Bipolar and Asperger's

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I'd like to ask people to speculate for a moment. Or, if this has actually happened to you over the course of, say, many years, tell me what your actual experience was.

I know of someone who at around the age of sixty-five had been diagnosed with everything from Clinical Depression to Major Depression to, eventually, Bipolar Disorder, and MPD.

Here's my question:

If this person had actually had Asperger's all of their life, and the rest were truly incorrect DX's (at least at first) how do you think the treatment for the wrong disorders might effect the person?


My suspicion: If it were actually Aspeger's to begin with, the treatments for the wrong disorders (depression specifically) could have actually caused depression in an Aspie.

What do you think? I'm all ears (and questions) on this one.

Gonna shut down for the night and see what y'all come up with tomorrow.

I'm also bipolar and it is not easily mistaken for my AS, and AS is not easily mistaken for bipolar disorder. I (and some experts) suspect that bipolar disorder is more common in ASD people than the rest of the population but this has not yet been conclusively proven. Bipolar disorder does not affect how someone thinks or their social skills when they are in between mood swings so mental health professionals would have to examine other aspects of the guy's life in order to determine if he has AS or not.

You lost me. How did MPD get in this mix? Multiple Personality Disorder?

It just did. How it did is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. The thing I'm wondering is how misdiagnosis, especially Bipolar, might affect someone who actually wasn't Bipolar or Depressive initially, but actually had Aspger's. I'm not really certain how or why MPD ever played into this.

I'm totally speculating on this, but it is about a real person. Not me.

I'm not so sure it's not easily mistaken. What if the doctor involved was never trained to spot AS? What if, for many years before the BPD DX, the history of Depression (under whatever name for it was being used at the time) had already been established, during the time period before much attention was being given to Asgperger's and other forms of High Functioning Autism?

What if the problem were really Asperger's all along, and it was never suspected or considered? What if that patient were treated for Depression, and Depression was not the real problem?

The question is whether you think treatment for Depression on a patient who is actually Aspie, and not depressed in the clinical sense, might actually develop real depression, forever masking the Asperger's.

The person I am thinking of is actually my mother, who passed away several years ago. There are at least some indications she may have originally only had Asperger's, or possibly some other form of Autism.

I actually brought this up with a psychologist recently, who did think it was possible. Of course, she won't say it definitively, and neither will I. My mother is dead, and there will never be a posthumous diagnosis. The reason I'm exploring the idea is that it MAY explain a not of things that until now have never made a lot of sense to me. It may NOT explain them too.

I'm just wondering what other people think.

Could someone with Asperger's, if incorrectly diagnosed with Depression, develop Depression as direct or indirect result of treatment that doesn't consider the real problem? I have one psycologist who believes it's possible. What do you think? Put yourself in my mother's shoes, so to speak. I'm not saying that's what happened. It may be nothing. But it could be something that ends up shedding a lot of light on the past, and how I got were I am.

I would say it's entirely possible.

However, Bipolar Disorder is a particular form of mood swing. It's a syndrome all to itself and the person behaves 'crazy'. I don't have it but I've seen people who do.

my mother has inattentive ADD and is on an antidepressant cocktail which helps her feel better but does nothing to address her executive function problems. a friend with ADD has been on Ritalin much of her adult life and in addition to addressing her ADD it eliminated her depression (which apparently was caused by the ADD). so there is a good example of treating the wrong problem (and solving part of it) and treating the right problem (and solving all of it).

i have recurring problems with depression and have been on a few different antidepressants (as well as lithium and an antipsychotic), with little effect. however, when depressed often it takes little to get me out of the rut, usually a change of environment. so, in my case i would say that's exactly what happened. was treated for depression & anxiety (part of the problem) and bipolar (wrong problem) and became more depressed as years went by and i still didn't know what was really causing my problems so continued to blame myself.

i can see how being misdiagnosed alone could drive someone batty as what they knew to be true internally would be in conflict with what professionals were telling them.

(side note: usually the acronym BPD is used in reference to borderline personality disorder, not bipolar disorder)

Yeah, you're right. I hate acronyms. I'm always misinterpreting them, usually though, because of multiple meanings.

Thanks for the rest of your post. What you describe is exactly the suspicion I have. I'm actually trying to contact her former Psychologist of twenty years to flesh out my thoughts with him. I'm very interested in what he thinks. He was at her funeral six years ago and invited me to call him at any time if I wanted to talk. Waiting for a call back from him now.

It should be interesting...

post the result, if you don't mind. i'm interested in your idea here as well.

Sometimes, I wonder if I might have reverse Manic Depression. I find that I get depressed in the spring and I perk up with the first rainfall, in the fall.

Manic Depression doesn't really have set seasons for mood changes, though that can occur with some people. I think you mean Seasonal Affective Disorder. That's the one where someone feels depressed in the winter.

The fall perks me up, too. I always loved going back to school.

(Edited just to add that this was in response to CockneyRebel)

Last edited by Dots on 20 Jun 2010, 7:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have an appointment tomorrow and I'm going to ask about what the nurse said about adding schiz to my dx just because of social problems. I'm bipolar, but I also do not pick up on social cues, my therapist said that.

But I'm empathetic, I think... so I really don't know.

Good luck, Angnix. I see a psych nurse regularly for my Bipolar Disorder and occasionally a psychiatrist. I mentioned to the nurse my questions about AS and will hopefully discuss it with her on Thursday. They told me I was definitely not schizophrenic, so I don't know what they'll say. I think I have some empathy as well, and at first with them I had a flat affect but as I get to know people better, that fades and I'm more expressive. They chalked the flat affect up to depression, though I don't think that was it.

Hope it works out for you.

I see my psychiatrist tomorrow too. He keeps giving me drugs but done of them have made the slightest difference to my mood. He recons that my depression is 'situation based'. I think he's run out drugs to give me now. I am now seeing a specialist to find what they call 'coping mechanism' for AS.

Does any actually find their psychiatrist helpful or informative people, I don't!

Oops. Sorry. I thought I deleted this. It was a response to something I realized wasn't addressed to me.

Last edited by MrXxx on 20 Jun 2010, 8:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Of course! I had planned to since leaving him the message. I have no idea what his thinking will be, but it'll be interesting either way.