD into the DSM for insurance purposes.

I only cared intensely about labels when I was being understood on an entirely wrong paradigm (Asperger's, Schizoid). My psychologist is writing a report that talks a lot about my C-PTSD and mentions meeting the criteria for BPD. I am moving in about two weeks to another coast.

My Myer's Briggs type is INTP. And, yes, ahogday, I have a whopping case of alexithymia. Which would make sense in terms of either C-PTSD or Asperger's (if there's even a difference between them). In fact, the traits of C-PTSD sound a lot like the traits of Asperger's, which makes me wonder whether my and possibly other cases of Asperger's are environmentally induced.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_PTSD



I meet like all the criteria. I had never heard of C-PTSD till my psychologist diagnosed me with it out of the blue.