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I've known two women who were diagnosed with BPD that later turned out to be Autism. Their doctors believe BPD traits developed due to the issues their autism h

I've known two women who were diagnosed with BPD that later turned out to be Autism. Their doctors believe BPD traits developed due to the issues their autism had on their socialisation as kids and teens. Getting on Ritalin massively improved their and their families lives. At least in women I suspect more than a few BDP diagnosis mask autism.

jychang 3y ago
Does Ritalin improve autism? It’s an ADHD drug.
- hirvi74 3y ago
  Stimulants improve a lot of things -- ADHD, Depression, Binge Eating Disorder, Narcolepsy, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, etc.. It wouldn't surprise me if stimulants improved Austism in some individuals because, if I recall correctly, I think 60%-70% of people with Autism have ADHD as well.
exmadscientist 3y ago
Ritalin! That's interesting. I have a family member (by marriage, I didn't know her when she was young) who sounds an awful lot like your description. Unfortunately for her getting her "misdiagnosis" "corrected" (her words) seems to have made things a lot worse, at least for family members dealing with her. Splitting behavior doesn't help matters at all. This stuff is so complicated and so hard that we really barely have any handle on any of it. It's important to remember that diagnoses are just words; the map is not, is never, the territory. But I'd never heard of Ritalin as an option here, so thanks for bringing it up. I'll mention it to that side should it be appropriate.... (Tangent: I need a family with better general mental health, myself included. Anyone know where I can get one? Do they sell them at Amazon or do I have to risk AliExpress?)
mapt 3y ago
Unfortunately, there is no "turned out to be autism", just as there is no "turned out to be BPD". We don't have affirmative biomedical tests for these conditions. Until we do, they are just constellations - funny imagined shapes - that we're drawing in a galaxy of traits on display in that person's life. Your picture of a "tree" overlaps about 30% with my picture of a "mushroom". But it's not the case that "First it was identified as a tree but later turned out to be a mushroom". We pretend that these things are distinct biomedical disorders because it makes it easier to talk about them, easier not to literally murder the person displaying them, and (bizarrely) because it's legally required to classify them in order to bill a therapist/psychiatrist for their treatment, but in reality they're parts of a maladaptive personality that just look very roughly similar to other maladaptive personalities we've seen in the past.
- type0 3y ago
  > But it's not the case that "First it was identified as a tree but later turned out to be a mushroom". sometimes a tree can't function without a mushroom and vice versa, a true symbiosis

jychang 3y ago

Does Ritalin improve autism? It’s an ADHD drug.

hirvi74 3y ago
Stimulants improve a lot of things -- ADHD, Depression, Binge Eating Disorder, Narcolepsy, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, etc.. It wouldn't surprise me if stimulants improved Austism in some individuals because, if I recall correctly, I think 60%-70% of people with Autism have ADHD as well.

exmadscientist 3y ago

Ritalin! That's interesting. I have a family member (by marriage, I didn't know her when she was young) who sounds an awful lot like your description. Unfortunately for her getting her "misdiagnosis" "corrected" (her words) seems to have made things a lot worse, at least for family members dealing with her. Splitting behavior doesn't help matters at all. This stuff is so complicated and so hard that we really barely have any handle on any of it. It's important to remember that diagnoses are just words; the map is not, is never, the territory. But I'd never heard of Ritalin as an option here, so thanks for bringing it up. I'll mention it to that side should it be appropriate.... (Tangent: I need a family with better general mental health, myself included. Anyone know where I can get one? Do they sell them at Amazon or do I have to risk AliExpress?)

mapt 3y ago

Unfortunately, there is no "turned out to be autism", just as there is no "turned out to be BPD". We don't have affirmative biomedical tests for these conditions. Until we do, they are just constellations - funny imagined shapes - that we're drawing in a galaxy of traits on display in that person's life. Your picture of a "tree" overlaps about 30% with my picture of a "mushroom". But it's not the case that "First it was identified as a tree but later turned out to be a mushroom". We pretend that these things are distinct biomedical disorders because it makes it easier to talk about them, easier not to literally murder the person displaying them, and (bizarrely) because it's legally required to classify them in order to bill a therapist/psychiatrist for their treatment, but in reality they're parts of a maladaptive personality that just look very roughly similar to other maladaptive personalities we've seen in the past.

type0 3y ago
> But it's not the case that "First it was identified as a tree but later turned out to be a mushroom". sometimes a tree can't function without a mushroom and vice versa, a true symbiosis