Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I came across a thread on here talking about autism (particularly female autism) and borderline personality disorder (BPD). I noticed a few posters felt very indignant that they had once been diagnosed with BPD and felt that, once they got their diagnosis of autism, this eclipsed their BPD diagnosis and made it defunct. They didn't seem to think that one could have both at the same time. They think I've got BPD; the diagnosis was confirmed after a crisis where I had to spend the night in A&E, but it had been talked about for a while prior to this. I have a theory about it; I'm not a psychologist or any sort of MH professional so I don't know if I'm right, but this is what I have come to think about my own life.
A lot of people think that BPD is caused by trauma in the early part of childhood. I would never say that I suffered trauma...it wouldn't be fair to those who actually have. But I feel I've been damaged by my Asperger's. It caused the adults around me to try and sweep my issues under the carpet (my mum reckoned she knew since that I had autism since the age of 18 months, and yet did nothing to try and help, even though she supposedly loves me. I was just allowed to go around suffering, with no one doing anything to support me). At school, other children constantly abused me, pretty much from the day I started school. I was rejected, isolated and excluded. I was physically hit, kicked, pushed etc on many occasions throughout my school career, but there were. When I was very young, I was at a birthday party (I used to spend birthday parties crying because I felt so frightened and alone, and like my parents had abandoned me there; I also felt abandoned every day when I was dropped at school from my first day at playgroup when I was 3) and a little girl from my class got frustrated with me, agressively snatched off the sticky label I was wearing with my name on it, and tore it up and threw it on the floor in front of me. When I told my mum about this, she said, "It's because (this little girl) wants to be your friend, and you don't play with her when she wants to play with you." I took this to mean: "It's your fault she went for you." There were quite a few other incidents like that. This is how I know that I've deserved the abuse I've had over the years.
When I got to secondary school, I was very overweight and ugly as well as a defective freak. To mock me, boys would make crude comments, shove me against walls or collect around me in big gangs. They would touch me when I didn't want to be touched, sometimes hit or kick me, I was once spat on, I was once hounded into a room and had food repeatedly thrown at me, and, on all of these occasions, I would scream and cry for them to stop. It feels like this happened all the time throughout my secondary school career, however, I never once school refused because for me, that was not an option. Sometimes when I close my eyes at night I still think about school and how hated I was for being less than what other children wanted. Even the kinder children were sharp and cold with me, When I try to talk to people about it, I get told to "move on." I feel invalidated, which apparently makes BPD symptoms worse. I ended up with an eating disorder, but because I was overweight when the restrictive eating started, my mum's friends would say things to me like, "You look amazing; a touch of anorexia never hurt anyone." They'd think they were joking or being complimentary but, as you can imagine, that sort of thing made the problem worse. Then my actual diagnosis happened which was a total nightmare and it was the "straw that broke the camel's back" - I knew I would hate myself forever and ever. Nobody ever acknowledged how much it hurt me.
I can't even begin to write everything that happened, and I'm too tired to try; I'm also kind of physically unwell today with this cold that's been going round. I know I deserved everything I got at school, but still, being different is painful. What I don't understand is why nobody agrees that it's potentially damaging. A friend of our family who is an autism specialist has told me that "growing up with autism is difficult, but it doesn't count as a proper trauma" - a) I never said it was and b) her saying that just felt like more invalidation. I've always struggled with my mental health but over the last year it has deteriorated significantly. I now can't get through a day without becoming very upset, or harming myself in some way. I lose control and have to resort to anti-psychotic medication to calm me down. Obviously being Aspie I find it hard to make relationships anyway, but the ones I have feel insecure and chaotic. I do not know what or who I am, apart from that it's bad. I have been told, and from what I have read believe, that I meet criteria for BPD. The actual term is problematic for some people, but I don't find it so: I found being labelled Asperger's far more humiliating. If Asperger's was a person, I'd love to hurt it. I am broken. I think it has caused my "BPD symptoms".
Does anyone else think this could be true? Not just for me, but for them?
Be gentle with yourself you are a child of the universe equal to the stars, trees, and everything within. You have a right to bear its witness. Many fears are born of fatigue and lonliness. Try not to distress yourself.
I am diagnosed with Autism and bpd, in my case i believe i developed bpd from being an autistic child that endured childhood trauma.
My childhood years were being in a constant state of fear and anxiety and crying i was youngest of 8 and was adopted by grandparents as my biological mum is my eldest sister.
Biological father was alcoholic and serious mental health issues.
I dont blame my siblings as they didnt know i was autistic , i was just an easy target and easy to blame for their wrong doings, i would get hit and punished for things they had done and they dismissed me completly.
My parents just saw me as very quiet and introverted but didnt know how to help me and so acted like nothing was wrong.
Here i am at 47 years old and everyday is a struggle just to get through each day. I have ocd with cleaning to distract myself from intrusive daily thoughts and struggle with having an identity.
My eldest son has no diagnosis but my other son and daughter are diagnosed autistic.
I feel unworthy in this life but i want and do need help (therapy) as i can finally see snippets of reasons i am the way i am.
Jusr need help to decipher years of autism,bpd,ocd and identity disturbance.
Yes!! I agree that the way us autistics are treated when we don’t have a diagnosis has a massive impact on bpd because we are more sensitive to trauma as we feel emotions more intensely anyways it leads to C-PTSD and or BPD
Familiar story. Yes it can be very difficult and then when I feel like I am causing problems to those I love the answer seems to be ending life
True. But opportunities do present themselves occasionally to help karma out. If you do it right and above board u can execute karma without the nasty person ever knowing it was you and feel good knowing you did it correctly and not in a horrible fashion. It’s rare. But patience is a virtue. I had a school bully start working where I worked and he started carrying on bullying me. I picked up he wasn’t doing his job properly as was trying to out do me. May have stopped by office and reported his truck number suggesting an accuracy check on his work may be in order. Got disciplinary for failure to carry out his job correctly..
I'm a great believer in karma - the world invariably sorts itself out so it's easier to just let it go and concentrate on moving forward. Bad things eventually happen to bad people without me needing to help it along.
I wish I had that happen to me too, unfortunately in my case, I ended up being too emotionally laborious, and just as I pessimistically anticipated the one "friend" I had abandoned despite giving that scumbag money out of fear that they will abandon me to prevent my pessimistic expectation from happening, now that it did, and I realized that person is just a user, I am going to screenshot that person asking me for money, treating me like *** and abandoning me and I will send it to all of their friends because ableists deserve to be alone and miserable. I've been plotting this for months and unless they change, I will have no choice, but to their abusive/manipulative side to everyone. I haven't blackmailed them, I'm not that type of person, nor have I told them that I hated, but I do, so, so much. Now that my worst and most pessimistic prediction happened, I want that horrible person to feel how I'm feeling all alone, miserable, being only surrounded by a bunch of toxic people, because that's where I am! I wanna do it so bad, but I feel guilty just thinking of doing it.
I just never want to be treated like the way I've been treated most of my life, and because my family is so controlling, I can't even wear gender-affirming clothing because my family is so right-wing, and they've been using the state to control me for years by forcing me to live with 24/hr supervision for years knowing full well I hate authority and that I'm an anarchist.
I just hope everything will change for the better now that I'm living on campus and I will start going to therapy for my abuse.
I also have frequent and intense daydreams that sometimes last four hours upon hours a day. I know I have autism, as I was diagnosed with autism when I was three. The autism alone was so hard for me because of sensory issues, but then tack on all the abuse I endured, it's a miracle I'm still alive today, and I still pace in my rooms during these daydream episodes and stimm and it's when I'm happiest.
Well, when you are constantly treated like less than a person for years like I've been, you probably will to want with a burning passion seeing ableist scumbags put in their disgusting place.
I gave a grueling detail of the discrimination/abuse I endured above and how I can't stop thinking about it, and I use it to make predictions for the future. I need help.
I have Autism and BPD combined, and I have been through a very, very abusive upbringing, and even as an adult, I am still being treated horribly by the people who caused my BPD and C-PTSD to flourish in the first place. In Public school, I was horribly bullied and discriminated against and it fit very strongly into the mentality snd my belief that "Everyone hates me, and no matter what I do, nothing will change" I then did things to prove my point right, I.E. Buying food for the inclusion program director to win her over, as I always felt she favored the bullies in the inclusion program over me, as when they bullied me they always got away with it, while for me, the tiniest infraction caused a detention and loss of privileges. Even though I had the best behavior out of everyone in the program, I was always getting in trouble. This made my catastrophic thinking worse and worse and I began developing a strong hatred towards the inclusion program director, and by the middle of the school year, I was saying such hateful things to her that I should be ashamed of saying, but she deserved every bit of it, and I honestly wish I said even more hurtful things to that ableist scumbag. The worse she treated, the worse I treated her. she was a narcissist who liked to take her narcissistic rage out on me, because I dared challenge her authority intellectually, despite being autistic and it made her feel so bad that a disabled kid could put her in her place. I always inquired with her as to why she only punished me, as I had the best behavior, (I didn't break things, was very polite, was always being bullied by the other students). I also reminded her of a time where she promised me in front of my mom that bullying won't be tolerated and no one will bully me. I tried to convince my mom not to let me go to that middle school, so in front of the inclusion director I said to my mom, she's not being honest, I swear to god because I am so unlucky that I will be bullied here all the time, and they will never get in trouble, but I always will.
My mom tried to convince me that will not be the case, but boy was she wrong, and boy was I so right. The bullying became extremely dangerous when following a string of other bullying-related incidents which ultimately resulted in one day on Tuesday, February 15th, 2005, involved me getting scapegoated and punished for being beat-up by the bully, which my pessimistic mindset anticipated and was preparing for since the moment the bully attacked me and began whaling on me, and after the inclusion program director decided to punish me instead of him, because according to her I "Set him off" after the bully left for class, and my anger came to a breaking oint, and instead of simply going off on the director, this time I decided to take matters into my hands, and I took the bully's jacket, threw it on the floor stomped on it, kicked spat on it, but I didn't leave any visible damage on the jacket as I didn't want a worse repeat of what had only transpired a few minutes earlier.
Later that day, at around 2:35 PM during dismissal, just as I was just about to walk down the stairs, I felt a mighty shove and I tumbled down the stairs, and at the simultaneous moment of the push down the stairs, I heard the bully say a cuss word as I flew down the stairs. My para quickly came to my aid and despite all the horrors of being bullied so badly in middle school and being treated and discriminated so badly by the inclusion program director, whose job it was to make sure I felt safe and secure, she was the only one I really liked. I hated the inclusion program director with a burning passion, and was constantly imagining what bad thing the bullies will do next to me, and then how she will punish me once the bullies do something to me. (I wasn't a violent student, I never attacked anyone, but I was incredibly pessimistic and thought everyone hated/was against me, especially the inclusion program director).
Anyway, I was lying on the floor in terrible and excruciating lower back pain, as my lower back took the brunt of the impact when I landed on the marble floor landing half the flight down. My para was beside me trying to help me up, but I was in a lot of pain, and as I laid down there in terrible pain, I was wishing, horrible, disgusting things happen to the bully and his family, I was shouting out loud in hopes that he heard it, but he was long gone.
The inclusion program director then came down to see what happened almost immediately what happened, and when she saw what happened, she was smug about it and with a smirk on her face she said, "I guess someone told him what you did to his jacket." Besides me and the inclusion program director, there was another kid in the inclusion office, but I never had any beef with him, and he was the only person in the entire inclusion program that never picked on me, and even though we hardly talked I valued him very closely and considered him to be my ly "friend" at the time. So when I accused her of telling the bully to get him to attack me, she accused that shy, quiet kid who I held in very high esteem to try and stir a fight between us, but I suspected she was lying, but I felt betrayed nevertheless so I confronted him and simply asked him, "why did you tell Allen what I did to his jacket, he deserved it for attacking me, and me then taking his punishment for him attacking me.
He denied doing it, and I took his word for it, meanwhile the whole time I was laying down on the ground in pain, and I was helped up and was taken to the door of the Nurse's office, but she wasn't there, and I wanted to go to the principal's office to tell him what happened, as I took the inclusion director's promise to finally put the bully back in his place with a grain of salt. and I insisted that I go to the principal, so the inclusion director threatened me with more punishments/detention if I attempted to go to the principal's office to tell him what happened. So then, I told her, "Do you really think I trust you, first of all you hate me, I know you do because if you didn't hate me, you would have treated me just like you do everyone else, but you treat me the worst because you know I will take your ***, and their *** as well. Also, because I am so f****** unlucky I swear to god that tomorrow when I will come back to school, not only will Allen not be expelled, but he won't even be suspended, or have any punishments whatsoever because I know you hate me so much, that's what you'll do, it's what you have always done, and what you will always continue to do, I don't trust a word you say, have a good day, Mrs. Magno (I am using the Bully's first, and the inclusion director's real surname, as those assholes do not deserve to have my generosity of allowing them anonymity, especially what they forced me to endure for two years.)
Next day, despite everything that happened, and just I pessimistically predicted, my family made me go to school, even though they told me initially that I didn't have to, but like usual for me, my pessimistic predictions always come to fruition, no matter what I do to prevent it from happening.
Anyway, the next day, Wednesday, February 16th, 2005, I came to school, during the morning breakfast period the bully was not only there, he was on the computer playing games, whilst I wasn't allowed to, which was even worse than I predicted as not only was the bully in school, which I predicted, he didn't lose any privileges, and I did. (At least during recess her disgusting fascist majesty allowed me to use the computer). When I confronted her, she told "At least I told his parents about what he did to you. Had you not insinuated that I was going to discriminate against you, he would have been in trouble, but because you decided to accuse me once again that I was going to discriminate against you, I am basically so tired of hearing you run your mouth, so I took away his punishment and gave you some of his for your horribly negative attitude.
That incident was just one of many discriminatory/bullying-related incidents that happened to me. A year earlier, before that school incident, my mom had to send me to live with my grandmother as an incident involving me and my very abusive stepfather occurred in which was beating me, and I threatened him verbally that I was going to stab him with the kitchen knife if he continued and I was beginning to throw dishes at him and smash them on the floor as well. (Invcident started with him abusing me because the thought I talked back to him when I was trying to defend myself from his false accusations).
Living with my grandparents also presented their own problems as my uncle was living there who was also abusive. I was constantly surrounded by people who did nothing but abuse me and berate me. Today I am so good at predicting adversity, I have a near 100% success rate and have hardly any friends and have always been single, despite doing everything to avoid the (I will always be eternally single prediction I made back in high school, as thus far, over 10 years later it is still spot on. Also, I have always wanted to dye/change the color of my hair and wear cartain clothing, but because I', autistic, and despite being an adult my family is incedibly controlling, and no matter what I have been doing to emancipate myself, they constantly find new ways to keep me within their control, as they are disgustingly radically right-wing, with me being radical left/anarchist. It was my abusive family that radicalized to despising authority and hating anything to do with the political right, as I feel the right-wing is synonymous with ableism, discrimination and child abuse.
What should I do to break the cycle of all my pessimistic predictions/expectations from coming true? A lot of them today involve rejection i.e. what's the point of going to college as I will never get hired because I am autistic/i'm so unlucky. Despite catastrophically negative predictions, my past experiences with abuse and the constant rejection I am experiencing today I am still fighting for my future. lately, I have lately been secretly recording all my job interviews in the hopes of bringing ableists and those who are discriminating against me to justice and setting an example of what will happen to people who discriminate.
Hm. Holding a grudge and making sure revenge is dispatched.. something I do and not really thought about it as as autistic trait.
No, Asperger's doesn't cause BPD symptoms, abuse causes BPD, and just like you, I also have BPD and autism as well, but I had a bad reputation for retaliating and plotting revenge against people who wronged me. I would go to great lengths to ensure the bullies were brought to justice. In addition to being autistic, and having Trauma induced BPD and C-PTSD, I am also queer, and lately, I began getting very angry and distrustful of everyone around, and expecting the only people who are being the nicest to me to turn their backs away from, and the only people who will surround me will be the people who make me miserable.
to avoid that outcome, I went to great lengths to avoid being rejected/abandoned (I was never abandoned as a kid, but verbal/physical abuse was a constant for me, both at home and in school) But the abuse I endured growing up was so common, that I perseverated on catastrophic scenarios that I had feelings would come true, and then I went spend all day on perseverating on how to avoid the outcome, with it usually being abused at home, or being bullied at school and then punished by my ableist inclusion program director in NYC. And I was almost 100% right on my catastrophic predictions coming true, and when it did come true, if it was at home and one of my relatives hit me (Uncle/grandpa) I would have giant meltdowns and destroy stuff around the house to make it perfectly clear that for every time they put their hands on me, I was going to destroy property, or physically retaliate. They eventually began to fear my outbursts, and I felt safer as they no longer physically abused me, and my "behaviors" seemingly went away. I only acted out in self defence, or anger during the moment of the abuse, or what you would call, heat of the moment instances, but some of it was deliberate, as I wanted to make a point that if you abuse me, I will defend myself, and make it hell for you.
Also, I continued living my life constantly expecting people to wrong me and punish me for no reason, and I became so used to it, that I developed quite a knack for very accurately anticipating/predicting rejection/hostility from another person, way before they exhibit any signs of it. For example, I recently began recording my family at the dinner table, as I anticipated they were going to start verbally abusing me, and because my pessimistic thinking was so strong, I decided to start recording and I quietly said into the phone, "you will now see how much of assholes my abelist, trump supporting family is."
It went exactly as planned and my family did exactly what I expected them to do, and it was to 1. for my sisters to make fun of my autism, then for my stepfather to yell at me for berate me even more for ignoring my abusive sisters, and then my mom going after me for calling my stepfather an autism hater. I then put that video to a support group where I proved I could predict bad things before they happened.
Right now, I am 28 years old, and I have never been in a relationship, and several years back I made a bunch of negative predictions that every girl I date will reject me because of my autism. I ended up being right. The society where I live is so disgusting, abelist and backward, that literally every pessimistic prediction I have made for rejection scenarios have all come true verbatim, and many of these instances I did everything to prevent them from happening.
Hi
I've just registered and would like to say congrats for being open and honest. Non autistic people have no idea how it is for us; they minimise, belittle and scorn our experiences and feelings- even the kind ones- and after a while you just stop trying to explain and go onto yourself.
I believe growing up autistic is a definite trauma and by the time you reach your 30's you've had enough. At 38 I still suffer from it all, despite having some therapy.
I also have an autistic teen and she can testify to the trauma. At least she had me, but everybody else has never understood and caused harm through ignorance. I'm sure a lot of autistic people will identify with your struggles, completely, as I do. She suffers with mental illness too, but is undiagnosed. As a result she was taken into care and I was accused of emotional abuse and neglect.
I have a childcare background, friends and have maintained good relationships with past boyfriends since my child was born. I did everything possible including homeschooling on and off. Just goes to show that anyone can lose their child through ignorance of autism.
I'm bipolar as well. Most recently 2 professionals have labelled me BPD, Mixed Personality Disorder and Unspecified Personality Disorder. That's the thing with non autistic people: they talk nonsense, cite it as fact and LOVE being nonspecific. When you challenge their ignorance, you are labelled with a personality disorder. That is my experience.
I am so sorry for your experiences, I had similar but can't remember until I was 10 years old. Certainly secondary school is seared into my mind forever and you couldn't pay me to go back now. Also, although I ass the opposite (super skinny) my mother was unbothered and said you can never be too thin.
Sometimes I hate everyone that has made these comments and wish they would wake up one day and be in my shoes, your shoes, all of our shoes. They wouldn't last a week. So my message is this: you are stronger than them. They see you as deficient, but they are deficient in intellect and understanding, not you. I bet you have skills that they don't and I bet you are kind and a genuinely good person. I bet you have the ability to help others more than they will ever have. I know on bad days it's so easy to believe it all, be drowned with by them all, be alighted by them all. But believe that you are strong, good and powerful.
God bless x
I agree with Sue too! You absolutely do not deserve to be treated the way you were at school. The bullies are the ones with the problem.
The things you went through were traumatic. Please talk to someone (e.g. your GP, your local mental health service, The Samaritans) about how you're feeling. You deserve to be supported and happy.
I was diagnosed with autism aged 63, two years ago but also PTSD and BPD after reading your post I’m wondering if I have ADHD instead how would I get this assessment?
I have both Aspergers and BPD, they were both diagnosed together at the age of 35, I'm now 41. I had many similar experiences to you but I also got abuse at home from my dad when he was drunk which was often because he couldn't understand me or why I wasn't more like him. I felt very undervalued, unprotected and unsafe both at home and at school due to my undiagnosed Aspergers which I personally believe definitely contributed to my BPD. I also have other physical illnesses, such as type 1 diabetes and fibromyalgia and I believe the stress of having to deal with them also contributed. The thing is we are all different and what is traumatic for one person may not be so to another, there are so many contributing factors that affect each of us how can we be defined by one or two labels? All I know is I'm broken and I'll probably always be broken and I'll probably never be fully ok with that but there's not much I can do about it because I can't afford the therapy that I probably need. But I'm in the best place I've been so far and I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Speaking as someone who also used to worry that I had both ASD & BPD, the overlap is actually with ADHD not BPD.
I am currently on a waiting list for an ADHD assessment to complement my ASD diagnosis a few years ago. A few months ago I joined a support group for adults with ADHD or those awaiting diagnosis. When I mentioned at the first meeting I attended that I had at one point worried I might have BPD, several people laughed & said "Not Another One", since it seems to be quite common for people with Adult ADHD to incorrectly diagnose themselves with BPD after reading things online, which was certainly what I had done.
The main reason for the confusion is a core feature of Adult ADHD called "Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria" which can mimic many of the symptoms of BPD, especially the fear of being alone, but for entirely different reasons. I was also horrifically bullied at school for many years which made me extremely susceptible to RSD to the point where I would try to change my personality in different social contexts in order to avoid rejection. This also mimics the chameleon features of BPD & once again for entirely different reasons. Once I understood more about the subject, I could see why so many people with Adult ADHD get confused & worry about BPD.
Obviously I can't comment on your personal circumstance, especially since I wasn't diagnosed with ASD until age 55, but at least some aspects of what you have related do seem quite similar to my own experience.
It might be worthwhile for you to look into Adult ADHD & in particular "Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria". I didnt know much about it either until I was referred for an assessment last year by a mental health professional who said that my descriptions of mental health issues were highly characterisic of ADHD.
I found this website & particular document extremely helpful
www.additudemag.com/.../
I actually had to remind myself that I was reading your story and not mine, I've gone through almost the same life so I can and i will say i understand you and feel for you. My dad tried to get me diagnosed with autism at 4 years old but the person who came over had piercings and coloured hair so my grandmother kicked off with her saying she was unprofessional and that I was just a miss behaving spoiled child who was seeking attention... I was later diagnosed with bpd at 18. When I went to uni I was out casted and looked at differently but one person stood by me, my autistic friend, I'll her A, A understood me and the things I was feeling she went through alot herself. She would often tell me "your definitely autistic, I see alot of myself in you, you do alot things that are very characteristic." I would just tell her no I'm not I'm just emotionally unstable due to lack or validation and therefore struggled getting close to people... but after a while and her teaching me more about autism in females I started questioning everything in my life. I do believe that there is a very strong connection to bpd sufferes and autism and I think this should be looked into further and more people educated on both disorders.
Thankyou for sharing