BPD or Autism?

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I have both.

I guess the main reason autistic people may be misdiagnosed is an outsider seeing symptoms and assuming they are one thing, without regard for what goes on inside.

I once dated someone who I believe had BPD and she wasn't even remotely autistic.

I can't help wondering though if the right person could have gained her trust to the point at which she might have actually felt safe enough to have a stable relationship. She did AFAIK marry again (her first husband had just left her when I met her and she immediately latched onto me which had some "benefits" for me at first, although I feel some shame about the situation in retrospect). No idea or way to know if her 2nd marriage lasted, but she did achieve one goal in life that I feared she wouldn't achieve if she stayed with me, which is one reason I broke up with her.

I suppose autism could be a factor in developing symptoms of BPD but maybe it's not the same as having BPD and not being autistic.

I mean I think personality disorders are poorly defined probably, but I don't think BPD is fake. It is very very much a trauma response and is related to what kind of relationship attachments you tend to form.

As someone who believes they have BPD, my experience with it is that I tend to form unhealthy attachments to certain people ("favorite person", or "FP") and these relationships are incredibly unstable due to emotional dysregulation and massive fears of abandonment.
For instance, when my FP and long time friend unfollowed me on a single social media because they were no longer interested in my posts there, I had a massive breakdown including many intrusive thoughts related to them hating me and wanting nothing more to do with me. These breakdowns have in the past led to me constantly reassurance seeking even when it doesn't make sense to be insecure and have very nearly ruined friendships.

I think it's a traum thing for me for sure, as I grew up in a dysfunctional family and was the target of much emotional abuse and neglect.

Well, I guess I'm cured.

Do you have a degree in psychology? What are you basing such an opinion on?

Even psychologists and psychiatrists don't know it all.

I wish BPD was fake, it's a rollercoaster that never really stops. I guess one could argue that it should be called a "trauma disorder" or something else than what it's categorized as..... but the cluster of symptoms and behaviors would exist regardless of label or classification. (Also it's somewhat genetic, just that trauma tends to influence the development.)

The symptoms are real but the way they separate these things don’t correspond to reality

They are all linked together with other mental health conditions, they just give different names for the purpose of treating the individual conditions

Depression and anxiety are linked together but separated same with all the other comorbids

From what I have read (not in-depth, mind you), while many mental health struggles are apparent in the brain they certainly cannot look at the brain abnormalities and say "aha, this is what this one looks like". Basically there is little to no evidence that the different mental disorders are separate entities just in general.

I've also heard that OCD and autism share similar brain structure (?), but they are of course defined separately based on behaviors and how they present and affect the individual.

They would be, because they both often have a bunch of repetitive behaviors and thoughts as well as executive dysfunction.

That being said, there's little excuse for psychiatrists to not look at the brain, given how prevalent psychiatric medication is. And brain injuries can cause psychiatric problems and do often times show up on various types of brain scans.

Exactly

Do they know what exactly causes BPD and how it differs from autism or Asperger's biologically. The answer is no.

Science cant even prove Asperger's and autism are the same condition.

These paper diagnosis don't really correspond to biology underneath they are very different things, the truth is one big fog of biological impairments that drift into different paper diagnosis categories.

I was misdiagnosed with a lot of conditions from type 2 intellectual disability as a baby because the GP inappropriately prescribed valium. in 1988 I was given a misdiagnosis of schizoid personality disorder and put on an overdose of carbamazepine. I only had temporal lobe epilepsy and absence seizures. In 1998 I done a course of 'therapy'. There were lot of people there about 30 all allistic. There was no mutual frame of reference also 'tough love' was the philosphy which was just an excuse by professionals to act as an jerk to people and claim it is 'therapy'. I was misdiagnosed as BPD in 1999. That was a waste of time. 4 years later I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (type 1 Autism). Some professionals are really incompetent. They even used my epilepsy medicine to get rid of me and refused a faith lunch because I wasn't allistic and was accused of wanted to be treated with 'kid gloves' in a letter to my GP. OK BPD can co exist with autism like epilepsy can. The accusing me of wanted to be treated with 'kid gloves' what allistics do all the time and that is that allistics want to be treated with kid gloves. SO being misdiagnosed as having BPd does happen to men as well. It isn't just a woman's issue.

I had a long-time friend with BPD. Our friendship ended chaotically, with me making one too many social mistakes and her trying to turn all our mutual friends against me. Took me years to recover from not just that big event, but all of the small things she convinced me were normal, that I now understand were a repercussion of her undiagnosed condition. I think it's for the best that I stay away from people with untreated BPD in the future. All of the insecure comments like "you know that they are all my friends, not your friends" can really wear a person down after a while. I may be a little slow un the social uptake, but I would never say something like that to someone.