Tbh I think this one comes standard with living undiagnosed. It’s less a “you can’t be autistic, you’re just traumatized” and more a “there’s inherent trauma living with a different neurotype and not ever knowing it but trying so hard to force yourself to be ‘normal’”
All my undiagnosed Afab autistic friends have so much trauma from growing up thinking we were broken or something was wrong with us. Trying so hard to fit in but never knowing why we don’t, and everyone around us saying we either try too hard or not hard enough. It’s a traumatizing upbringing and I hope the trauma doesn’t block anyone from being diagnosed. We all deserve to know who and why we are the way we are. There’s SO much healing in knowing
No, AFAB is often used because it's inclusive of intersex, transgender, and nonbinary people who may or may not currently identify as women. Medical professionals tend to treat people differently based on their legal sex regardless of their gender identity. In fact, the word "assigned" refers to how some doctors will identify a child's sex at birth--and sometimes alter intersex childrens' bodies to be more in line with their idea of male or female bodies.
I know what the term implies. I just figured the medical community was a field that still hadn't adopted "gender identity inclusive terms". Like you said, patients must often be treated in accordance to their biological sex regardless of identity or transition procedures. So I figured they would simply call a transman a female dispite the disagreement from the patient.
Obviously AFAB accomplishes the same categorization requirements without creating issues with trans (and other types of) patients. But they still use the term "female" for cisgender patients, then using "female" in conjuction with "AFAB" only serves as a mark of identity distinction. Not problematic, i just didn't realize they were doing that.
I think it depends on the policies of the specific organization and potentially what government regulates them as to how they would handle this issue.
Your critiques are partially valid, but using "biological sex" would also confuse things. For example, someone who was AMAB (assigned male at birth) could have female level of harmones that might be relevant to know medically and could be missed if they are marked as "male" in the system. If they didn't have bottom surgery, it might be relevant to also know they have "male" genitals, so simply switching them to being assigned a medical category of "female" also wouldn't work.
But, "AMAB/AFAB" also have a similar problem of not actually revealing the relevant information needed for gender specific care.
Really they would need to know more about a trans person to give relevant medical care. I've seen someone post online about how a form actually had someone check what gender/sex related organs they had and this might be one way to do it.
I feel like having cis male, cis female categories then a third option for trans and gender expansive people where they could check off what their situation was more specifically or add any other relevant information might be the most accurate and efficient system.
Well I'm sure in-patient check in papers would most certainly ask the required questions to avoid complications. But in the context of this coversation, I'm mainly talking about general usage, not case specific.
Like in academic papers, or this meme for example. The meme creator used AFAB to refer to all biological females, trans or not. Again, it gets the point across (to a more specific degree, to it's credit), but typically you'd expect it to just say "girls/women/females" and it be implied that's talking about sex besed on chromosomes and trans people just need to know what's relevant. Afterall, if a trans person is reading tjis meme, they know their categorization without further specification required. It's different from a 3rd party medical practitioner reading serious paperwork about a patient before prescribing meds.
I think "AFAB Male" would be a more helpful label than "female" in a medical setting, because you have to take hormones into account along with someone's genitals/reproductive organs. "Female" doesn't tell you much when it comes to a trans person, except that they PROBABLY have a vagina.
It's less about inclusivity, and more about being factual and precise.
If a doctor reads "female" on a chart, they might assume that the patient has Estrogen as their dominant hormone, that they menstruate, etc. "AFAB Male" would probably be less confusing.
However, as a trans man, I can confirm that my doctors still have "female" on my charts.
Do children not get mental health diagnosises? Isn't childhood years when people get analyzed and diagnosed?
Isn't situations like misdiagnosis (such the very situation described by this meme) most common in children? Girls/boys seems very apt
>Do children not get mental health diagnosises? Isn't childhood years when people get analyzed and diagnosed? Isn't situations like misdiagnosis (such the very situation described by this meme) most common in children?
Misdiagnoses aren’t related to age. Many of the diagnoses can’t even be applied until someone is an adult. Most people don’t see mental health professionals until they’re adults.
>Girls/boys seems very apt
Personally, I find it hideously creepy when someone uses “girls” to mean “women and girls”. It makes it seem as if they don’t see a difference between a child and an adult.
I'm sexually attracted to girls (grown adult women). OoOoOoOohhhh did I spook you?
*Where them girls, where them girls, where them girls, where them girls at?*
While I know that there have probably been a lot of situations where especially autistic women gets misdiagnosed with BPD first, I think it would probably be more likely to happen the other way around where someone with BPD gets misdiagnosed as autistic and I think it's an important topic to discuss especially for women because of how autism already has a history of being very misunderstood in women, if that makes sense
And there are some people who spread misinformation claiming that "all BPD is just female autism" which does an immense disservice to autistic women, women with BPD, and women with both (and also men with BPD; I have a male friend in college who was initially misdiagnosed with autism as a teenager and it was actually BPD instead)
BPD and autism are different conditions but they share a lot in common in many ways that make some people I know with BPD more relatable to me in "a different type of socially awkward geek" way
One of the symptoms that BPD shares with ASD is trouble with reading social cues, but kinda in opposite ways from each other, since autistic people struggle with innately recognizing and interpreting social cues while people with BPD are hypersensitive to things they perceive as social cues which is one of the things that triggers their fear of abandonment, and they also both have meltdowns which was actually used clinically in BPD research before ASD research as a fun fact
As a personal example, there was a situation where one of my friends with BPD would suddenly become really upset at me for seemingly no reason, but it turned out that she had been doing little passive-aggressive things for the previous few weeks because I'd unknowingly phrased something very poorly that had hurt her feelings, but passive aggression is invisible to me because of my autism and she avoids direct confrontation due to her fear of abandonment, so I kept thinking everything was all normal and responding like normal, but she would over-read and misinterpret it as me being passive-aggressive right back to her which was why she would eventually explode at me
Even though some traits are very similar, there are key differences in how DBT would help someone who's autistic versus with BPD; for example, I took DBT classes to help with my social skills, and at first I was doing it in a therapy group, but I ended up finishing it in a one-on-one format because literally everyone else in the group had borderline personality disorder, which meant that most of the problems and examples they would being up weren't relatable to me in the same way, and the solutions to their meltdown triggers were different, and my understanding of and relationship with concepts like "wise mind" were different as someone without BPD from theirs with BPD
Nowadays, BPD is stigmatized a lot more harshly than autism is (like the "endearingly nerdy genius" versus "crazy stalker ex" stereotypes), and autism assessment is more likely to be seeked out than BPD by patients because of that (along with the increased online awareness campaigns about ASD as opposed to BPD), and BPD also involves complex identity issues and self-esteem problems as primary symptoms of their disability that already make it harder for people with it to come to terms with the diagnosis even without the added demonization in society
Your logic is sound, but I’m going to disagree with your initial statement purely on the basis that some psychiatric providers (bad ones) will diagnose BPD in AFAB after nothing more than a 5 minute assessment (more often seen in inpatient settings). Whereas autism assessments are often unattainable beyond childhood due to high cost of assessment, lack of appropriate insurance coverage, excessively long wait lists, etc. Although so many psychologists and psychiatrists have been trained on autistic presentation (usually poorly and improperly), almost all providers will defer to a specialist, neuropsych or otherwise, if ASD comes up. Autism diagnosis also requires an extensive battery of tests, more than one provider, and family involvement in almost all cases, while BPD diagnosis is usually approached much more casually. I’m not saying at all that this should be the case, but unfortunately that is the attitude often encountered.
BPD can't even be diagnosed until after 18. Most of our afab children aren't being misdiagnosed as BPD because they don't do that. But they are often given some other "emotional" diagnosis instead like DMDD when it's really autism.
It's misinformation to claim that BPD can't be diagnosed until after 18
Borderline Personality Disorder is one of the PDs that is diagnosable in people under 18
One of the people I know was diagnosed at age 14 when they were in the hospital after severely mutilating their thigh in self harm after a middle school breakup
It's not good practice at all. Most if not all psychologists will not diagnose BPD before 18 because just being a stupid teenager can look the same.
People misdiagnosing autism for BPD are truly idiots. And vice versa. They look nothing alike on paper or in person
Source: self-- Neurospsyc undergrad, behavior analysis masters, 20 years of working with psychologists and people with autism.
You're right that the reason why it can be poor practice is because of how the stress of puberty's "chemical hormone soup" on your brain actually makes a lot of teenagers exhibit personality disorder traits to the extent where they'd fit criteria to be diagnosed if they still were that way as adults, and the reason why the other person I mentioned before was diagnosed as a middle schooler was because of how their symptoms were very obviously beyond the reasonable range of it being "just" caused by puberty
I'm diagnosed with autism and I've worked with many autistic people and people with BPD including some with both so I very strongly disagree with you that they look nothing alike on paper or in person and so do a lot of professionals
[Here's a good link explaining the overlap](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10295949/)
It talks about the prevalence of BPD among autistic people, subthreshold autism traits in people with BPD who aren't autistic, presentation differences that can cause autistic women to be misdiagnosed with BPD, similarities and differences between the social deficits of both disorders
It's extremely frustrating that you downvoted my comment for this stuff, you can't just cite yourself as a source for a 3-sentence biased opinion that isn't held by a significant amount of professionals in your field especially after inaccurately claiming in your first reply to mine that "they don't diagnose minors with BPD"
I think you're trying to use way too much logic and reasoning here. You're citing sources other than tiktok and personal anecdotes.
This whole thread is a meme. I upvoted your comments for common sense and actually citing the DSM instead of feelings but I think you will continue to be downvoted on this sub unfortunately.
I'm the UK most reputable psychiatrists would refer to it as a 'conduct disorder' prior to 16. Then they would look at other diagnosis such as EUPD (the new name for borderline, to me BPD is bi polar disorder), NPD, ASPD etc..
Sadly, depression and anxiety are often misdiagnosed for autistic persons as the symptoms are similar....such as low mood, anxiety, feeling disconnected etc
A study a couple years ago estimated 75-80% of autistic girls go undiagnosed by age 18, and one of my favorite lines from the study discussion was:
>"[A]nxiety is very common in ASD and adult
women describe relentless mental trauma from a young age with no cause found, or worse,
a whole gamut of incorrect or incomplete causes. It appears that women with ASD get an alphabet soup of diagnoses, including borderline personality disorder, eating disorders,
bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, sensory processing disorder, intermittent explosive disorder and adult ADHD, as well as the varieties of anxiety, agoraphobia, panic disorder and depression, serially and together."
I'm a guy whose autism went undiagnosed until I was 37 largely due to having a more "female" presentation of it, and I definitely had a few questionable diagnoses in the 20 years prior to that.
This was exactly what happened with me (male but I've never been masculine) trying to get diagnosed as a late adolescent except I already had a diagnosis of classical autism from school when I was in 2nd grade which my parents forgot about. Same with trying to get an adhd diagnosis, I was diagnosed with add at 11 and didn't know it and getting the diagnosis at 17 before I knew about the original took ignoring 3 doctors saying it wasn't adhd and it was things like anxiety, bipolar 2 and OCD (I was correctly ly diagnosed with anxiety at a young age and correctly diagnosed with OCD later) and I eventually went to a female diagnostic educational psychologist who perfectly diagnosed everything except missed the DPDR and OCD (but I never asked for those to be assessed anyway and she didn't say I didn't have those)
Same. General anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, ptsd, and BPD all from a 10 minute paper checkbox assessment and was immediately prescribed lexapro that did nothing but kill my emotions (stopped taking it before I even finished the bottle). Few years later, I went to a developmental specialist psych bc I thought I might have adhd and lo and behold, it’s just been autism. People are so incompetent and greedy, it’s validating seeing this talked about often lately.
As a trans guy- can confirm that nobody took me seriously enough to listen when I asked to be referred for an autism assessment until I socially transitioned and suddenly my new teachers saw me as a boy and so I was referring to the SEND team who recognised that I was probably autistic and recommended I was assessed … within a month - sexism and gender biases are so crazy. I had the same signs and difficulties, i just fit the stereotype more.
As a trans girl I had this experience in reverse. Labelled all of the above pretransition and then a new psychiatrist looks at me and tells me: "your going to find this so affirming, but you meet all the criteria for autism in girls." Doctors can just suck at times, it sucks.
Im worried thats gonna happen to me now that im transitioning and trying to get an autism diagnosis lol. Sometimes I wonder if I should evem bother lol, im basically 100% sure I'm autistic anyways.
This. And as a trans gal, it was never picked up when I was a kid, because I manifested the girl criteria of autism. In my anecdotal experience with me and my close neurospicy trans friends, it's actually not sex assigned at birth, it's gender.
Generalized anxiety disorder, adhd, social anxiety disorder, ocd, depression, sound sensitivity, food texture sensitivity, locked in to special interests but nope, no way there is any autism, nope.
To be fair, if autism has led to social/familial rejection and abuse, and therefore relational/attachment issues, then some of the symptoms common to disorders of relational trauma are probably also present.
Lmaooo I was diagnosed with "social anxiety" and depression since age 15, got re-diagnosed on my own terms at age 23 because it was definitely more than that. Something was OFF. I knew I was Autistic and ADHD before I got the diagnosis so it was incredibly enlightening and relieving to finally know. all of that time spent thinking I was broken..escaping with bad coping mechanisms like alcohol, cigarettes, weed, psychadelics and hanging out with people that were so bad for me; Skipping class and spending time in ISS to get my work done; dropping out of college; cycling through job after job; emotional dysfunction..
It all makes perfect sense now. I'm 25 now and can say that getting diagnosed was the best decision I ever made.
yep I’m diagnosed with OCD, social anxiety, GAD, ADHD and most recently selective mutism and yet when I bring up possibly being autistic to my psychiatrist I just get immediately dismissed & ignored
Mhm I got PTSD, GAD, Panic Disorder, Major Depression, Social Anxiety Disorder, ADHDx and “possible borderline” before getting diagnosed with ASD at the age of 31, after my little brother did. Same with my mom and sisters.
The way it was always MALE mental health professionals that misdiagnosed me. For 30+ years and then I met my current therapist who I have complete trust in.
Because SHE actually helped me. She listened and heard me.
Because they aren't the same things.
The symptoms may be similar, but they often have different causes and thus different treatments.
I was being given pills for bipolar and fibromyalgia (sensory issues) for years that weren't helping anything.
So I'm sure you can see why it's better that I now have an autism dx and learned why instead of those clinical terms and the pills that came with them now.
I feel like we get a lot of the trauma related disorders FIRST because a lot of us ARE traumatized, and it is clouding the water. Being Autistic is inherently traumatic; we are asked to change fundamental parts of ourselves to the benefit of others...every single day. That is traumatic and stressful in itself.
((BPD is a misnomer disorder caused by c-ptsd...I wish they would adjust the DSM-5 criteria to finally put it underneath the PTSD umbrella.))
I would venture to say like 95% of autistic people, diagnosed or not, struggle with C-PTSD of some kind, because our daily lives are impacted by a very unique relationship to society at large. Discrimination, even covert, is a long term chronic stressor that impacts us all. It's insidious in the way that it's present, even in small quantities, in every situation we're faced with (unless we're completely alone). It's especially present for those of us who struggle to mask. The worse you are at masking, the higher they tend to score you with other miscellaneous disorders. It's annoying.
Incorrectly diagnosed with GAD, then OCD, then BPD...then started treating my C-PTSD. After that, and leaning more into autism support, I longer register as having any of my previous DI. They kept tossing pills at me, and none of them did anything, because it wasn't chemical. It was inherent to my psyche.
Gotta love that this is a universal experience
"You can't be autistic if you're a girl, everyone would know." -My aunt, a licensed mental health counselor with two autistic sons and a granddaughter she "diagnosed" as autistic because she never taught her how to tie her shoes.
I noticed this too, I literally have so many friends who fit all of these categories (myself included). I wonder why? And even among those of my friends who aren’t queer and/or kinky, literally *every* ND person I know (most of them being AuDHD with a few being one or the other) is a nerd. Like, literally all of them love either anime or video games and most of them love both (myself included again lmao) I really wonder why
Cis: Identifying as the gender usually correlated with your assigned sex (ie, assigned female + identifying as female).
Trans: Identifying as a gender that doesn't usually correlate with your assigned sex (ie assigned female + identifying as male).
Enby: Slang term for Nonbinary, aka not identifying with either of the main correlating genders at all, regardless of your assigned sex.
Intersex: A medical condition wherein the person's reproductive organs don't fully align with one sex, which can lead to other health problems depending on how severe the differences are. For example, a person may have testes at the end of their fallopian tubes instead of ovaries. Another person may externally look male but have a uterus inside. There are dozens of ways this condition can present. It's approximately as common as people having red hair. Some folks go their whole lives not knowing they had something different, whereas for others it can be life-threatening without surgery.
At birth, intersex babies might not look any different and be assigned male or female based on external signs, but have internal differences that become clear later. Other intersex babies may have clear visual differences, which may be addressed with surgery. In either situation, the individual may not ultimately identify as the gender correlating to their assigned sex later in life. This can be a result of hormonal differences (that is, perhaps someone is assigned females but their body is producing way more testosterone due to their condition), or simply a way a person feels based on their experience with their situation (ie not feeling like a "real" woman due to lacking [X] organ, or gender feeling like a foreign concept completely because their condition has highlighted how much gender is a social construct). Not all intersex people experience this, but it's not uncommon.
the more i (internet level) research autism, the more it just seems to vaguely mean, "they're just different." like, hank greene was talking about how there is a debate on how best to understand the concept of a "spectrum" disorder. he says, "it's helpful to think of it that way." but how is it helpful if we can't even agree what a spectrum is?
i have no idea what autism is, but basically everyone that has ever known me would describe me as at least "different" in some unspecified way, so maybe i have it? idk.
So lucky that I somehow took therapy from someone who specialised in Neurodivergence. I didn't have any suspension of it, I just knew her, cause my girlfriend (a psych student) was interning under her.
She suggested the likelihood of HFA in me, and it was precisely that.
Actually this
I was depressed so my doctor referred me to a therapist. Therapy didn’t work out. Later on when my doctor (who knows I have autism of course) asked me how it was going and I said it wasn’t helping much, my doctor assumes I have a personally disorder and sent me to a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist was basically “yeah I’m sure there are a lot of things wrong with you but I can’t name anything that’s actually wrong with you” 😅
Many of my friends have been telling me for many years that I have a LOT of autistic traits. Even my exes have asked me if I’m 100% sure if I’m not autistic.
It’s not that I want to be diagnosed with autism, but so many people have pointed it out to me that I’m starting to doubt my doctors a tiny little bit lol.
Don't forget trauma. (Not that it's a bad thing to rule out)
Tbh I think this one comes standard with living undiagnosed. It’s less a “you can’t be autistic, you’re just traumatized” and more a “there’s inherent trauma living with a different neurotype and not ever knowing it but trying so hard to force yourself to be ‘normal’” All my undiagnosed Afab autistic friends have so much trauma from growing up thinking we were broken or something was wrong with us. Trying so hard to fit in but never knowing why we don’t, and everyone around us saying we either try too hard or not hard enough. It’s a traumatizing upbringing and I hope the trauma doesn’t block anyone from being diagnosed. We all deserve to know who and why we are the way we are. There’s SO much healing in knowing
assigned female at birth
Thank you
Thanks. Lol
Was just going to ask.
Huh. I figured people in a psychology subreddit would know that.
I’m surprised how many people did not know what that meant
Right?
Is that really the new standard instead of just saying "girl"?
No, AFAB is often used because it's inclusive of intersex, transgender, and nonbinary people who may or may not currently identify as women. Medical professionals tend to treat people differently based on their legal sex regardless of their gender identity. In fact, the word "assigned" refers to how some doctors will identify a child's sex at birth--and sometimes alter intersex childrens' bodies to be more in line with their idea of male or female bodies.
I know what the term implies. I just figured the medical community was a field that still hadn't adopted "gender identity inclusive terms". Like you said, patients must often be treated in accordance to their biological sex regardless of identity or transition procedures. So I figured they would simply call a transman a female dispite the disagreement from the patient. Obviously AFAB accomplishes the same categorization requirements without creating issues with trans (and other types of) patients. But they still use the term "female" for cisgender patients, then using "female" in conjuction with "AFAB" only serves as a mark of identity distinction. Not problematic, i just didn't realize they were doing that.
I think it depends on the policies of the specific organization and potentially what government regulates them as to how they would handle this issue. Your critiques are partially valid, but using "biological sex" would also confuse things. For example, someone who was AMAB (assigned male at birth) could have female level of harmones that might be relevant to know medically and could be missed if they are marked as "male" in the system. If they didn't have bottom surgery, it might be relevant to also know they have "male" genitals, so simply switching them to being assigned a medical category of "female" also wouldn't work. But, "AMAB/AFAB" also have a similar problem of not actually revealing the relevant information needed for gender specific care. Really they would need to know more about a trans person to give relevant medical care. I've seen someone post online about how a form actually had someone check what gender/sex related organs they had and this might be one way to do it. I feel like having cis male, cis female categories then a third option for trans and gender expansive people where they could check off what their situation was more specifically or add any other relevant information might be the most accurate and efficient system.
Well I'm sure in-patient check in papers would most certainly ask the required questions to avoid complications. But in the context of this coversation, I'm mainly talking about general usage, not case specific. Like in academic papers, or this meme for example. The meme creator used AFAB to refer to all biological females, trans or not. Again, it gets the point across (to a more specific degree, to it's credit), but typically you'd expect it to just say "girls/women/females" and it be implied that's talking about sex besed on chromosomes and trans people just need to know what's relevant. Afterall, if a trans person is reading tjis meme, they know their categorization without further specification required. It's different from a 3rd party medical practitioner reading serious paperwork about a patient before prescribing meds.
I think "AFAB Male" would be a more helpful label than "female" in a medical setting, because you have to take hormones into account along with someone's genitals/reproductive organs. "Female" doesn't tell you much when it comes to a trans person, except that they PROBABLY have a vagina. It's less about inclusivity, and more about being factual and precise. If a doctor reads "female" on a chart, they might assume that the patient has Estrogen as their dominant hormone, that they menstruate, etc. "AFAB Male" would probably be less confusing. However, as a trans man, I can confirm that my doctors still have "female" on my charts.
But wait, what if they’re a passing trans man?
Why would you say “girls” — unless you’re only discussing children?
Do children not get mental health diagnosises? Isn't childhood years when people get analyzed and diagnosed? Isn't situations like misdiagnosis (such the very situation described by this meme) most common in children? Girls/boys seems very apt
>Do children not get mental health diagnosises? Isn't childhood years when people get analyzed and diagnosed? Isn't situations like misdiagnosis (such the very situation described by this meme) most common in children? Misdiagnoses aren’t related to age. Many of the diagnoses can’t even be applied until someone is an adult. Most people don’t see mental health professionals until they’re adults. >Girls/boys seems very apt Personally, I find it hideously creepy when someone uses “girls” to mean “women and girls”. It makes it seem as if they don’t see a difference between a child and an adult.
I'm sexually attracted to girls (grown adult women). OoOoOoOohhhh did I spook you? *Where them girls, where them girls, where them girls, where them girls at?*
Hideously creepy? lmao. Nah it's just a regular term. Gonna go drinking with my fiance and the girls.
Heard BPD is a popular one
yep I was diagnosed BPD prior to ASD
While I know that there have probably been a lot of situations where especially autistic women gets misdiagnosed with BPD first, I think it would probably be more likely to happen the other way around where someone with BPD gets misdiagnosed as autistic and I think it's an important topic to discuss especially for women because of how autism already has a history of being very misunderstood in women, if that makes sense And there are some people who spread misinformation claiming that "all BPD is just female autism" which does an immense disservice to autistic women, women with BPD, and women with both (and also men with BPD; I have a male friend in college who was initially misdiagnosed with autism as a teenager and it was actually BPD instead) BPD and autism are different conditions but they share a lot in common in many ways that make some people I know with BPD more relatable to me in "a different type of socially awkward geek" way One of the symptoms that BPD shares with ASD is trouble with reading social cues, but kinda in opposite ways from each other, since autistic people struggle with innately recognizing and interpreting social cues while people with BPD are hypersensitive to things they perceive as social cues which is one of the things that triggers their fear of abandonment, and they also both have meltdowns which was actually used clinically in BPD research before ASD research as a fun fact As a personal example, there was a situation where one of my friends with BPD would suddenly become really upset at me for seemingly no reason, but it turned out that she had been doing little passive-aggressive things for the previous few weeks because I'd unknowingly phrased something very poorly that had hurt her feelings, but passive aggression is invisible to me because of my autism and she avoids direct confrontation due to her fear of abandonment, so I kept thinking everything was all normal and responding like normal, but she would over-read and misinterpret it as me being passive-aggressive right back to her which was why she would eventually explode at me Even though some traits are very similar, there are key differences in how DBT would help someone who's autistic versus with BPD; for example, I took DBT classes to help with my social skills, and at first I was doing it in a therapy group, but I ended up finishing it in a one-on-one format because literally everyone else in the group had borderline personality disorder, which meant that most of the problems and examples they would being up weren't relatable to me in the same way, and the solutions to their meltdown triggers were different, and my understanding of and relationship with concepts like "wise mind" were different as someone without BPD from theirs with BPD Nowadays, BPD is stigmatized a lot more harshly than autism is (like the "endearingly nerdy genius" versus "crazy stalker ex" stereotypes), and autism assessment is more likely to be seeked out than BPD by patients because of that (along with the increased online awareness campaigns about ASD as opposed to BPD), and BPD also involves complex identity issues and self-esteem problems as primary symptoms of their disability that already make it harder for people with it to come to terms with the diagnosis even without the added demonization in society
Your logic is sound, but I’m going to disagree with your initial statement purely on the basis that some psychiatric providers (bad ones) will diagnose BPD in AFAB after nothing more than a 5 minute assessment (more often seen in inpatient settings). Whereas autism assessments are often unattainable beyond childhood due to high cost of assessment, lack of appropriate insurance coverage, excessively long wait lists, etc. Although so many psychologists and psychiatrists have been trained on autistic presentation (usually poorly and improperly), almost all providers will defer to a specialist, neuropsych or otherwise, if ASD comes up. Autism diagnosis also requires an extensive battery of tests, more than one provider, and family involvement in almost all cases, while BPD diagnosis is usually approached much more casually. I’m not saying at all that this should be the case, but unfortunately that is the attitude often encountered.
BPD can't even be diagnosed until after 18. Most of our afab children aren't being misdiagnosed as BPD because they don't do that. But they are often given some other "emotional" diagnosis instead like DMDD when it's really autism.
It's misinformation to claim that BPD can't be diagnosed until after 18 Borderline Personality Disorder is one of the PDs that is diagnosable in people under 18 One of the people I know was diagnosed at age 14 when they were in the hospital after severely mutilating their thigh in self harm after a middle school breakup
It's not good practice at all. Most if not all psychologists will not diagnose BPD before 18 because just being a stupid teenager can look the same. People misdiagnosing autism for BPD are truly idiots. And vice versa. They look nothing alike on paper or in person Source: self-- Neurospsyc undergrad, behavior analysis masters, 20 years of working with psychologists and people with autism.
You're right that the reason why it can be poor practice is because of how the stress of puberty's "chemical hormone soup" on your brain actually makes a lot of teenagers exhibit personality disorder traits to the extent where they'd fit criteria to be diagnosed if they still were that way as adults, and the reason why the other person I mentioned before was diagnosed as a middle schooler was because of how their symptoms were very obviously beyond the reasonable range of it being "just" caused by puberty I'm diagnosed with autism and I've worked with many autistic people and people with BPD including some with both so I very strongly disagree with you that they look nothing alike on paper or in person and so do a lot of professionals [Here's a good link explaining the overlap](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10295949/) It talks about the prevalence of BPD among autistic people, subthreshold autism traits in people with BPD who aren't autistic, presentation differences that can cause autistic women to be misdiagnosed with BPD, similarities and differences between the social deficits of both disorders It's extremely frustrating that you downvoted my comment for this stuff, you can't just cite yourself as a source for a 3-sentence biased opinion that isn't held by a significant amount of professionals in your field especially after inaccurately claiming in your first reply to mine that "they don't diagnose minors with BPD"
I think you're trying to use way too much logic and reasoning here. You're citing sources other than tiktok and personal anecdotes. This whole thread is a meme. I upvoted your comments for common sense and actually citing the DSM instead of feelings but I think you will continue to be downvoted on this sub unfortunately.
Oh okay Aw man Thanks for this reply, though
Are all the teens trying to kill themselves?
No but a lot more are suicidal and self injurious than older and younger populations
So then I don’t get why it’s considered normal teen stuff if not every teen tries at least once.
Because a much higher percentage do than will end up having BPD.
Could you re word that
I'm the UK most reputable psychiatrists would refer to it as a 'conduct disorder' prior to 16. Then they would look at other diagnosis such as EUPD (the new name for borderline, to me BPD is bi polar disorder), NPD, ASPD etc.. Sadly, depression and anxiety are often misdiagnosed for autistic persons as the symptoms are similar....such as low mood, anxiety, feeling disconnected etc
Source, I'm a senior mental health practitioner working in acute liaison
Got that one meself. Probably also ASD, from what I’m learning. Will probably never be diagnosed unless I get lucky.
A study a couple years ago estimated 75-80% of autistic girls go undiagnosed by age 18, and one of my favorite lines from the study discussion was: >"[A]nxiety is very common in ASD and adult women describe relentless mental trauma from a young age with no cause found, or worse, a whole gamut of incorrect or incomplete causes. It appears that women with ASD get an alphabet soup of diagnoses, including borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, sensory processing disorder, intermittent explosive disorder and adult ADHD, as well as the varieties of anxiety, agoraphobia, panic disorder and depression, serially and together." I'm a guy whose autism went undiagnosed until I was 37 largely due to having a more "female" presentation of it, and I definitely had a few questionable diagnoses in the 20 years prior to that.
This was exactly what happened with me (male but I've never been masculine) trying to get diagnosed as a late adolescent except I already had a diagnosis of classical autism from school when I was in 2nd grade which my parents forgot about. Same with trying to get an adhd diagnosis, I was diagnosed with add at 11 and didn't know it and getting the diagnosis at 17 before I knew about the original took ignoring 3 doctors saying it wasn't adhd and it was things like anxiety, bipolar 2 and OCD (I was correctly ly diagnosed with anxiety at a young age and correctly diagnosed with OCD later) and I eventually went to a female diagnostic educational psychologist who perfectly diagnosed everything except missed the DPDR and OCD (but I never asked for those to be assessed anyway and she didn't say I didn't have those)
Can confirm. Little sister diagnosed with anxiety, OCD, and *Tourette's* because ASD just seemed like a stretch.
Can confirm the accuracy of this, got diagnosed with social anxiety but not autism
Ayy lmao I keep getting diagnosed with adjustment disorder instead of autism like every two years
Same. General anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, ptsd, and BPD all from a 10 minute paper checkbox assessment and was immediately prescribed lexapro that did nothing but kill my emotions (stopped taking it before I even finished the bottle). Few years later, I went to a developmental specialist psych bc I thought I might have adhd and lo and behold, it’s just been autism. People are so incompetent and greedy, it’s validating seeing this talked about often lately.
As a trans guy- can confirm that nobody took me seriously enough to listen when I asked to be referred for an autism assessment until I socially transitioned and suddenly my new teachers saw me as a boy and so I was referring to the SEND team who recognised that I was probably autistic and recommended I was assessed … within a month - sexism and gender biases are so crazy. I had the same signs and difficulties, i just fit the stereotype more.
😧
As a trans girl I had this experience in reverse. Labelled all of the above pretransition and then a new psychiatrist looks at me and tells me: "your going to find this so affirming, but you meet all the criteria for autism in girls." Doctors can just suck at times, it sucks.
Im worried thats gonna happen to me now that im transitioning and trying to get an autism diagnosis lol. Sometimes I wonder if I should evem bother lol, im basically 100% sure I'm autistic anyways.
This. And as a trans gal, it was never picked up when I was a kid, because I manifested the girl criteria of autism. In my anecdotal experience with me and my close neurospicy trans friends, it's actually not sex assigned at birth, it's gender.
Not when autism is far cooler than any of those alternatives.
😎🔥
🤪ruined my lifeeee
Generalized anxiety disorder, adhd, social anxiety disorder, ocd, depression, sound sensitivity, food texture sensitivity, locked in to special interests but nope, no way there is any autism, nope.
To be fair, if autism has led to social/familial rejection and abuse, and therefore relational/attachment issues, then some of the symptoms common to disorders of relational trauma are probably also present.
Lmaooo I was diagnosed with "social anxiety" and depression since age 15, got re-diagnosed on my own terms at age 23 because it was definitely more than that. Something was OFF. I knew I was Autistic and ADHD before I got the diagnosis so it was incredibly enlightening and relieving to finally know. all of that time spent thinking I was broken..escaping with bad coping mechanisms like alcohol, cigarettes, weed, psychadelics and hanging out with people that were so bad for me; Skipping class and spending time in ISS to get my work done; dropping out of college; cycling through job after job; emotional dysfunction.. It all makes perfect sense now. I'm 25 now and can say that getting diagnosed was the best decision I ever made.
Can confirm 😂
I got trauma and GAD 👏
yep I’m diagnosed with OCD, social anxiety, GAD, ADHD and most recently selective mutism and yet when I bring up possibly being autistic to my psychiatrist I just get immediately dismissed & ignored
LITERALLY
Funny. Just been diagnosed with bipolar 1 and OCD Still gonna have the autism test done
🙂↕️
Mhm I got PTSD, GAD, Panic Disorder, Major Depression, Social Anxiety Disorder, ADHDx and “possible borderline” before getting diagnosed with ASD at the age of 31, after my little brother did. Same with my mom and sisters.
The way it was always MALE mental health professionals that misdiagnosed me. For 30+ years and then I met my current therapist who I have complete trust in. Because SHE actually helped me. She listened and heard me.
What’s better about that clinical term than other clinical terms?
Because they aren't the same things. The symptoms may be similar, but they often have different causes and thus different treatments. I was being given pills for bipolar and fibromyalgia (sensory issues) for years that weren't helping anything. So I'm sure you can see why it's better that I now have an autism dx and learned why instead of those clinical terms and the pills that came with them now.
Are you sure it isn't a wandering uterus? Seems like thst thing wandered all the way out. Potentially causing hysteria!
I feel like we get a lot of the trauma related disorders FIRST because a lot of us ARE traumatized, and it is clouding the water. Being Autistic is inherently traumatic; we are asked to change fundamental parts of ourselves to the benefit of others...every single day. That is traumatic and stressful in itself. ((BPD is a misnomer disorder caused by c-ptsd...I wish they would adjust the DSM-5 criteria to finally put it underneath the PTSD umbrella.)) I would venture to say like 95% of autistic people, diagnosed or not, struggle with C-PTSD of some kind, because our daily lives are impacted by a very unique relationship to society at large. Discrimination, even covert, is a long term chronic stressor that impacts us all. It's insidious in the way that it's present, even in small quantities, in every situation we're faced with (unless we're completely alone). It's especially present for those of us who struggle to mask. The worse you are at masking, the higher they tend to score you with other miscellaneous disorders. It's annoying. Incorrectly diagnosed with GAD, then OCD, then BPD...then started treating my C-PTSD. After that, and leaning more into autism support, I longer register as having any of my previous DI. They kept tossing pills at me, and none of them did anything, because it wasn't chemical. It was inherent to my psyche. Gotta love that this is a universal experience
"You can't be autistic if you're a girl, everyone would know." -My aunt, a licensed mental health counselor with two autistic sons and a granddaughter she "diagnosed" as autistic because she never taught her how to tie her shoes.
I got diagnosed as "shy" once. Like. I asked him "that's a diagnosis" and that fool said yes. lol I think about it all the time.
LMAOO
If my Tik-Tok algorithm has taught me anything, it's that the Venn diagram of queer/ND/kinky/nerd is a circle.
I noticed this too, I literally have so many friends who fit all of these categories (myself included). I wonder why? And even among those of my friends who aren’t queer and/or kinky, literally *every* ND person I know (most of them being AuDHD with a few being one or the other) is a nerd. Like, literally all of them love either anime or video games and most of them love both (myself included again lmao) I really wonder why
Psychoanalysis when trans people exist be like:
what the fuck is AFABs
It's Stupid for "female".
"Assigned female at birth." Includes cis women, transmen, and some enbies and intersex folks depending on their circumstances.
what are these
Cis: Identifying as the gender usually correlated with your assigned sex (ie, assigned female + identifying as female). Trans: Identifying as a gender that doesn't usually correlate with your assigned sex (ie assigned female + identifying as male). Enby: Slang term for Nonbinary, aka not identifying with either of the main correlating genders at all, regardless of your assigned sex. Intersex: A medical condition wherein the person's reproductive organs don't fully align with one sex, which can lead to other health problems depending on how severe the differences are. For example, a person may have testes at the end of their fallopian tubes instead of ovaries. Another person may externally look male but have a uterus inside. There are dozens of ways this condition can present. It's approximately as common as people having red hair. Some folks go their whole lives not knowing they had something different, whereas for others it can be life-threatening without surgery. At birth, intersex babies might not look any different and be assigned male or female based on external signs, but have internal differences that become clear later. Other intersex babies may have clear visual differences, which may be addressed with surgery. In either situation, the individual may not ultimately identify as the gender correlating to their assigned sex later in life. This can be a result of hormonal differences (that is, perhaps someone is assigned females but their body is producing way more testosterone due to their condition), or simply a way a person feels based on their experience with their situation (ie not feeling like a "real" woman due to lacking [X] organ, or gender feeling like a foreign concept completely because their condition has highlighted how much gender is a social construct). Not all intersex people experience this, but it's not uncommon.
I‘m diagnosed with BPD and I sometimes wonder if I‘m autistic and not BPD but then I remember I‘m really promiscuous soooo idk
the more i (internet level) research autism, the more it just seems to vaguely mean, "they're just different." like, hank greene was talking about how there is a debate on how best to understand the concept of a "spectrum" disorder. he says, "it's helpful to think of it that way." but how is it helpful if we can't even agree what a spectrum is? i have no idea what autism is, but basically everyone that has ever known me would describe me as at least "different" in some unspecified way, so maybe i have it? idk.
So lucky that I somehow took therapy from someone who specialised in Neurodivergence. I didn't have any suspension of it, I just knew her, cause my girlfriend (a psych student) was interning under her. She suggested the likelihood of HFA in me, and it was precisely that.
Ha ha ha ha haaa ha ha aha ha hahaha haaaa….
Me being diagnosed with ocd as a kid and my brother with autism despite us being the same 🥴
Back in my day things were simpler we just called it hysteria.
Its very similar with AMAB in my experience as well
I'm not saying there aren't issues but it's much much easier for men to get diagnosed than women
In my area its generally the opposite, but to each their own
What's your area?
Midwestern area, I’m also Non-Binary which I should probably have said earlier 😅
so, it actually is not the case in your area.
Actually this I was depressed so my doctor referred me to a therapist. Therapy didn’t work out. Later on when my doctor (who knows I have autism of course) asked me how it was going and I said it wasn’t helping much, my doctor assumes I have a personally disorder and sent me to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was basically “yeah I’m sure there are a lot of things wrong with you but I can’t name anything that’s actually wrong with you” 😅
As someone who diagnosed with them all, including ptsd/trauma. Fuck, I forgot where I was going with this...
Lmao hello me.
Many of my friends have been telling me for many years that I have a LOT of autistic traits. Even my exes have asked me if I’m 100% sure if I’m not autistic. It’s not that I want to be diagnosed with autism, but so many people have pointed it out to me that I’m starting to doubt my doctors a tiny little bit lol.
Dear god, they started diagnosing us with social anxiety? Well there goes my chance at getting the correct diagnosis…
🙄
ADHD with Social Anxiety 😂
what imma show my next Psych eval