Could it be Asperger and not BPD? Could it be both?

[NotWell]

  Hello BPD Family. I am a diagnosed Aspergers female with PDA, pathological demand avoidance, which is relative to treatment, and is a comorbidity of more intelligent and higher functioning individuals living with autism. It has only been in the last decade that those in psych and medicine have narrowed us females down and finally have given us the insight to our life struggles.
  The main difference between male and female aspies when young is females used mirroring and chameleon impersonation in an attempt to fit in at school. Although, having extreme difficulty with socializing, a person with high knowledge of Aspergers could watch a group of elementary girls at play and with ease pinpoint which is an Aspie.
  For years, female Aspies have been disparaged, wrongfully judged as BPDs, and without the guidance that boys received during vital stages of growth, Aspie women as a whole have been neglected and still today we are still disregarded and ignored. The main theme is, "you lived and made it through life this far, what is the problem?" Those unaffected have no idea of the internal world and struggles Aspies go through. They also judge by the old myth that Aspies have no empathy, which through modern medicine and tests has been proved false and in fact Aspies have more empathy than that of Neurotypicals. They believe the myth Aspies are asexual when in fact many Aspie females enjoy the sensory overload of sex and can be judged by someone as a wild thing in bed, so lets judge her more and place false innuendos she must have a mental problem for enjoying sex so much.  
   When in situations that are overwhelming or when becoming overwhelmed with sensory in abusive relationships (Aspies are often at a BPD/NPD males mercy due to the inability to socialize correctly and date normally) many of us will have a meltdown which can be arm chaired dx as BPD rage or reactions of BPDs.
  Sadly many women of the past had been wrongly diagnosed, hung at the Salem Witch Trials, and died being labeled or misdiagnosed with the mental illness of BPD.
  I had been accused by a lover who I highly suspect has some form of F' up, and it seems to point toward being a quiet borderline male with some NPD characteristics. My thoughts were you disregard me and treat me like crap and I am not supposed to react and if I do I am BPD?
  Before my Aspergers diagnosis I had been seeing the same psychiatrist for years for ADD and anxiety. I always feared I may have BPD, and made mention of this dozens of times to my psychiatrist who after treating patients for over 40 years adamantly said no and was 100% positive that I did not have BPD which he knew enough and many BPD females over many decades treating them.
  I came on this site in interest after being labeled as a BPD by a sick ex. I do wonder if some men on this site are incorrectly assuming a loved one has BPD who is actually suffering and has suffered from infancy with a Neuro disorder and not a Personality disorder. I would be interested in your thoughts.  

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[Turkish]

Believe your P. My ex diagnosed me as needing help and I spent a lot of money with a PhD T who told me over and over again that I was ok. 

My son, 8, was diagnosed with ASD1 when he was 6. I interact with the autism community a bit and I see the things like you describe,  that females with autism,  especially ASD1, what they used to call Asperger's, aren't served well, or understood.

Many of the members here,  regardless of diagnoses,  have been accused (by Projection) of various things,  including BPD or NPD. I had a mother with BPD and other things.  I have some traits, but I'm not BPD. I was sent to therapy at 12 by her and then at 40 by my ex. 

What's going on with your ex and how can we help support you?

[lostandconfused6]

I am so sorry i have been MIA my life has been more up and down than ever! Most recently the "other girl" i was always worried about in so many of my posts before has looked up my information through a RX system at a pharmacy chain that she works at and has chosen to stalk me. So now i am in the middle of dealing with that with the chain and DEA along with the federal government for her direct violation of HIIPA... .also my pwBPD has been very up and down as his personal life and family situation have continued to worsen and he has pushed me to my limits multiple times, but i have remained true to myself and not gotten out of character. Long story short he in now in denial that he has BPD and said i made him think that about himself and pushed it on him. More about that later

Has anyone else here ever researched adults with aspergers? I have read many articles and blogs lately and my pwBPD fits every single criteria for it other than the fact that he is always late for everything. Could it be Asperger and not BPD? Could it be both? does anyone have any experience with this?

I am scared to death and refuse to mention it to him but i feel he needs to know or at least be aware of it. i read a heart breaking open letter from a 45 y/o man that lived with it his whole life and never knew until he was 40. He said had he known sooner he feels he could have led a way more fulfilling life

[once removed]

good to see you again, lac 

its hard to be sure, i know.

what sorts of aspergers traits/behaviors are you seeing in him? which ones would you say you struggle with most?

[lostandconfused6]

Hey once removed!

So many of them i will copy and paste some of the ones i find most bothersome

difficulties with pragmatic, or social, language. This includes saying inappropriate things, not taking turns in conversations, speaking in a way that is not appropriate for an informal social setting, or speaking in the same manner to a two-year-old and an adult.

difficulty with semantics, such as understanding the meaning of words within different contexts. They may not understand that you “love” pizza in a different way than you “love” your mother.

speech is marked by the use of “technical” or “scientific” words, or even a “high-brow vocabulary.” They often sound pretentious, although at first you may be too impressed to see it that way. They don’t understand that speech used during social conversation is different from speech used in learning situations or in books. Often, they speak in a way that requires a high level of knowledge in their particular area of expertise, an expertise they know you do not have. If they were speaking to a group of scholars or students of the subject, it would be appropriate. They cannot adapt their speech to suit their audience. Without that flexibility, they aren’t truly communicating—they’re merely bombarding their audience with words that make no sense because they are unable to take into into consideration the person who is listening

come across as “The Professor” because they have a tendency to go into long, pedantic monologues about their obsessive interest, not recognizing the other person is bored or isn’t being given a chance to speak

**cannot “read between the lines,” so they interpret everything literally. Their thinking is concrete.

**theoretical understanding of other people’s emotions; however, they typically have difficulty acting on this knowledge in fluid, real-life situations. For example, if you’re upset about something they may not know that you need to be comforted, or how to go about doing so.

**When they hear a difference of opinion or an attempt to explain a different perspective about a situation, they become defensive because they see it as conflict, or a criticism of who they are. They can become quite defensive when asked for clarification or a little sympathy. The defensiveness can turn into verbal abuse as the man with AS attempts to control the communication to suit his view of the world.

**prone to ruminating or fixating on bad experiences with people or events for an inordinate length of time.

*****misinterpret the experiences, feelings and ideas of others, and therefore come to the wrong conclusions. This is often the biggest problem in relationships for people with AS. If they cannot understand someone else’s experience they cannot feel empathy, and if they cannot feel empathy they can’t convey it. Empathy means recognizing how someone else feels, understanding it, caring about how they feel, and then expressing that care. People with AS are not capable of empathy. Some acknowledge their inability to “read social cues” and will tell you that if only you let them know how you’re feeling, they’ll care. Not true. They’ll still invalidate your feelings.

****You often find their behavior exasperating or even infuriating. You may find yourself saying, “You’re not listening to me!” or “You don’t understand. You think you do, but you don’t” or “That’s not what I was saying; you’ve come to the wrong conclusion,” but they will continue insisting that they do understand, perhaps telling you that you’re the one who doesn’t understand—even when it is your own experience or feelings that you were trying to convey. This is the main thing that frustrates partners of people with AS. First, it’s the lack of understanding and empathy; then it’s the lack of being able to understand that they don’t understand; and then it’s the insistence that they do understand and that you’re the one who doesn’t get it. You will feel that they don’t really “know” you or “see” you (they don’t; they aren’t able to), and you will be unable to resolve any conflict you have with them.

They follow rigid routines and get very frustrated and upset if those routines are interrupted.

*****They are extremely naive, gullible and overly trusting, and they are easily taken advantage of. They can display a foolish lack of worldly wisdom. They may not be able to recognize a potentially dangerous neighborhood, location or situation. One woman who dated a man with Asperger’s Syndrome reported that in order to keep his car from possibly being scratched, he would park behind restaurants (which were usually dark and isolated locations) when they went out to dinner. He refused to change this habit despite the fear she expressed. Apparently, his car was more important to him than her fears. If they do realize they’re naive and gullible, they may become paranoid to compensate for it.
^^^^^ he has definitely been paranoid that i am lying to him about everything because of everyone and everything in his past and how they have done just that

Although they may first appear to be highly intelligent, you will notice that their knowledge is restricted to a few narrow subjects and is quite lacking in a general sense. Among individuals with Asperger’s, those with high intelligence are a minority (just as they are in the general population). Their reputation of being highly intelligent is a myth.

****If you talk to them about a problem you’re having, instead of being supportive they will often reply with a statement that invalidates your feelings, such as “just forget about it,” “you’re too sensitive,” or “just stop thinking about it.” One woman disclosed a serious surgical error she suffered that continued to impact her life, and her AS partner responded by yelling, “What are you, a victim? What are you, a victim? What are you, a victim?”

the ones with *s are the ones i see on a daily basis along with the random bouts of anger and rage and verbal attacks which is very common in someone with AS

[once removed]

so in reading that list, would you say a lot of the problems that stem between the two of you revolve around communication?

[lostandconfused6]

Absolutely, i sound like a broken record half of the time and after reading all those things i see why.

If it is AS he doesn't have the capability to understand alot of things and it comes across as "he doesn't care" and "he doesn't listen"

[once removed]

if it is AS, the good news is that the communication tools here work with everyone. you might have to tweak a few words here and there, watch your body language, things like that, but we more or less have to do that with everyone - personalize how we communicate.

Is there any way or anything  i can do to get him to see that i know what happened and try to make him see it too?

picking up on the point about communication between the two of you... .

i get the sense that you are trying to better understand your partner. thats a good thing. at this point in your relationship though, you likely understand him pretty well, but at some level, may not fully accept certain aspects of him as they are, and are trying to change those aspects.

with anyone in our lives, not just our BPD partners, we will run into a wall of frustration with this approach, time and time again. youre trying to get through to him, get him to see things the way you do. the problem is he sees things as he sees them.

so regardless of the diagnosis, things begin to get easier when we try to see things as someone else sees them (https://bpdfamily.com/content/listen-with-empathy) and whether we can, or to whatever extent that we can, accept how they see them. from there, we can work with it, and change our approach.

what do you think?

[BetterLanes]

Hi NotWell,

lostandconfused6 pointed this out to me. I thought for a few months my H had BPD but turns out it is likely ASD. Here is my post about it on Conflicted - https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=331274.0
This is from the perspective of an NT female with an undiagnosed AS male. So don't take the issues listed here as applying to you. I haven't read anything about AS females with NT males, though one book I read studied some AS-AS couples.

I saw a study here about the overlap between BPD and ASD -
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5590952/
It says this has not been much studied. They comment that the overlap in traits probably leads to misdiagnosis especially of women:

"Recent research is focusing on the possible under-diagnosis or mis-diagnosis of ASC in females [40,41], on the assumption that females may experience greater societal pressure to conform and be part of a peer group and so are more motivated to learn how to hide their autism (so-called “camouflaging”) and thereby go “under the radar” of clinicians or school psychologists, by “pretending to be normal” [42]. This may lead to them either receiving their ASC diagnosis far later than males, and/or being diagnosed with other conditions (anorexia, depression, anxiety, or BPD) because clinicians are not looking for how ASC may present itself differently in females [43]."

"Out of 38 women with BPD, almost half of them scored above the cut-off of the AQ. The difference on the AQ between the BPD and the ASC group was not statistically significant in our random sample, suggesting that people with BPD may have as high levels of autistic traits as people with ASC. This finding would need to be replicated in a larger sample but is in line with the idea that some females with BPD have undiagnosed ASC, due to ASC not being easily detected in females."

"Our findings highlight the need for careful examination for autistic traits in patients referred for an assessment for BPD, especially in those without a history of significant childhood abuse or neglect. Some of these patients may have been misdiagnosed (their ASC was overlooked), and a proportion of them may have both conditions."

TL:DR, they would back you up NotWell.

BetterLanes x