Asperger Syndrome vs. Borderline Personality Disorder

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I'm sorry I should have been more clear.

I'm sure your friend, being that you know her well, you can tell she doesn't have AS, because you know how she is on the inside as well as the outside.

But she's just one person with BPD as well, and we were discussing similarities and differences between BPD and AS. And there are similarities where mostly the difference is the why (like special interests and social interaction).

And on my personal note, the reason I was questioning is because I'm trying to reconcile my aspie-ness (which I think I have) and my borderline-ness (which I clinically have).

I'm sorry for getting defensive.

It is true that she is just one person. Hopefully with different people combining their individual experiences with BPD and AS on this thread we'll get a clearer picture. There are definitely some different, interesting perspectives which have already been posted.

Good luck with your own personal quest.

The Bordie me now feels accepted and can place you in my good box.

I'm very glad to be here.

Thanks for your input, mental stuff is tricky but that's why there's places like WP.

I was misdiagnosed as borderline. I do have two of the characteristics of it (self-injury and meltdowns) but both are better explained by Asperger's... I could see how it could be confused, though, especially since at the time I was assessed I was also depressed, which really lowered my coping skills to an all-time low. (There was the first problem, though: You don't diagnose somebody with a personality disorder and a mood disorder together, until you can figure out which symptoms were life-long and which just came with the mood disorder.)

Then there was the way I just don't fit the stereotype--being female, not being a child anymore... Most AS cases are diagnosed in children, and it's still stereotyped as a childhood condition. What they saw was a 19 year old woman with repetitive self-injury and poor emotional control, and on the very surface, that looks like Borderline. Now that I don't qualify for diagnosis with depression anymore, I have had counselors and psychologists literally laugh at the notion that I have BPD, and nobody suggest that I might have it (though I've had more than one person vouch for some sort of anxiety disorder--again, I think the anxiety I have in new situations and such is better explained by autism).

That is how much difference a mood disorder can make....

Psychologists diagnose too quickly when it comes to BPD; you just can't say "personality disorder" based on how the person is feeling and thinking today or for the past year. It's a life-long thing, an extreme variation on the human personality continuum that causes problems for you or the people you interact with... It's not something you acquire in a year; even a decade is barely enough.

BPD and AS can co-occur; in my case, they didn't; but I can see how it could happen, especially in females. The social climate is very different for girls than it is for boys.

Here's a link with an article that seems relevant to the discussion: http://www.aaets.org/article20.htm

In sort, it talks about the idea that BPD can be caused by "Psychotraumatic Stress", or "Biologic Vulnerability", or both.

Very interesting, and completely plausible from my own observances of people's reaction to trauma.

But, if you ever look into the eyes of someone on the spectrum during a meltdown, the very same systems are in control, fight or flight and all. But the triggers can be sensory overload, an invasion of a special interest or an inability to communicate someone is interfering with the special interest, a deviation from routine, etc.

Perhaps that is why all the talk of relatedness between the two...the meltdowns look the same to a casual observer, but the triggers are very different.

tygereyes

Of note, it's easy to see about 80-90 percent of people with Asperger's, and the other 10-20 percent are only hard to see because they're so "controlled".

This is if one knows what to look for, but one can say this about anything medical; I wouldn't know the difference between Streptococcus and Mycoplasma under a microscope for example.

I was thinking, in both there can be a lack of skill (stuff one learns) in dealing with emotions. Though while that's secondary with Asperger's, I'm inclinded to say it's more central with borderline personality disorder.

With Aspeger's, what I'm thinking is the weakness in social skills may also cause a lack or delay in learning skills from others for dealing with emotions. (Mostly, learning from example). And with physical sensitivities, people might not understand the emotional reaction, because they don't expect the strength of the physical irritation. Like, the person isn't any more emotionally sensitive that others, but physical sensitivity causes an emotional reaction.

With BPD I think the lack of skills, sometimes comes from a lack of examples, or bad examples. But there's also, at least for some, a factor I think of being more emotionally sensitive that average. Thus some of the examples around one don't fit. And sometimes those around think one is being dramatic and acting like one has strong feelings, because they don't understand having that strong of feelings in that situation.

But either way the lack of emotional skills can come out looking the same, it seems to me.

I found this part of the article really interesting.

"Childhood bipolar disorder (Biederman, 1997) is an under recognized disorder whose symptoms include unstable moods, distractibility, impulsiveness, severe aggressiveness, and hyperactivity. Unlike adult bipolar disorder, childhood bipolar disorder symptoms are chronic and continuous, This disorder is also correlated with ADHD. The two disorders may be genetically linked. All of its symptoms, especially impulsiveness and aggression, overlap with those of BPD. It is possible that untreated or ineffectively treated childhood bipolar disorder and/or ADHD could predispose the child to later develop BPD."

Could childhood bipolar disorder be erroneously labeled as a mood disorder when it is actually a PDD related to BPD? If it occurs at such a young age, couldn't it be "hardwired" and therefore a developmental disorder?

I need to meet more borderlines...

I realize this thread is a little dated, but feel the need to respond.

My husband has BPD and although it seems as though we have a lot in common, we couldn't be more different in our perceptions. He perceives through his emotions and I perceive through my intellectual mind, he is very intelligent, emotionally intelligent, but if he feels bad inside, then in his mind their is also something bad happening on the outside regardless of what is really happening and he will find or create a situation to match what he is feeling, for me my internal state is filtered through my mind and I am very rational about my internal state, unless I am overstimulated then I am incapable of functioning at all.. which might appear to be an emotional response, but I am not sad or distraught, I am just physically overstimulated.

We are both very sensitive, but I am physically sensitive and he is emotionally sensitive. You would have a hard time offending me with verbal insults and insensitive remarks, you could say that I was fat, stupid, ugly whatever, you wouldn't even get a reaction, I wouldn't care, but if you tried to play mind games with me or manipulate me, I would be pissed and assertively tell you to... He actually prefers to be manipulated and sees life as one big chess game, everything is a strategy to get his way, but if you accidentally mentioned something that was true about him that he was insecure about or not respond to his 'feeling' appropriately, you would at the least make him cry and at most you could become the target of his intense rages, like the guy he punched because he was singing christmas carols when he was in a bad mood (being happy when he is not, is one of his biggest triggers)

while it is true that we both have social anxiety, the cause is very different, I get overstimulated in public with not only having to be very purposeful in all of my interactions with other people to avoid offending with my being too honest or not talking about my favorite topic and remember that people are not being literal when asking me things such as 'how are you?', while also having to control my odd behaviors such as stiming to avoid freaking people out, which makes me look like the psychotic one.. my Bpd husband is very very good with the social stuff and knowing how to appear totally normal, say just the right thing and he is very good at stroking egos, but his insecurities and need to get his way make him a ticking time bomb, if his manipulations don't work on someone to get what he thinks he deserves or if someone says something that offends him, he looses it, he is also very concerned with people liking him and thinking he is a nice guy, I don't care if or even expect people to like me, I'm weird, I get it and I am ok with it.

We both have black and white thinking, except that I expect everyone to see things in a very realistic, literal, logical way and he expects everyone to see things through his deserving, center of the universe, emotional filter and he believes that his emotional perceptions are the only accurate ones

We both have a problem with empathy, he doesn't have the ability to see past his own needs and feelings, to even see that you have needs and feelings, he just doesn't and readily admits to this, he does not have the ability to see any situation from any perspective but his own and he is always, always the victim, if he does something cruel or abusive, he is still the victim, he cannot take responsibility for any wrong doing and if you are successful in getting him to see that he has done something bad, he will apologize, but in his mind, he stores the information as the victim and when he later recalls it, it was done to him not vice versa. My problems with empathy is that I am incapable of Mirroring or acting like another person as a way to show a connection, I can see that someone is upset about something even if it doesn't make any sense to me or I don't quite understand what it is that they are feeling, I am just more likely to tell them how to fix it or avoid the "problem' in the future than I am to feel sorry for them or join in on their pity party.. but I do actually care about people, I just don't know how to show it. to me fixing something that is causing you to complain is showing love, to him, well he doesn't really have the ability to show love unless it is serving his own need to be loved and to feel like a good person, if you tell him that he is doing something that bothers you, he will tell you that it makes him feel bad when you say that.

There are also other opposites such as my need and preference of alone time and his inability to be alone, when we are apart he wants to talk on the phone 10 times a day and I would be happy with once a week. I am the same strange person regardless of who I am with and he is (mirroring) whomever he is with and needs to have his identity validated externally, I may have a hard time showing people who I am externally, but I know who I am. And then there is our strained communication due to me hearing his emotions through my logical filter and him hearing my logic through his emotional filter, it is as though we speak two completely different languages when it comes to anything personal or intimate, we are fine as long as we are talking about objective, non personal stuff, but need an interpreter for anything emotionally charged.

I can see how AS and BPD could be confused, but I am having a hard time seeing how they could coexist, I am not saying that they couldn't, just that in my experience they seem very different from a core perspective, Bpd being a problem with being too emotional or emotionally unstable and AS being that you are disconnected from your emotions, Bpd being extreme of stereotypical feminine traits and AS being and extreme of stereotypical male traits, they do seems to be opposing sides of the same coin, but I personally just can't imagine them existing in the same person, I wonder if it is just a projection of someone that doesn't understand either one on a deep level. JMHO

Last edited by Aufgehen on 03 Dec 2008, 5:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

hi

If you do a search for autism and abuse on yahoo's search engine, you will find an article on the scn website that talks about how people on the autism spectrum are targeted by people with BPD.

I agree completely.

A label can become a "self-fulfilling prophesy" if not handled properly.

I too am deeply insulted with words like "disorder", which make negative all the qualities of my own personality.
I'm not "disordered": I'm a human being.

So is everyone else!

I had to endure the AS label for parts of my life because I was assessed at a young age: I had no choice in the matter.

I can hardly be called "disabled" after all the activities I've done and I've done and my academic success. I have been physically fit. I can engage in dangerous activities (with appropriate support) like chemistry experiments, letting off fire-works, swimming, ice-skating, horse-back riding and abseiling, with competence and patience. I've known lots of other people who lacked self-control and behaved irresponsibly in these situations. I also know lots people who have never done/can't do these activities. I have no trouble with the mechanics of each activity, it's dealing with people that I find a little scary.

If people had known about my past AS assessment, they would have probably not allowed me to do many of these activities, not because I wasn't capable of doing these activities, but because of their ignorance. This is why I kept quiet about AS!

If anything, I have a personality quirk (probably genetic in origin) which means that I find it difficult to participate in casual chit-chat, engage in group/teamwork or initiate informal conversation. These things are not usually covered in books. I can only deal with one person (or one listening unit of people like an audience) at a time.

Give me clear well explained instructions, my own quiet room/cubicle, a computer and some reading materials and I'm fine.

I can accept that I might have a slightly different brain "operating system" to the majority of people.
But then again, doesn't everyone?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with discovering ones on personality limitations and working on these constructively.
It's this negative labeling and pigeon-holing people that I can't stand.
I have no doubt that this "AS" operating system probably had an evolutionary function and is part of biological variation.

If it is indeed genetic, then why blame and criticise people for things that are beyond their control or that are intrinsically part of their personalities?
That's counter-productive.

I am in favour of everyone receiving appropriate help/guidance/support free of stigma/prejudice to deal with life though.

Perhaps we're all just "differently-abled"?

Everyone has an individual personality and everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses.
I think it's unfair to expect everyone to be good at everything and that includes socialising.

We're not invincible: we're human.

All the same, I'm living proof that people can ignore their labels (to some extent) and are capable of doing things.

Last edited by AmberEyes on 03 Dec 2008, 10:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

But AS is not being disconnected from your emotions. It's a trait of some with AS, but it's not necessary to have that trait to have AS. In fact, one of the stereotypes of autism in kids is throwing temper tantrums. Which is an emotional reaction. And AS aren't so different that in one you'd get tantrums as fairly typical and the in other disconnect from emotions in everyone.

And men and women are just people. Sterotypical male traits and stereotypical femail traits can co-exist.

Both AS and BPD have a lot of variation. Not everyone with AS is like you. Not everyone with BPD is like your husband.

I don't have a diagnosis, but I do quite definitely have autistic/aspie traits. And I have strong emotions. The two aren't imcompatible. And from what I've read in this forum in 5+ months and 420 posts (which means I've read a lot here too), having strong emotions doesn't differentiate me from those who definitely have Asperger's. If I'm in that traits but don't have it category, the difference is the degree to which I have the traits, not emotions.

i have a female friend who has borderline personality disorder.
she becomes hysterical.
she is extremely impulsive and promiscuous.
sometimes she considers me to be an angel, and at other times she thinks of me as a devils advocate. those perceptions come in about 6 month phases.

she will turn from thinking i am some serenely gifted genius with a cute communication problem, to thinking i am some evil manipulator that fooled her and took advantage of her admiration of me to play sinister games on her.

it is "black and white" thinking. there are no shades of gray.

her boyfriend is a macho male who is 6'2" and is very athletically built and he does things like mountain bike riding over high craggy outcrops and he is very daring.
he is afraid of nothing. he can keep going all day with his "gatorade" electrolytes and his grit.

he has an average way of thinking and he smells very bad when he is finished with his physical fun.

he smells disgusting to me, but to her, he smells sexy. he has some kind of musky (pheremonal) smell that appeals to her.
she has said (to my wincing audience) that she likes to go to sleep with her head nestled in his underarm after a day where he did much physical effort and did not wash.

but he is a basal mentality that is accepted with open arms by all the vegetables that greet him (in my mind).
he calls her a "fat whore" and she is only 75 kg and 5'9.
she is very nice looking but he is a king of indulgence, and he does not care.

she is very smart, and he gets home from work all dirty, and slumps down on the sofa and proceeds to drink much alcohol quickly, and her conversation with him is not nourishing to her mind.

so at the time she gets sick of him, she "falls in love" with me, and remembers him as a (this is her words) "burping farting stenching gruff faced idiot"

then she starts to wear her glasses and tries to fit with me.
we explore interesting ideas and she is "refreshed" she says by a stimulating time with me.

she insults her boyfriend with angst. she refers to him as a "club dragging australopithecine" and she sees me as a way out of her mental torpor.

she tries to see me sexually too, but i have a very feminine body, and her boyfriend is what i thought she was interested in, and he is the quintessential "knobbly kneed muscle bag with hair on his body and well defined muscle fibres and veins".

how can she go from him to me?
she must be ignoring something.
she is not lesbian, and most girls who are attracted to me are lesbians, so i can not understand why a girl with an "iron man" boyfriend would also like me.

but anyway, she likes my gentle and unpresuming way as a resort from her man, but after a while she sees that her problems are not my main interest, and then she accuses me of leading her on and she becomes rather truculent.

i do not care more about her than i do about me and that really annoys her.
her problems are secondary to mine. she sees that as selfish

when she turns from me back to him, she thinks of me as a manipulative insect like creature who led her on just to study her then cast her away.

borderline personalities see "black" on one side of the border, and "white" on the the side. they can not percieve "greyness" of belief.

borderline personality disorder is also the borderline between neurosis and psychosis.

she likes me to discribe what i make of her with my AS mind.
she says it makes her feel calm that my feelings are not movable easily.
i do not go into the "wow!! ! oh my god!! !! !" routine with her.

so she teaches me how to feel more about the world, and i teach her how to feel less about it.

i do not know, but i think AS and BPD are precarious bedfellows.

I don't mean that autistic people don't have emotions or the they don't feel them or that I don't feel my emotions, because I do, intensely, I just don't respond from that place until I have processed the emotion through my head, which is also what introverts do because their brains are also wired differently (just like autistic people), they have a more active frontal lobe and a longer pathways with different routes than extroverts do and each pathway requires different neurotransmitters, extroverts have more dopamine yet also a lower sensitivity to it, so to get enough of it they need more adrenaline, which is released by the action of the sympathetic nervous system, so the more active an extrovert is, the more places they go and the more people they see the more 'hap hits' (dopamine) they get, introverts on the other hand are highly sensitive to dopamine, too much dopamine and they feel overstimulated, introverts use an entirely different neurotransmitter, Acetylcholine on their more dominant pathway which is connected to many vital functions in the brain and body, such as attention and learning (especially perceptual learning) and influences the ability to sustain a calm, alert feeling and to utilize long term memory. In my own research of autism I have found that most are INTP or INFP, introverted and perceiving and that most Borderlines are ESFJs or ESTJs extroverted and judging, you can be anywhere along the spectrum of extroverted or introverted but you can't be both extremely introverted and extremely extroverted.

Of course there are always exceptions to everything and you don't need to have all of the traits to have autism or BPD, I am on the autism spectrum and I have 4 children, that is very uncommon most would think, but I also have friends that are on the spectrum that have more children than you would expect an aspie to have. Some of the traits in Bpd and autism are just contradictory. I am a female and I have emotions, but to act them out would be very overstimulating for me, but my husband craves the drama of acting out, it makes him feel better due to the adrenaline rush which gives him his dopamine hap hit (drugs for him) and gives me too much dopamine and I get overstimulated and I end up getting sick and I have even experienced adrenal burn out during one of his most traumatic phases. We are just wired differently. Of my 4 children 3 are on the autism spectrum and one is NT and the difference between the tantrums my NT threw as a child was totally different than the tantrums one of my autistic children threw, and what upset them was totally different too, my autistic son would throw a fit if he didn't get his nap on time and my NT son would throw tantrums that were more emotional driven, the other two didn't have tantrums at all, the ones that threw tantrums are boys and the ones that didn't girls.. but when my autistic daughter was overstimulated she would cry, but not when she was sad or upset about something, then she would just talk to me about what was bothering her or more often, write about it.

And of course female and male traits can coexist, I just used those terms as way to try to explain the difference between someone that is manipulative, emotionally unstable, that acts out their emotions (stereotyped by society as a female traits not by me, also how someone would describe a person with Bpd again not my doing) and someone that is more logical and not emotionally expressive (stereotyped as a male trait by society, again not by me and also how some people view autistics, they think that we have no feelings just because we aren't very good at sharing them), I don't even think that we should attribute traits to a gender, I am very feminine in a lot of ways, but put me in a room full of gossiping, competitive, caddy women and I will stick out like a sore thumb, put me in the middle of a room full of men talking about science and I will fit right in.. but put me in the middle of a room full of mothers that are introverted, non-competitive and enjoy talking about homemaking and children, I will fit right in, but if I were put in a room full of extroverted, sports loving, egotistical, risk taking men and I will surely piss one of them off by saying something too honest for their ego to handle without me even realizing that I said something inappropriate.

Again I am not suggesting that people on the spectrum don't have strong feelings, of course they do, we just don't express them in the same ways that NTs do.. and this is all just opinions anyway we don't have to agree, my experience does no invalidate yours and vice versa, if we all had the same perceptions this would be a really boring existence, no need to be offended I am just autistic