I am currently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, major depressive episode and anxiety. I have been involved with local mental health services since having a major breakdown with severe depression and anxiety and some psychotic-type symptoms just over two years ago. I am convinced that the borderline personality disorder diagnosis is wrong; my GP disagrees with it, I asked for a second opinion at the time and the second psychiatrist disagreed with it and a mental health social worker who knows me well says I am highly atypical of that diagnosis (partly because I am very reserved), but it remains my official diagnosis for some reason. I have suffered with recurrent bouts of depression (of varying severity) since my early teens and do tend to be an anxious person so I agree with those parts of my diagnosis, but I also feel that there is something more to it. After my breakdown I did spend a lot of time researching all the various mental health conditions and, while I could find elements of several that applied, there was nothing that truly fit. I have also done research into ADD in the past as a friend suffers from it and, again, there were some elements of commonality, but not a true fit. Then, in the middle of August this year, I began doing some research into Aspergers for reasons not connected to myself and began to find an emerging pattern of congruence with my own life.
The more I have researched into this, the more it seems to connect together my experiences and give voice to my internal world. I have spent a lot of time on this website in the last couple of months and find myself continually relating to the posts of the other members; obviously I do not do everything I read about, but I seem to have more in common than mere coincidence would suggest. I now really want to pursue an official diagnosis, to know for definite one way or another. But I am scared. I know that once people have a psychiatric label for you they are likely to dismiss anything you say, and any symptoms you describe, as just you acting out and being difficult. I am worried that I will not be taken seriously and will not be referred for diagnostic testing even if I ask. I am also worried that the waters are so murky as an adult because of my psychiatric problems, some abuse issues as a child and the fact that I do not have a parent to accompany me that diagnosis will be impossible anyway. I am worried that by raising the possibility of Aspergers I will simply be labelled as difficult and even more crazy and will just be creating even more problems for myself.
I am also uncertain as to how strongly, as an adult, I meet the diagnostic criteria. Firstly, I regard myself as very social. Now, that is not to say I always relate well to others. I was bullied all the way through school and was a complete loner who spent all my spare time in the IT suite. But as an adult I have learnt to be much more outgoing and regularly talk to strangers. I still have my limits and very much like to choose how much time I spend with people and find people who want to be in touch all the time intrusive. I don't get very attached to people or miss them when they are not around or move away. There are still social occasions where I feel very awkward and out of place. I definitely have some empathy issues (although I'm not sure I fully understand how empathy is defined to know exactly what these are, but my husband says I have them). But I do have friends and I don't generally upset people on a regular basis. I do also seem to have some issues with reading body language. I do very badly at this on emotional intelligence tests and have also performed badly at reading facial expressions on some tests in the past, although I am not aware of having this problem in day-to-day life.
Secondly, I am not sure whether I have obsessions. I do generally have something that I do for on average a few hours a day. But this has changed over time. Some of these interests have been logic problems, counted cross stitch, internet research & forums (on various topics, currently Aspergers), Civilization, Tetris, Minesweeper, programming my Dad's Commodore 64 (when I was at primary school) and jigsaws. But, while I do sometimes do them more than I should, and don't perhaps get all the housework done or stay up a little later than I should, I don't do them to the exclusion of all else or have all night sessions so I am not sure whether they qualify as special interests or obsessions or not.
I definitely do have some issues with communication. Although highly articulate generally, I have an almost total block when it comes to expressing my emotions or anything that I have a strong personal emotional involvement with. I range from using quite childlike, simplistic language, to stuttering to complete inability to speak or make any kind of eye contact or interact at all. It is incredibly frustrating. I also have a definite tendency to talk at people, I interrupt, go on and on, misread a lack of interest as them not hearing and repeat myself. I also have only one volume setting, which in my case happens to be loud. I usually get away with it in normal conversation, but seem to have a complete inability to modify my volume if I need to be quieter for any reason. All of these problems are issues that my husband has observed and complains about frequently, although thankfully he still loves me anyway.
I could go into a long list of other things that I have picked up on from my research so far, and from reading this forum, but I am conscious that this is already a very long post. If you have read this far, thank you for your time and attention. I would be interested in any feedback you may have.
26 Sep 2011, 5:20 pm
