The other night I was watching the award winning "House" drama, and there was a bit about a kid with Asperger's syndrome. Well, it piqued my curiosity because most of the symptoms mentioned sounded like an inventory of my life.
Well, with just a little research I found lots. The person I wrote to suprisingly answered my email, and the next day too. She's a self diagnosed Asperger's person, and an MD. She told me that many transwomen suffer from Asperger's and like I thought it manifests with many of the same symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder.
The treatment is similar in both cases. Asperger's patients sometimes benefit from an anti psychotic too.
I struggled with what ever is odd about me for my whole life, but was very successful career wise, until I could not hold it together any more. I imagine things are similar for many of us. I hope this will help someone.
Many Blessings
Gwen
Comments
Aspergers
As someone who has been misdiagnosed with high order Autism, Aspergers is very similar. Of course the doctors know more than they did 30 years ago, but one should always take anything from them with a little salt. I was misdiagnosed three times and they still didn't get right. To give the Doc's some credit this related group of disorders are difficult to figure out. I actually (more than likely :) )
have APD (Audio Processing Disorder) which often mistaken for Aspergers or a form of Autism. All the forms of them make interacting with others difficult. Dyslexia is often associated with these problems as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia
If you think you may have one of these I urge you to research them carefully. There often methods to deal with the problems they cause. Interesting enough I've heard of links from these to TG conditions but I'll never seen a study done on the subject. If anyone out there knows please send me what you have.
Hugs!
grover
Bare with me, but I'm a bit
Bare with me, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with some of the implications in this discussion. My biggest concern is the implication that folks with Borderline Personality Disorder and folks with Asperger's Syndrome have very closely related conditions. As Grover has already noted, these are conditions that should be carefully researched. For a first step toward a obtaining a specific diagnosis such as either of these would be the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Currently, the latest edition is the DSM-4 TR (the TR stands for Text Revision -- so they're not very creative in the naming of their manuals, what can I say?). An easy to find Internet source is BehaveNet as follows:
Asperger's Sundrome -- http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/asperger.htm
Borderline Personality Disorder -- http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/borderlinepd.htm
I've recently retired after more than 35 years working as a psychologist with developmetally disabled folks. More than 10 of those years were with folks with Borderline Personality Disorder. I can honestly say that I've never considered the two conditions to be very similar.
Asperger folks tend to have problems understanding social interactions and much of their anger and frustration results from those misinterpretations of social cues. There are other features to the condition that may also be present as it is an autism spectrum disorder (e.g., problems dealing with change), but bear with me. I know I'm oversinplifying.
Folks with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to have dramatic mood swings of short duration (e.g, several hours to several days). They often do and say horrible things (at least from the recipient's perspective) motivated by an underlying fear of abandonment. Again, there's more and I am oversimplifying.
I would point out that it is possible to have both diagnoses.
I would also agree with Grover that it is imperative that you find someone with experience with such diagnoses and would tend to suggest a clinical psychologist (it's not just bias on my part, there are differences in training) over a physician in this case.
I have less experience with folks who are transgendered AND Asperger's AND/OR have Bordeline Personality Disorder, but I do know I have not seen any literature connecting the two onditions and would encourage you to move cautiously with respect to any assumptions in this area without first obtaining factual research that you personally trust.
I hope this helps.
I am not a Psychologist, sorry. I was just trying to be helpful.
I was never diagnosed with anything even though I have spent most of the time between age 27 and age 61 in some sory of counseling or psychotherapy. Having been the subject of extreme abuse and rape it sort of left me a bit off. In spite of extreme problems in school with acheivement, (I behaved and well mannered), I managed to be very successful in adult life as an Electrician (chosen simply because I had babies and needed to pay the bills, In other words, I settled.) I even had my own contracting company on the side.
After a serious injury that left me partially disabled, it all just crumbled. In a period of less than two years, I lost my job, my spouse, my grown and married children, my church...everything. After hearing the stories of some others, I am convinced that there is nothing special about my story. AND, I mean to survive. My best revenge is to have a happy life.
I lived a good life, in spite of my own daemons. Border Line Personality Disorder felt like a death sentence. Some think of us as throw away people, washed up, a waste of time.
For the last two years, I have been in DBT at the Veterans Hospital, diagnosed as PTSD, BPD, with dissassociative episodes, and paranoid at times. NO, I don't trust, why would I? I see a Phd Psychologist once a week.
After I mentioned all this to her, she said that she still felt it was BPD with some ADD.
I am sorry that I got things mixed up. The last thing I would want to do is cause someone else pain.
The transwoman part of it was always there. Always very effiminate, came out at 5 and was nearly murdered, you know the story...
Many blessings
Gwen
the trouble with House
I quite like the series, but I've often sat there noting the innocuous, irrelevent symptoms piling up and suddenly thought 'Oh my God, I've got those, I must have leprousy too'
Please do not ever feel the
Please do not ever feel the need to apologize for asking a question or wondering aloud. Also, please don't feel like you were being corrected. My goal was to provide accurate information, at least as I know it. Given we're talking about psychology, a soft science, I'm more surprised someone didn't say, "No. You're wrong," to my response and then go on to tell me why I was wrong in no uncertain terms.
I am glad to hear that you are talking to someone and that it sounds like you trust that person. It may not result in a cure, since the field is not that far along yet, but it will do more for your peace of mind than just about anything else likely to be suggested.
P.S. Dielectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is the most promising treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder currently avaialable, so you're on the right track there.
Asperger's Syndrome and Transsexualism
Dear Gwen,
Just drop me a line and I will try to give you any info that I might have collected. Here in Sweden the A.S. is considered as a small part of the much wider "Autism spectrum" Putting it in between the "chilldren unter tha Glass" and those with sypmtomes juat below the normal "easy-to-foget" personality. Thre seames to be a co-apearance between AS and TS. There are long time studies on this combination going on at the TS research center in Amsterdam. Holland,under professor Goren. I have made some claculations of the probable (matemaical) values and as far as we know now there ought to be 1 case in about 15 million, but I know of at least 4 cases in the 9 million peopla in Sweden, so there is an indication that the combination is more frequent than expected. Wheater this is a caused by one of the conditions or if there is an unknown factor is still an open question.
Feel free to e-mail me at the address here or to [email protected]
Your
Ginnie
GinnieG
Self-diagnosis and...
Is this the infamous "I am Joe's..." syndrome, rather than objective analysis? Asperger's Syndrome includes, in main, a description of the socialization of ANY marginalized and self-isolated individual. Depressed, anxious, obsessive-compulsive and self-involved. Good language skills? Well.. maybe because autism is NOT involved? Similarities between individuals identified in the "syndrome" are a self-fulfilling artifact of the selection process.
Sorry.. I *hate* being diagnosed by statistic. Especially by arbitrary statistic.
Michelle
I just like conversation.
I was just interested in the subject and thought a nice conversation about it was nice.
Asperger's
Dear Gwen and all,
First, Gwen, I'm really sorry. Somehow I misread your reply to me in Jan '08. I just reread it. I thought you were rejecting me some way or other and didn't want to correspond and/or be friends. I don't know how I goofed up like that. I was fairly depressed during Dec and Jan. I have sort of 'winter depression' or seasonal affective disorder. I have a bright light setup to shine in my eyes, but I get a lot more depressed in winter, anyway. The good thing about AZ is that it doesn't last that long. I've been out bicycling, 4 or 5 days a week, in very nice weather all March. Doing that and longer hours of daylight help a lot and I'm feeling pretty good.
I wanted to comment that I'm pretty sure I have Asperger's. I heard about it and researched a little about 10 years ago. I'm bothered most by the social learning disability. I've gotten more socially phobic and my confidence that I can make friends by talking with them and getting acquainted is really low. That leads to me not talking much and being more nervous when I do try to talk with others, which just makes things worse. I think I have trouble figuring out what someone is thinking unless they are showing some strong emotion.
I had never heard of Auditory Processing Disorder, but I know I've had that since Jr. High. I can hear really quiet sounds if background noise is even quieter, but like in the cafeteria eating lunch, I could never understand someone talking with all the noise of lots of others also talking. I could hear the persons voice, but couldn't parse words out of it.
I think I have some ADD. When I was young, I could concentrate in class pretty well, but I think at that time the only thing I could do well was get high grades, so I wanted to listen in class. I always lost things, however, things I cared about. I was told by a psych nurse that losing things was an indication of ADD. Now, for whatever reason, maybe pre-Alzheimer's, I'm losing my short term memory and I lose things in the house all the time. It seems like I spend 1/4 of my waking (non computer) time just searching for things.
Thanks everybody for all the information.
Hugs and Blessings,
Renee
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee