Autism or borderline personality disorder?

I just read an article on Polish website about female who had mental health problems for several years before she received correct diagnosis. When I read that description I was convinced the diagnosis was autism, but not, it was borderline personality disorder.

Mind you, I obviously have no idea what it is that she has, I only know that autistic females often get misdiagnosed as having borderline personality disorder. This is because randomly repeating social behaviours that we see other people perform is such a stress for us that it causes us to feel like if we have BPD. Mind you, I don’t believe that unmasking is a solution here.

From what I know there is no pathway for receiving adult autism diagnosis in Poland, and therefore the awarness will also be very low.

That female mentioned in the article that if something doesn’t go according to plan she feels like if her life has ended. But this is exactly how I feel in those situations! And I believe this is due to the fact that I, as an autistic person, see life as a series of finite games instead of one infinite game. If something doesn’t go according to a plan I want to finish the game I’m playing because my instinct tells me that will cause another game to start automatically and I hope this one will be easier. Of course, when I say it like that I know this is not true, but this is what my autistic instinct is telling me. My instinct is wrong and that is what is making me disabled (yes, I believe autism is a disability).

However, I am much better lately in that respect and I believe blogging in format that I chose is what is helping me. Even if I cannot imagine future in general, I know one thing for certain: I’ll be posting to my blog about what I think and how I feel. That’s why it’s so important for me to describe my real feelings and not only those that are socially acceptable. Sometimes I write things that are not ‘kind’, but then there was something in my life that made me feel this way, so it’s only fair if I include it. And, BTW, we all experience negative emotions, don’t we? Whether we’re autistic or not.

Blogging for me is that infinite game that is helping me see that life will in fact continue, no matter what else is going to happen.

I was wondering for a bit if I should contact that lady but thought that could confuse her. If there is no pathway for adult autism diagnosis in Poland then she won’t be able to get clarification. Somehow not telling her doesn’t feel fair for me, but again, that is probably my autistic instinct talking. And my instinct is often wrong. Not always, mind you, but probably more often than not.

4 responses to “Autism or borderline personality disorder?”

  1. When I was younger – borderline personality disorder was a diagnostic of exclusion.

    [there is a Welsh man who writes about it – his name is Keir Harding].

    People like Joanna Ławicka know about the trails and pathways.

    [they have done a few Autscapes over the past five years and so].

    Another consideration in that family would be histrionic personality disorder.

    Like

    1. Oh, I think histrionic personality disorder is completely different, those people are extremely social.

      I need to Google Joanna Ławicka, she definitely sounds Polish, thank you.

      Like

      1. Yes – and she is a Pole-in-Poland.

        [Dr Ławicka from Wrocław as she calls herself humbly].

        When you google Ławicka you will probably find the Prodeste Foundation in Opole

        and some of the other people connected to it [from volunteers to specialists].

        [there was also a page of the Polish non-government organisations that she was on and had a profile last year].

        Why I said „the last five years” was because of the Autism-Europe conference in Edinburgh which had been in 2016 [and will be in Kraków later this year].

        Ławicka herself took pictures of some of the people in Ukraine in early March.

        There is a link called OUR PHILOSOPHY.

        And there was a book called I AM NOT AN ALIEN.

        She wrote another book called TEACHING EMPATHETICALLY [she is a special education teacher among many other things].

        About histrionic personality disorder:

        Yes, many can be very socially oriented and orientated.

        There are some of the quieter ones too.

        [for example, someone might not speak because she gets more attention that way than if she DID speak – or she would be listened to through her other behaviour]

        [then insecurities reveal or expose].

        Like

      2. Oh, you know more about Polish autism research than me! It looks like I need to educate myself, thank you 🙂

        I suppose I don’t tend to read much about research because I don’t agree with loads of them. But then, possibly someone will have a breakthrough and I’d miss it.

        I didn’t think people with histrionic personality disorder can be quiet. You certainly know a lot, thank you!

        Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: