Personality Disorders

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I heard this somewhere where I can't recollect.

Can certain personality disorders such as borderline be caused by growing up with undiagnosed AS?

It's uncommon for AS and a PD to co-exist. AS can sometimes be misdiagnosed as a PD, such as schizotyple personality disorder or Obsessive Compulsive PD.

Wow I actually was thinking the same thing!

I had been diagnosed with BPD and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) as a young adult, and I am almost sure I developed them both as a result of being treated poorly by other people and not knowing how to deal with it, because I was undiagnosed AS. Mainly because 1) I wasn't born with either disorder, so they weren't innate and had to come from some environmental factor and 2) I had been physically/mentally abused by men for years, and invalidated by parents/caregivers since childhood, and I don't think I would have been treated that way by all those people, if I hadn't been undiagnosed AS (provoking ridicule and abuse with my odd behaviors, and unable to verbalize my feelings much less stick up for myself). Then of course, I developed those emotional/personality disorders from the abuse and invalidation.

After these diagnoses, I went through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (an offshoot of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) which did wonders to eliminate my depression and give me tools to better handle my interpersonal situations to the point where I no longer match the DSM for either disorder. However, I always retained the feeling of "thinking differently" and not understanding people (even if I had learned how to deal with them materially with the tools I had learned in DBT).

Then I found out about AS and it explained everything, everything, everything.... I wish I knew when I was little; maybe people would have taken more care with me and spared me from the violence, etc.

Would be curious if anyone else had similar experiences/additional disorders caused by undiagnosed AS...

Sometimes I've wondered if I might be borderline just because of how depersonalized I feel and because of my anger issues and my drug/alcohol issues, but I think personality disorders overall have exclusionary lists that include things like autism.

Yep. I wrote a book about it. It's called Borderline and Beyond and it's available on Amazon

What I write about in the book is how there are more females diagnosed with BPD and lots of undiagnosed AS in females. I believe lots of those females diagnosed with BPD are really AS.

The Overlap In the Categories: black-and-white thinking, age regression, sometimes self-mutilation, social maladjustment, identity problems.

The Difference in BPD: abandonment fear and unintentional manipulativeness

@whitetiger - Oh I must order your book, it sounds interesting!

@MizLiz & @x-amount - Considering that Autism is an innate neurological phenomenon and things like BPD can be caused by environmental factors (that is in hot debate but it is not conclusive either way yet), I don't see why a person with Autism, especially HFA or Aspergers, who might even be able to pass for NT and who is able to function in the NT world, cannot develop a personality disorder in addition to their Autism, given the right (or wrong!) set of circumstances. Maybe?

Just thinkin'....

Oh, and also, some people think BPD is just a catch-all diagnosis for any time a female is "problematic" but doesn't fit the DSM for other disorders; there's that too. One thing is for sure, when I told people I had BPD years ago, they got scared of me like I was going to be violent or something (crazy!), but when I tell people now that I may be HFA/AS, they just think I'm slow (laughable). I don't know which stereotype is worse....

Where did you get that info from? I've heard it's more common in people with AS... Mainly women though.

I am being diagnosed at the moment. the psychologist says he thinks I have BPD and he says it is probably because of my AS that it worsened the BPD. I was undiagnosed AS but history taken from my mum, dad, me and various other relatives shows that I was definately on the autistic spectrum as a baby (spinning stuff, ignoring my mum, stimming by pressing my eyes against the telly...).

Probably it is uncommon specialy by a matter of definition - some PD have in diagnostic criteria that they can't coexit with a PDD

Oh SOME not all. I dont know, I still think that I have something else rather than a personality disorder. I call that the 'lazy diagnosis'. Then again I am pretty messed up...

Yes, dx with BPD, PTSD and a bunch of other stuff.......turns out it is AS, traits of BPD and PTSD......

I also had a rather violent childhood not to mention the isolation of "difference".

Took 36 years to work it all out.....and for my competent shrinks to finally tell me that I am not a "pathological psychopath". Yep, can't tell you how good I felt that day.

Mics

Well, I asked my therapist whether personality disorders can coexist with AS and he said he sees no reason why they couldn´t coexist. So I guess one person can have Asperger´s AND ALSO a personality disorder. I believe I have several BPD traits myself.

Last edited by CollegeGeek on 26 Feb 2010, 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've seen research that shows Asperger's syndrome often results in a Cluster A (paranoid, schizoid, or schizotypal) or Cluster C (avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive) personality disorder in adulthood whereas ADHD often leads to a Cluster B (antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic) personality disorder in adulthood. One can see the similarities in spots.

I went to this website http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personalit ... er_test.mv and I answered the questions and I was very high in avoidant personality so I clicked on it and it went to this http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/avoidant.html which it really does fit me on what I was like Before I started taking my medication a few months ago. I mean I fitted ALL of the symptoms they listed. Which makes sense because I really acted that way towards others all my life because of my anxiety.