Borderline Personality Disorder and Aspergers Syndrome

[PsychAnny]

I’ve been searching for a self diagnosis and believe I may have found something.  I’m am a 38 year old woman and a sophomore in college majoring in psychology with the hope of attaining a PhD.  To cut a long story short in the past I had many symptoms of Borderline PD beginning with an alcoholic father who was emotionally unavailable, a mother who suffered post natal depression and locked me in a bedroom to protect me from my other siblings, hence the mother/child bond never developed, I also had many hospital stays with no visitors, this scenario is often seen in people with Borderline PD.  Characteristics that I suffered were, black and white thinking, lack of sense of self, substance abuse, depression, idealization and sudden devaluation of others, chronic feelings of emptiness and worthlessness, inappropriate anger, fear of abandonment, distrust of others.  Characteristics I did not experience are frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, impulsivity, self mutilating behavior, anxiety, feelings of victimization or manipulative behavior.

I managed to overcome many of the above through cognitive restructuring and boundary work but there was still something wrong, I had other problems not covered under Borderline PD.  I recently came across Aspergers Syndrome while researching Savant Syndrome (my husband believes I am a savant with language and music abilities).  I found that I could identify with many of the characteristics but not all.  Those I identify with are, failure to develop friendships or to seek shared enjoyments, lack of social or emotional reciprocity, engaging in a one sided speech about a favorite topic (“active but odd”), failure to monitor interest or engagement of the listener, difficulty connecting with others since early childhood, difficulty and dislike of chit chat, restricted and repetitive interests and behavior, difficulty falling asleep, enhanced perception of small changes in patterns, sensitivity to light and touch,  and possibly alexithymia.  Characteristics I do not identify with are, restricted prosody and intonation, motor clumsiness, lack of emotional empathy, impaired non-verbal behaviors, stereotyped and repetitive motor behaviors, literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance, weakness with non-literal language such as humor, irony and teasing.  A reason for this may be that my fixations are with crosswords and word games (which I often play for many hours at a time) and studying people.

Could it be that I was born with Aspergers Syndrome and this may account for the Borderline PD characteristics that I didn’t develop as I became fixated on studying people and social situations thus leading to a highly complex and vast set of behavioral guidelines for socializing.  Most people see me as sociable and outgoing which I can be, but only for very short periods of time.  I get lonely at times but find it too much work to maintain friendships (to the point that I begin to really dislike a person).  I’d like to get some feedback and perhaps advice.  

[MJIthewriter]

You're probably better finding a professional to give you a good diagnosis. Self diagnosing can cause you to believe you have everything under the sun. But at least it gives you a starting point.

You can feel free to read our health pages:
http://www.medhelp.org/health_pages/list?cid=73

There are some essays I typed up in my attempt to explain some of my autism and there is also something that Sally started and we helped put together for parents to recognize in their children.  Since this is you, you'll probably find the stuff written from autistic people talking about themselves the most helpful than the stuff wrtten for children.

I'm sure you probably know this already, but there is a genetic link to alcoholism... If one of your parents is an alcoholic, you're better off staying away from alcohol in case you too may develop that disease on top of whatever conditions you have.  Autism doesn't have to be a bad thing, but alcoholism on the other hand.... that's something that is . Alcoholism can be prevented if you don't drink.

[margypops]

I have known a friend who exhibits similar patterns in her life , she has GAD and has now by various natural remedys overcome some of the Anxiety, for years she took varying powerful drugs ,all with side effects and horrible Withdrawal when she came off,There are many ideas out there online and in books to help change the way we think and feel about our selves, I belive cognitive Therapy can help,but it could be Anxiety so check that out first . Good Luck