Worst possible personality match for Aspergers. Found it?

Post Reply New Topic

Alright guys, this comes from experience and a lot of thought was put behind it. I truly believe that the worst possible match for people like us is anyone suffering from Bpd (Borderline Personality Disorder).

I have personally had two relationships with this match and frankly, they were disastrous. Don't be mistaken, I am highly aware that anecdotal evidence does not make anything a fact or solid, but my reasoning is that if you know anything about bpd, you know that those with it are already extremely hyper-sensitive to rejection and any sign of a lack of care or concern from people close to them. On top of this, those with bpd aren't very assertive and usually choose to make very passive, even passive-aggressive notions that you have done something wrong to them or done something that makes them think that you don't care. If you think about this and how we generally need people to be very direct with us about things and how we tend to not be very good at outwardly showing our sympathy/empathy and expressing our emotions, you can only imagine how disastrous and unsuccessful this relationship pairing can turn out to be.

I'm not saying don't date a bpd if you're an autist, but you'll have to keep all of this in mind and take LOTS of measures to avoid almost endless, epic and explosive fights and constant drama. Also, I hypothesize that there's a very high chance that both parties in the relationship will be consistently unhappy/unfulfilled throughout the relationship.

So, anyone have any experience with this match or any thoughts? Any disagreements?

When I first started looking into personality disorders (because my spouse accused me of lacking empathy and kept asking me what was wrong with me), BPD was one of the things I wondered if I had. Not because I felt that way about myself, but because it fit the things he said about me when he was mad at me. MyEx, when my daughters told him that their mom said she was Autistic, said "more like Narcissistic." Then there was the RN at work who said it sounded more like co-dependency.

I agree that a BPD or Borderline would be a bad match for an Aspie. They would be incapable of giving the needed support. But then again, I don't think there would be a good match for a person with Borderline PD. It would be hard for anyone to be paired with a Borderline person.

Co-dependent is also hard to be matched with. Co-dependent people need things that Aspies aren't good at recognizing.

My ex has BPD and he was absolutely the worst possible match for me despite a lot of superficial compatability. I'm very introspective which he continually interpreted as hostility and nothing I could do or say would convince him otherwise. Then after hours of abusive rants he would feel bad about doing that and expect me to reassure him. Interestingly, a psychologist recently told me that aspergers/BPD matches are surprisingly common.

So what type of a personality would a woman have to have in order to be with an Aspie male and what personalty qualifications would a man have to have to be with an Aspie female? This is very interesting to me.

They are definitely are a terrible, yet common match (as I know all too well) as it seems that most Aspies end up with someone with Borderline traits. I have spent a long time thinking about why that is: it can't be a co-incidence. My answer: in my case, we were magnetically drawn to each other because we had the exact same traumatic childhood issues, just in different ways. I suppose that after a lifetime of rejection, she was like a drug to me: she actually thought *I* was too good for *her*. I learned in time that she was right about that at least. I was the classic co-dependent/rescuer/fixer and a lot of that was programmed into me by my mother.

I know it sounds cruel but I would go one step further and say that nobody should date a BPD. There is a reason my ex is still single a few years later and that will probably never change, at least in any long term capacity. I've seen countless people in my life end up with BPD-like women and it was a sad day when I had to admit I was one of them even after I swore it would never happen to me. I was always told that I lacked empathy but after countless sessions of pulling out my hair trying to talk to her I realized she was absolutely, 100% incapable of empathy or understanding adult issues.

This can be true in a general sense--but, microcosmically, it might not be.

It is quite possible for the worst "personality match for Aspergers" to be another Aspergian. It could be a situation where "the blind is leading the blind."

And that the person with Borderline Disorder, with insight into his/her disorder, might actually be a decent match for an Aspergian, since the person with insight will, quite possibly, seek to mitigate his/her Borderline traits, and to have enough "social instinct" to really provide useful assistance to an Aspergian.

What I'm saying, really, is that it depends upon the Aspergian, and on the person with Borderline Disorder whether one or the other would be the "worst possible personality match" for each other.

Sorry to disagree but if you really think about it BDP's are a bad match for anybody, mate. Not all things in the universe revolve around being an AS. A bipolar gf/bf (one who's not being properly medicated anyway) drives anyone mental, no matter how "Zen" one is. Seen that happen so many times and I can assure you.

If you think bipolars are the worst, I hope you don't cross roads with a pure psychopath.

I completely understand and am glad I found a support group to help. My best friend has borderline and she’s a compulsive liar and constantly accusing me of things SHE does and we are both Christians and she plays the “god” card all the time to justify her behavior. It’s extremely frustrating dealing with someone like this especially when you catch them in a lie and they say things like “I don’t have to prove anything” or saying god told them to act like that ugh frustrating to the max. I believe in god but I don’t use my religion to justify my behavior and as an aspie it’s hard for me because people don’t understand why I have meltdowns and complain about my problems. They don’t get that people like us need someone to talk to because we can’t exoress ourselves the way others can and they abandon us just because they think we are drama when we are not and then we come across someone with BPD and it’s an emotional disaster. Like I said frustrating to the max

Read on a Swedish aspieforum about a guy that dated a girl with BPD. Did sound like a genuine problem and their personality is pretty much manipulative. I think i even ran into the girl in question on a dating forum, she had been with a guy with Aspergers and wasn't open to dating.

But really, anyone on the antisocial spectrum (ASPD, NPD, BPD, Histrionic) is a bad match.

Salespeople.

My girlfriend is on the border of having BPD & she has other stuff; her mom likely has BPD too but worse than Cass. Me & Cass's realtionship does have some of those issues & problems but for the most part we're a really great match. I actually like being suppotive within a relationship & consider it one of my strengths. I was diagnosed with BPD along with other stuff including Aspegers when I fell into a psychotic depression over my 1st relationship ending. After years of working on myself, posting about stuff a lot, trying to understand & analyze things; I don't think I would meet the criteria to be diagnosed with it now. Some of the issues were cuz of my depression & others were cuz I have anxiety & OCD. I exhibited a lot of the problems within my 2nd realtionship too as a result of my untreated anxiety & OCD. I got on good anxiety & OCD meds for me before I got in my current realtionship. When I was single I was searching for women with BPD or who had other issues cuz I have lots more than my fair share. I figured I could relate to someone with BPD fairly well since I've had a lot of those issues before myself, I've been online friends with people with BPD, I like the idea of using my experience of what I would of wanted or what I found worked/works well for me to help someone, I like feeling needed & useful, & I like the idea of a romantic partner becoming a better person cuz of me even if she doesn't stay with me. I would NOT advise an Aspie getting with a BPD partner cuz they can be very difficult to deal with & make you feel like your walking on eggshells a lot. There are exceptions however & I've an extremely rare one

I agree that bpd is just bad for anyone.

On personality or spectrum position in general, any relationship CAN possibly work out in a positive way.

Can you become aware that your cognitive behaviors are manifestations of a disorder and not the product of rational thought? I think so. So self-correcting cognitive behavior is a functioning of recognizing the difference, ignoring the negative or destructive influences, and acting on the positive or constructive ones.

My struggle is mainly with depression and anxiety, aside from just being anti-social in general and overall socially awkward. I tend to deal with it by retreating into repetitive behaviors and sleeping too much. I’ve learned to take those coping activities, which could easily be time wasters, and turn them into something productive—like, say, coming up with a new way to make music. My new obsession is distance running, and it’s done me a lot of good.

When I HAVE to interact with others, I recognize my urge to shut down has nothing to do with reality and is entirely in my head. So I get through the one or two hours a day this is unavoidable and go back to what I was doing.

You don't want to believe that you’re crazy. But recognizing delusions for what they are is helpful in sorting out what the world tells you and what your broken head tells you. It might be difficult for folks with BPD and NPD and sociopaths, but it’s entirely possible.

And, hey, don’t feel bad...NT’s have trouble being honest with themselves, too.

I do believe that someone with BPD, in most instances, is a very bad match for someone with an ASD. But let us not focus all of the blame for this on those with BPD. A person with an ASD will likely be unqualified and unable to meet the needs of someone with BPD. People with BPD are often trauma survivors who started out as emotionally sensitive (and innocent) individuals who were subjected to invalidating environments growing up. They have large amygdalas that generate emotions their frontal lobes are not equipped to attenuate, and these emotions and the behaviors they generate are difficult for all parties involved to cope with, even social geniuses with degrees in psychology. A person with ASD is simply not qualified to navigate a relationship with someone with BPD and likely will be unable to meet the social and emotional needs of someone with BPD, thus it is the person with ASD who is a bad match for the person with BPD.

As far as ASD and histrionic personality disorder goes, that might actually work fairly well provided the person with ASD does not feel suffocated. The person with HPD will do most of the relationship forming by virtue of their need for attention and their melodramaticness might be the exagerration someone on the spectrum needs to read non verbal body language.

People with HPD can give the impression of being superficial and aloof at times because of how they distribute their attention but would someone on the spectum even notice or care? It might be a welcome break from the attention seeking.

I dated someone with severe BPD traits for 1 year. We re-cycled at least once a month yet I couldn't seem to leave her and she couldn't seem to leave me. When I researched the traits and discovered BPD, and presented this to her as a possible explanation for our problems and her lifelong patterns in relationships, she refused to consider it and wouldn't even go to therapy.

However she had a lot of therapy in the past, in her high school years (she was mid 20s when we dated), and was extremely in touch with her emotions. And we were both extremely stubborn about solving our problems, me because I was a problem solver and her because she seemed to really believe we could figure things out and get better, and her issues left her as trapped in the relationship as I was.

At the time I read a lot written by people with BPD, and it sounds like they and their partners can have successful, healthy long term relationships. But to do so, they need to accept and understand their issues and work on managng their patterns and natural tendencies throughout their lives.

For me, I learned a tremendous amount from this experience about emotions and relationships and my own nature and love in general. But she wasn't tackling her problems head-on, and the more I learned about relationships the more I could see that we weren't a great match anyway, the things that held us together were each of our own problems and attachment issues.

There are some parallels with aspie experiences. Aspies have to learn to be very self aware and manage their natural tendencies too, to be good partners. So it's definitely not accurate or fair to demonize BPDs.

But unfortunately BPD minds are naturally dispositioned to reject awareness of their own flaws. And even when they do, it never goes away and it's not easy to manage. A lot of borderlines (maybe the majority?) do not have the skills to manage their problems and aspies are prime targets to get sucked into manipulative, bear-trap relationships full of vicious emotional terrorism.

Just like aspies, though, their differences gives them strengths, like "mind-reading", super high sensitivity to other's states, and the ability to experience the emotional joy of a child even as an adult. BPDs can be really wonderful, sensitive partners when their love/hate dial is not jammed at one end or another. And they can relate to not fitting into the world of neurotypicals.

So in summary.... learn the signs of BPD and watch your boundaries, but never judge a mind based on a single label.

I agree, generalizations from us just equates to writing ourselves off, in some karmic sense at least.

I think labels are mostly harmful save for instances like WP where one actually provides some common ground; usually they're just another excuse to alienate someone without really knowing them.

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos