COMPARISON: Antisocial Personality Disorder vs BPD

[BPDFamily.com]

BDfriend - very interesting!

And wow - jealous rage towards a dog... .wow... .

And yes, you're right - I think they do intersect in several areas.

[sheepdog]

BDfriend - very interesting!

And wow - jealous rage towards a dog... .wow... .

And yes, you're right - I think they do intersect in several areas.

[briefcase]

People with BPD can, and do feel empathy.  Although they sometimes act in ways that may suggest otherwise, they often care about the feelings of others and feel remorse over their actions.  They lash out in pain and frustration.

Sociopaths simply don't do any of that. They feel no empathy at all and have trouble understanding why anyone else does. 

The comparisons between the two are not apt.  It would be like saying a house cat and a tiger are basically the same thing because they both have sharp teeth and tails.  They're very different animals.

[bpdlover]

I agree with you Skip and many of the comments here. The ex in my case has BPD/NPD and there are contrasting differences between her relationships with woman and men. She told me on many occasions she hates men, which started about six months in as the devaluing began. In her case, like many, there is a mix that is hard to clearly define, although it was quite noticeable that she started out more borderline and ended more narc certainly in terms of behaviour. Or at least, it appeared that way. She also changed a letter in her first name a while back and may now prefer same sex companionship rather than relationships with men. I'm not sure her parents will approve since they are very religious. Another covert op inside a covert op. I hope one day she finds the strength to face what happened or what is happening to her, if you know what I mean.

[Auspicious]

But will a pwBPD hurt animals the same way a sociopath would?

Some might, but it's not a part of BPD.

My wife (diagnosed BPD) loves animals, and wouldn't hurt one. She loves to talk about how animals are innocents and animals never hurt anyone deliberately, etc.


Not every negative thing that a person with BPD does is due to BPD. (And not everyone posting on bpdfamily.com actually has a partner with BPD, even if they think they do, for that matter.)

[sisi]

I was reading about antisocial personality disorder and was shocked to see that there are a lot of traits that apply to my pwBPD.

Especially if you read this subtype:

"COVETOUS PSYCHOPATH"

In the covetous psychopath, we see a distilled form an essential feature of the DSM's antisocial personality disorder, and the ICD's syssocial personality disorder: aggrandizement. These individuals feel that life has not "given them their due"; that they have been deprived of their rightful level of love, support, or material rewards; that others have received more than their share; and that they personally were never given the bounties of the good life. Thus, they are driven by envy and a desire for retribution - a wish to take back what they have been deprived of by destiny. Through acts of theft or destruction, they compensate themselves for the emptiness of their own lives, dismissing with smug entitlement their violations of the social order. They act on the rationalization that they alone must restore the karmic imbalance with which life has burdened them.

For those who are merely somewhat resentful, and for whom some conscious controls remain intact, small transgressions and petty acquisitions often suffice to blunt the expression of more extreme characteristics. For the more severely disordered, however, the usurpation of others' earned achievements and possessions becomes the highest reward. Here, the pleasure lies in taking rather than in having. Like hungry animals pursuing prey, covetous psychopaths have an enormous drive, a rapaciousness. They manipulate others and treat them as pawns in their power games. Although they have little compassion for the effects of their behaviors, feeling little or no guilt for their actions, they remain at heart quite insecure about their power and their possessions; they never feel that enough has been aquired to make up for earlier deprivations. Regardless of their achievements, they remain ever jealous and envious, pushy and greedy, presenting ostentatious displays of materialism and conspicuous consumption. For the most pat, they are completely self-centered and self-indulgent, often profligate and wasteful, unwilling to share with others for fear that they will take again what was so desperately desired in early life. Hence, such psychopaths never achieve a deep sense of contentment. They feel unfulfilled, empty, and forlorn, regardless of their successes, and remain forever dissatisfied and insatiable. Believing they will continue to be deprived, these psychopaths show minimal empathy for those who are exploited and deceived. Some may become successful entrepreneurs, exploiters of others as objects to satisfy their desires.

Here an active exploitiveness, manifested through greed and the appropriation of others' possessions, becomes a central motivating force. The covetous psychopaths experience not only a deep and pervasive sense of emptiness - a powerful hunger for the love and recognition not received in early life - but also an insecurity that they perhaps really are intrinsically less than others, somehow deserving of life's marginal dispensations.

Could someone tell my if this is just a coincidental similarity between two completely different disorders or if these sometimes occur together?

Because they generally seem so different: BPD's have such strong emotions that they can't cope with it and that's why they do things to you that they do, while a pw aspd has a lack of emotions and that's why they do the things they do.

How can you know the difference?

I find it a real pickle, this one... .

--quote from Psychopathy: Antisocial, Criminal, and Violent Behavior

By Theodore Millon, Erik Simonsen, Morten Birket-Smith, Roger D. Davis

[GreenMango]

Could someone tell my if this is just a coincidental similarity between two completely different disorders or if these sometimes occur together?

Because they generally seem so different: BPD's have such strong emotions that they can't cope with it and that's why they do things to you that they do, while a pw aspd has a lack of emotions and that's why they do the things they do.

How can you know the difference?

PDs can be really complicated. Those two are pretty different.  This year there was a review of the DSM-IV.  It was controversial.  They had the same kind of questions you had.  How to quantify the PD spectrum disorders, competing therapeutic philosophies, what qualifies what doesn't, how to tell the difference, how would this help treatment, what types of treatment, etc. They couldn't come to a consensus on the best course of action.  So not a whole lot changed in regards to PDs in the newer manual.

Pros have to rule out other contributing factors and spend a lengthy amount of time to diagnose.  Usually there is some testing and an extensive period of consultation before they are able to pinpoint what they believe is going on.  Sometimes it ends up with multiple diagnoses or PD-NOS (not otherwise specified) or diagnosing one thing first, starting small ex. depression/anxiety and treating that to see if it worked out.  If the symptoms were unresponsive, then moving onto others.

Generally speaking BPD behavior is impulsive.  I generally look at it as self-control and intent.  :)oes the person seem to be exercising a level of control and calculation in their actions with a disregard for the rights of others for personal gain or is this person knee jerking their way thoughtlessly in order to alleviate whatever stressors they are living in using the maladaptive coping skills they have with naive disregard.  But I'm not a pro and focusing on the my interaction with the troublesome behavior was easier/more effective than the label alone.

[Auspicious]

Could someone tell my if this is just a coincidental similarity between two completely different disorders or if these sometimes occur together?

Because they generally seem so different: BPD's have such strong emotions that they can't cope with it and that's why they do things to you that they do, while a pw aspd has a lack of emotions and that's why they do the things they do.

How can you know the difference?

I agree with GreenMango ... .what you've described doesn't sound like BPD.

Someone with BPD can temporarily mimic narcissism, antisocial, histrionic, or whatever ... .but ultimately are driven by instability, identity disturbance, black and white thinking, etc. They show the "lack of empathy" of a wounded bear, not of a psychopath.

Speaking personally, my wife (repeatedly diagnosed with BPD, comorbid with bipolar or Mood Disorder NOS)  doesn't (often) line up with that description that you quoted. Has she ever been driven by envy, resentment, entitlement, shown disregard of others, etc?  Yes, sometimes. But it's not consistent or pervasive. What is pervasive and consistent over the years with her are the BPD characteristics.

[Tessaking]

Hi, I have recently discovered the term 'sociopath' which is another word to describe 'antisocial personality disorder' - having read up the symptoms seem very similar to BPD. Can anyone tell me the difference, or is it indeed the same thing?

Thank you

[heartandwhole]

Hi Tessaking,

Some people with antisocial personality disorder will also be diagnosed with other disorders, including borderline personality disorder.  ASPD has some overlapping symptoms, like impulsiveness and hyper-sexuality, but it is quite different in that someone with antisocial personality disorder shows a blatant and consistent disregard for other people's rights and society's rules.

So, no, it is not the same thing.  Hope that helps.  

[Bananas]

Tessaking,

I had the same question awhile back and I found this thread helpful to me.  When I first started therapy my T brought up the world sociopath quite a bit in our discussions so I did some research on it.  My exbf is not diagnosed but seems to me to fit more of the NPD and BPD traits than the AsPD traits.

[DrJones]

Sometimes I feel a little bit confused. Some of the stories I read here look very much like psychopathy cases, rather than BPD. I understand that BPD are not "bad people", they have feelings and they feel sorry about all the hurt they may provoke and I know that my BPDwife is like that. Sometimes I have seen her crying about something bad she had done when she didn't know that I was there.

However some of the cases exposed here are terrible. People worse than Hannibal Lechter with no feelings, no regret and a continual parasitic life (my mother in-law is like that. She's provoked several BPD within her family).

Can anyone describe the differences between these two disorders?

[GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT]

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT This board is intended for general questions about BPD and other personality disorders, trait definitions, and related therapies and diagnostics. Topics should be formatted as a question. Please do not host topics related to the specific pwBPD in your life - those discussions should be hosted on an appropraite [L1] - [L4] board. You will find indepth information provided by our senior members in our workshop board discussions (click here).

[Gloria_Patch]

My dad is a sociopath. And my mother developed paranoid delusional disorder. My husband is BPD. I struggle with the same question. A doctor told me many times BPD coincides with antisocial behavior.

I'll tell you about my mom. She was the most loving mother in the world.  When she developed paranoid delusional disorder, I could have fell off a cliff, and she wouldn't notice. I read that Bpd increases with each new generation. I think, eventually, it will be classified as a form of delusional disorder. It is not just a personality disorder, it is large in scale.

What I am saying is I lived with my parents until I was 18, so I know a sociopath. But a person suffering an illness has very little empathy. So they may appear sociopathic. They are experiencing a war in their minds. If your foot was broken and bleeding, would you worry aboutyour wife's day.

A little note about my mom. She had to hit rock bottom. Homelessness. And even then, it was an outsider who got her to go. I know I wouldn't be able to. And even now, she goes off her neds, 16 years later. And even though I took her out of the shelter,  she still never acknowledges I did anything.

That's illness.

I forgot how to deal with the mentally ill. My advice: Treat it like a funeral. Mourn. Think of the person as dead. Remember the good times.  If they contact you, literally think of them as zombies. It is not the real person. That person is dead. Stay away from the zombie.

BUT have a doctor's phone number. If the zombie asks, give them the number and don't explain. Crazy people know they are crazy. They really do. If the person gets a prescription, give it time for it to kick in. NEVER Ever let them go off their meds. No matter how good they seem. Never. Unless they are doing well in therapy for a couple years and the doctor says so. Never ever go one day without making sure they are on their meds.

[McGahee21]

what is the core difference, or is a BPD woman basically a sociopath with a little more empathy than a pure sociopath? 


also can someone explain the " emptiness" BPD people feel.  my exBPDgf would talk about literally feeling empty inside or that she wants to crawl in a ball and die. 

i just equate it to sadness or depression or low energy.   but emptiness sounds bizarre

[McGahee21]

also, the lying in a BPD woman is literally unbelievable, to the point where you dont even know who she is, which is very strange.  like even when telling the truth makes more sense, they still lie

[Infern0]

There's a huge difference.

Female antisocial have no emotions other than anger

Bpd have very intense emotions but no real filter and very disordered coping mechanisms.

There's a big difference,  though the resulting behaviors can seem similar.

Think about it like this

Sociopath never had any emotional development

Borderline emotional development got stuck at around age 8-12

The problem is most people that end up with borderlines are emotionally unhealthy and look to the Borderline to fulfill them.

Would you put an 8 year old in charge of your happiness?

Hence the devastating results

[fromheeltoheal]

what is the core difference, or is a BPD woman basically a sociopath with a little more empathy than a pure sociopath?  

also can someone explain the " emptiness" BPD people feel.  my exBPDgf would talk about literally feeling empty inside or that she wants to crawl in a ball and die.  

i just equate it to sadness or depression or low energy.   but emptiness sounds bizarre

also, the lying in a BPD woman is literally unbelievable, to the point where you dont even know who she is, which is very strange.  like even when telling the truth makes more sense, they still lie

ASPD and BPD are both cluster B disorders and there's overlap in behaviors, but they are fundamentally different.  The labels usually don't help though, better to focus on behaviors and how they affect us.

So consider this: before we're born and slightly thereafter, we can't distinguish between ourselves and our mother, we're one 'person' to us, which isn't a stretch since we are or just were inside her.  At some point, as we explore ourselves, our mother and the world, it becomes clear that there is a 'me' and a 'her', two separate entities.  Normal development of a child involves her taking risks, venturing out into the world, if that only means to the other side of the room initially, getting scared, and running back to mom, and then doing it again.  The fear of abandonment shows up, what if she runs away and comes back and mom's not there?  And the fear of engulfment shows up, what if she gets so close to mom that she disappears into her again, loses herself?  And when the kid gets frustrated with that and acts out, we call it the 'terrible twos', all part of normal development, a detaching from mom to become an autonomous individual, to become a 'self'.

For a variety of reasons a borderline never does that, never weathers the 'abandonment depression' as it's called, letting go of that symbiotic relationship with mom for good, so they keep banging up against it for a lifetime; get too close, push away, get too far away, pull back.  Point being, without a fully formed 'self' of their own, a borderline must continue to attach to other people to complete themselves, someone suffering from the disorder can report that they don't 'exist' at all without an attachment, so that was a long winded way of explaining why your ex feels 'emptiness'.

It also explains lying.  If you don't feel like you exist at all, how could you consider yourself an equal with whomever you're with?  If you're just 'yourself', which doesn't exist anyway and is unstable and constantly changing, and you express that openly to someone, they will freak out and leave, they will like you as little as you like yourself, and they will leave, abandon you, and abandonment is the worst thing that could ever happen to a borderline, a replaying of that original situation with mom.  So if that's the case you're going to lie your ass off, it's all a game designed to keep someone from leaving, because open and honest just isn't good enough, you're not good enough, and people will leave.  Sucky place to be, and no amount of convincing from someone else will have any effect; such is the life of a borderline.

[McGahee21]

man thats sad. 


what is so scary or what is inside that is so scary to be honest about? what is so bad about a BPD being herself?

is her core reality simply self-centered and therefore because of social conditioning, this is something she wont open up about.

because her persona has always been like what i have said around her, or my hobbies.

e.g.-  man i need to lift weights today.  her- i want to start lifting weights... .

eg i think you can have anyone you want sarah.    her-  ( when arguing)- you know i can have anyone i want so you better not push it because you are out of chances

like her personality and content of her persona is who she is around

[fromheeltoheal]

what is so scary or what is inside that is so scary to be honest about? what is so bad about a BPD being herself?

is her core reality simply self-centered and therefore because of social conditioning, this is something she wont open up about.

It's not necessarily scary, it's just not there.  It's tough to get your head around what it would be like to not have a fully formed "self" of your own, so what's there is unstable and constantly changing.  Most folks go through ups and downs and experience all kinds of emotions, but who we "are" under all that is relatively constant.  For borderlines it's not, it's a mental illness.  And she couldn't articulate it like that, unless she's had lots of therapy.

like her personality and content of her persona is who she is around

Yep, that's mirroring.  A borderline will mirror the good they see in someone to affect an attachment yes, but also to assume that part of the other person as their own, to "complete" themselves, their "self", by psychically fusing with another person.

Standard borderline there, apply as needed to your gal, and with that additional information you will get new realizations of what really went on in your relationship, and most importantly what part you played and what you're going to do about it now.  Take care of you!

[McGahee21]

If she had an unstable childhood and was raped when a teenager, could this trigger BPD?

[fromheeltoheal]

If she had an unstable childhood and was raped when a teenager, could this trigger BPD?

The clinical version is the disorder starts much earlier than that, in the first few years of life before cognitive reasoning is possible, and gets hardwired into the personality as it develops.  It may not show up in behaviors until much later, and everyone's different.  Mental health professionals don't want to diagnose anyone under 18 with a personality disorder either, too young.

But really, for us, folks who found our way here, we did so because we started reading things that we could have written, eerily similar these behaviors, and while knowledge of the clinical side can help, and give us compassion for folks with the living hell that is BPD, in the end it's the behaviors and how they affected us, what we made it all mean, and what we're going to do about it now.

[fromheeltoheal]

i remember a few months ago i confronted her about BPD, and her behavior, that i was very concerned for her well being.  she later told me a month later that she cuts herself after sex, which is another character trait of BPD, self mutalation, self loathing

Wow, there's very little that hasn't been discussed on these boards; Skip added us to a thread that is 8 years old, with lots of great info.

Self mutilation is a borderline trait, although it's done to soothe emotions; make the pain of the injury stronger than the pain of the emotion to make the emotion go away; if she did it after sex it makes you wonder what emotion she was feeling and why it was so strong.

My ex and I got in a fight on a cruise ship, because by that point in the relationship, near the end, I was tired of her sht and standing up for myself, and she was pissed so she bashed her face against the counter in the cabin and crying, told security I hit her.  I was at the other end of the ship at the time, but got thrown in boat jail for a while anyway, until they decided her info was 'unreliable' at the least and let me out.  Talk about a frosty cruise after that, we could have frozen the ocean.  Anyway, point is, the tools used to regulate emotions when someone is triggered can get very bizarre and dangerous; sorry about your gal man, and seems you're at the point where it's time to save yourself.  How are you feeling about the latest?

[GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT]

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENT This board is intended for general questions about BPD and other personality disorders, trait definitions, and related therapies and diagnostics. Topics should be formatted as a question. Please do not host topics related to the specific pwBPD in your life - those discussions should be hosted on an appropraite [L1] - [L4] board. You will find indepth information provided by our senior members in our workshop board discussions (click here).

[McGahee21]

i remember a few months ago i confronted her about BPD, and her behavior, that i was very concerned for her well being.  she later told me a month later that she cuts herself after sex, which is another character trait of BPD, self mutalation, self loathing

Wow, there's very little that hasn't been discussed on these boards; Skip added us to a thread that is 8 years old, with lots of great info.

Self mutilation is a borderline trait, although it's done to soothe emotions; make the pain of the injury stronger than the pain of the emotion to make the emotion go away; if she did it after sex it makes you wonder what emotion she was feeling and why it was so strong.

My ex and I got in a fight on a cruise ship, because by that point in the relationship, near the end, I was tired of her sht and standing up for myself, and she was pissed so she bashed her face against the counter in the cabin and crying, told security I hit her.  I was at the other end of the ship at the time, but got thrown in boat jail for a while anyway, until they decided her info was 'unreliable' at the least and let me out.  Talk about a frosty cruise after that, we could have frozen the ocean.  Anyway, point is, the tools used to regulate emotions when someone is triggered can get very bizarre and dangerous; sorry about your gal man, and seems you're at the point where it's time to save yourself.  How are you feeling about the latest?

part of me feels so effing bad for her, like really bad.  but another part of me is like man i dont know if i can have this in my life, shed probably have no problem killing me if she was triggered, but randomly still love me. idk

[Blistex]

Curious... .at what point does the question of unpd become u aspd?

Ex has many examples... .

[Blistex]

What were your examples if any that made you wonder?

Had the cheating, pathological lying, domestic theft, financial theft... .ect. 

Then it's a switch where they say are are the victim when their own parents, siblings, cousins, ect abandon them and still play waif.

Just curious... .

[enlighten me]

From what Ive read and experienced there is a difficulty with cluster B personality disorders overlapping and being co morbid. If you look at the criteria for each disorder you can probably tick a lot for your SO. It doesn't mean they are bi polar or ASPD as the severity is critical.

Both my exs displayed many traits. 29 out of 33. The severity of some was greater than others. I would say my exs were more BPD than anything else yet at times they displayed strong traits from other PDs. My ex wife showed strong HPD at times. My exgf showed strong NPD and ASPD at times. Their predominant behaviour was BPD though.