Anyone been labeled to be on spectrum by BPD SO?

[downheart]

My BPDw emailed me today with a couple links to articles that resonated with her experience. The articles talk about an "NT" (neurotypical) wife dealing with a husband who is on the autism spectrum (ASD). The articles (example: https://goo.gl/czi5At) describe difficulties as the wife finds herself disappearing because her husband doesn't care.

I can imagine my wife having an "aha!" moment when she found this, perhaps the same that I felt after discovering BPD!

Looking crudely at these two conditions, you can imagine two high-functioning individuals identifying a pathology in their partner that helps describe their misery. From my perspective, despite me working harder than I ever have at any relationship, my uBPDw constantly feels that I lack empathy and fail to give her the emotional support and physical time and attention that she deserves. I perceive her as extremely needy, highly reactive to minor issues (rage), and terrified of abandonment. She has suicidal ideation and has physically assaulted me multiple times. She seems to fit the DSM 5 definition almost perfectly (except for disinhibition and schizotypy). I experience almost constant anxiety about her next hurt and the subsequent reaction. We experience conflict because, I believe, she projects all her negative self-loathing on me and I can only take so much shame and blame, particularly when her reactions seem like such a major disconnect with reality.

I can imagine her reading about undiagnosed Aspergers and realizing that there are men out there who are biologically unable to relate to, anticipate, empathize or respect the emotional needs of their partner. And that's what she identifies as the core relational problem between us.

These conditions seem, at least at a superficial level, to be complementary. And I can imagine a pwBPD, by the nature of their condition, has a hard time truly understanding themselves because the self is mostly seen through the extreme positive and negative projections on others. And so that BPD may be prone to pathologize others to explain her misery instead of recognize her own problems.

(FWIW, I took one of the simple online Aspergers tests and I got a 13 out of 50, which was labeled as "little or no Autistic traits". Since I knew what I was doing, I suppose I could have gamed the quiz, but I tried to be honest. In any case, when I mentioned it to my former therapist he literally laughed and said I definitely did not have Aspergers.)

Sound familiar to anyone?

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[Turkish]

Shirt off getting tested,  do you really think you have ASD1, what they used to call Asperger's? My son was tested and diagnosed. I sometimes have to remind my ex of this,  though for the most part she tries to understand it.  I just had a phone conversation about it with her 2 hours ago. 

My ex "sent" me to therapy to get "fixed" abandoning me after one joint session.  My mother did the same thing to me when I was 13. Both therapists confirmed that I was healthy.  I was actually pissed when my BPD/PTSD/Anxiety/Depression (all diagnosed) mother finally shared with my when I was 37 that the T at 13 told her,  "Turkish is one of the most well adjusted young men he'd ever met."

Maybe you're quirky, so what? Maybe you might have trouble picking up on some social cues, who hasn't? I certainly didn't always do well with my ex,  being a latchkey kid of a single mother.  I expected a more resilient partner, and I admit I was often invalidating. 

You're doing the work to improve yourself.  Do it for your marriage and also for you.  Everyone can and should do that. 

At the end of the day,  I'd believe your therapist.  1/37 males now qualify for the autism Dx. I hand my own opinions on that... .

Improve, you can,  with the tools in Lesson 3 on this board,  but try not to automatically assume or own your wife's projections. I had no choice at 13. As an adult,  you have a choice.

[isilme]

my uBPDw constantly feels that I lack empathy and fail to give her the emotional support and physical time and attention that she deserves.

I see her looking to find something wrong with you as simply her likely BPD-related mental processes feeling that if she feels bad, it's your fault - you must lack empathy if she feels bad and you're not finding it - a lack of empathy can mean a form of autism - ah HA.  Problem solved - it all about YOU. 

I think another poster on here stated she was found to have one foot into the Aspie-spectrum, and that her T stated something like an Apsie can easily fall for a person with BPD. 

Regardless of any mental or emotional challenges, we "non-BPD" partners bring to the table the fact is - we're here.  We see something is not right in these relationships.  We are taking some self-introspective steps and seeing that yes, it takes two to tango in this crazy dance and that we do have a limited ability to change the tempo by choosing to sit out a few songs here and there.

I think a lot of us are co-dependent.  I am, for sure.  I was told as long as I can remember, and I can remember back to age 2, that mom's feelings, dad's feelings - those are mine to fix.  If they were mad, it was my fault for being a terrible selfish child.  As a result, I developed two unhealthy coping mechanisms:  #1 - a super-high level of empathy and worked really hard to read my parents every minute of the day, to avoid causing a rage event, or the withdrawal of affection.  Neglect was fine, I was left alone. 

Mechanism 2 was/is a wall.  Just like Daredevil and his heightened senses could be painful, my overactive emotional sensors could hurt.  I learned when needed to disassociate in a few ways to protect myself.  I can, sometimes, in the middle of an event go "cold".  It all shuts down, all I can really say is I am just tired and want it all over.  But I don't cry, I don't yell.  I am flat.  The other type of disassociation did not register until years later when my brain felt I could handle things - I have decent factual memory recall of pretty rotten things.  "They fought on this date and I stepped in and stopped him from killing her.  How is the weather today, would you like iced tea?" That's how it was in my head.  Meh, bad things happened, moving on now. 

But there was not any emotion tied to it.  It was like a movie about another person.  Until I hit a breakthrough crisis, and my mind was like, "yeah, you gotta process this now.  It was over 20 years ago - you're good, you can do this."  And all those feelings came rushing to me.  Over and over.  A new memory would pop up, and the feelings would wrench me. 

I've been working on undoing all that bad wiring for years, but yes, it was "normal" for me to apply it in my relationship.  And being codepdnent mean a LOT of enabling and enmsehed thoughts, feelings, and bechaoirs that just feed the BPD monster. 

I think they know something is making them unhappy.  They can see things in the relationship are not "right", just as well as you can. 

But BPD shame-avoidance stimies self-introspection.  All problems must be located externally, it can't possibly be them - that would induce shame.  So their attempts to find the problems are based on highly emotional reasoning, and on their feelings, and on making facts fit their feelings.

We often find this site and realize we are not alone simply because the "symptoms" match well enough for it all to make sense.  Even if there is never any kind of official diagnosis, the tools can help and work. 

[Radcliff]

downheart, yes, my wife regularly accused me of having Aspergers.  I think you've analyzed the situation well.  To an emotionally intuitive person with bottomless needs, a "non" really can look like someone with Aspergers, I think.  If you've scored low, and your therapist thinks you don't have it, you can stop worrying.  Also, think about all the other relationships you have in life outside of your wife.  If you had Asperger's you'd see a consistent pattern that was reflected there as well.  I.m.h.o., this is one thing you can just drop off your radar! 

WW

[lighthouse9]

Recently diagnosed Aspie here -totally capable of empathy, so don't just assume Aspergers = no empathy.

I was diagnosed within my relationship w/my STBXw, uBPD. I was the one that brought up my suspicions of it for myself after not connecting with her various friend groups. I've had suspicions for myself for other reasons but had a fairly normal childhood and never "suffered" per se. I'm good at reading situations and doing the right thing when I don't have the initial emotional experience that might be what others are experiencing and it's never been a problem in my life. With my STBXw though, it was hard to keep up with her changing personalities/ways of relating to others. I'm honest to a fault and didn't understand her white lies, then certainly didn't understand her big lies. I had a therapist told me that aspies and BPD can be either really good or really bad together. Really good = rationally able to understand BPD and not get caught up in emotional turmoil. This takes self awareness on both partners' parts. Really bad = can't understand irrational behavior of pwBPD (usually before understanding that BPD is in the mix, aka the majority of my relationship) and therefore missing opportunities to validate, use SET, not JADE, etc. In other words, it can be a hyper-version of what any other non experiences.

If you have no reason to suspect a diagnosis for yourself, then don't give it another thought. My diagnosis has been helpful for me in all situations, even though I wasn't really struggling before. I'm just much better at recognizing subtle social cues now and engage in more small talk with people. My STBXw didn't bully me into a diagnosis, but it did become an excuse for problems in our relationship - how convenient - even though I worked really hard to do my part. I'm almost certain she's out there now telling people about my diagnosis and using it as the rationale for why we didn't work out. Funny, I didn't think my penchant for puns and highly analytical ability had a side effect of causing affairs and inducing lies. 

[Turkish]

Good point about empathy vs. Missing social cues.  My son is one of the kindest people I know.  He cried recently because his little sister was hurt.  I asked him why he was crying and he said because she was hurting  (he said it in a way that indicated he was hurting for her: compassion, literally "to suffer with."

He also wants to be a nurse or a surgeon "to help people."


All that but he often doesn't pick up on when someone doesn't want to dive 5000 ft deep into one of his favorite topics of the day. He just keeps talking  

[Russdogg]

Although my exGF was not diagnosed with BPD, she had many traits.

She often said I was autistic, and as per your situation accused me of not being able to do relationships as I was not caring, loving or attentive enough. I often had withdrawn because I did not know when the the next argument was going to come. It had nothing to do with austism.

I have seen a therapist since and although not qualified, he does not believe I am autistic.

[Radcliff]

Good point, Turkish.  Having difficulty interpreting social cues can be misinterpreted as lack of empathy.  They are totally different.  Folks with Asperger's can experience an immense amount of pain when their relationships are off kilter and others are upset.  Many go to extreme lengths to "reverse engineer" the human experience and develop more effective relationships.  An excellent example is in the book, "The Best Practices Journal," about a husband with Aspergers who works extremely hard to adapt to give his wife the relationship she needs.

But back to downheart, if you took the test, and have no other indications in your life, as lighthouse9 says, let it go, don't give it another thought.

WW

[SunandMoon]

The nature of BPD means it's always something other than them; always someone else's fault.   

At least you got an Aspergers diagnosis. I am "a machine... .not even human" according to my pwBPD.

This is because I remain calm and polite when he starts dysregulating, refuse to engage in drama, and leave the room when he starts raging.

I think we all benefit from introspection and honest self inventory but I wouldn't take a diagnosis by a pwBPD seriously.