DD just been diagnosed at 18 with BPD.
I'm not sure this is the correct diagnosis. I've been reading that autism can be underdiagnosed in young girls and often their masking attempts and trauma from being invalidated can lead to presentations that look like BPD.
I'm worried I've somehow causes this by not having her assessed for autism as a kid. She had friends but she was a bit of a "loner", very introverted, needed lots of time alone, her own space so she didn't become overtired and stressed. Spent a lot of time playing videogames and reading, or with figures. Good at imaginative play on her own, not as good at playing how other kids wanted her too.
But, she seems able to read facial expressions. Sometime she does attribute things to tone or voice and facial expression, even if the person says it wasn't what they were thinking/feeling, she will say they are a liar because their face showed X emotion. But I don't think this is the same as with autistic people when they genuinely can't read the expressions at all? She can detect sarcasm and understands figures of speech like idioms etc and won't take everything literally, she's very good at writing stories. But, she can get very black/white in her thinking and stubborn about it.
She has never enjoyed eye contact, a lot of the time would walk down the street looking at the ground/her feet and the path ahead. She seems to have gotten better at this as she has become older.
She always had issues with people talking in absolutes or generalisations you because "technically that's not correct, not all members of a group feel the same way so you shouldn't speak like that". She is exactly the type of young woman who would NAMALT if someone said something about men's behaviour generally, because to her it doesn't make sense to talk in general terms about a group of individuals, she says you should always use qualifiers such as "some", "most", "the majority" etc.
But the main thing that I've been thinking about is that she would... Stim might be the word ?
So she has always ripped the skin off her lips until their are sore and bleeding. She says the sensation is comforting and also that when the skin begins to grow back she is very aware of her lips texture feeling weird.
When she got excited she would "flutter" her hands (this is what we all ended up calling it), where she would shake her hands like they are limp at the wrist. She was teased for this at primary school and just stopped doing it... so they would be told they are going to make posters, and she loved things like that, so she would flutter her hands because of the excitement... But now at time I catch her raising her arms up above her head and behind it, and then scratching her middle and index finger against her thumbs, and she will often zone out while she does it. I've asked what it does for her, she says it just feels like a natural thing to do and it helps her think about things calmy. She doesn't do it around her friends though and does feel embarrassed when I've witnessed it. It seems she is aware that it is "abnormal"?
She still destroys her lips. Now she picks at her skin (this stared at age 14 after the anorexia and when she seemed to be more angry and depressive, explosive etc). She has scarring on her arms and nothing seems to stop her picking at them. She says at the time it feels good but she hates how it makes her arms look. Excoriation disorder ?
She refused any tight clothes as a kid, so no jeans, only elastic waistband and gypsy skirts or cargo pants and the like, baggy tops. She suffered from anorexia in her preteens, I am unsure if I just attributed not liking the feeling of a tight waist band to this, but it came years before that developed tbh
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Although when she got older as a teen she did start wearing tight clothes, but now has stopped again. Maybe she was trying to do what everyone else her age did at the time?
She would often lie (again now sure this would fit with me wondering if she could be autistic) to friends about being busy so she wouldn't have to go out with them, because she simply enjoys her own company. She knows what is right and wrong, but rude or not, but she seems to not care about what is socially thought of that way, only if she feels bad about it. So, if she feels doing X is wrong then it's wrong, but if general morals say it's wrong to lie, she won't necessarily agree, she might point out a scenario where the morally right thing could be to lie.
She says she does love and care about her friends but she doesn't need to socialise with them as much as they seem to want. She seems to have her own world inside her head that she retreats into a lot. She says she daydreams a lot, whole fantasy worlds and adventures etc.
She understands social rules though and will follow them? She will question these norms or expectations at times though, even if she seems able to get the idea and follow it, it doesn't seem to distress her... and I've noticed a burning desire to defend the underdog, so she would often get in trouble in secondary school when she thought a teacher was being unfair to a student, she would involve herself and defend the student to her own detriment.
Idk. I'm just wondering if I've missed something and this is really BPD or if she's developed BPD because we missed something else? Or this diagnosis is just not what she has at all? She has been abusing drugs and dropped out of college, and does seem to have really big mood swings (that started with the anorexia). Like she will blow-up at me because she feels I've misinterpreted her as having attitude, that I've been unfair (something being unfair in her eyes is a massive trigger), and she will trash her room and scream and cry like it's the end of the world. I'm not sure she understands how she comes across sometimes? Idk. But then, she will calm down really quickly, but the expect everyone else in the house to be over it too, because she is over it. She can't understand why we are still upset because in her mind it is now over, and me still being frustrated with her is seen as "me trying to carry it on, being horrible to her" etc. It's like because her own emotions are intense and short, she thinks everyone else's are the same. She does struggle to see other people's point of view at times.
She is good at debating, her uncle always said she was a "lawyer in the making" because of her ability to pick apart the wording people have used, the implications of it, how it doesn't mean what the person intended, that there is a loop-hole or whatever.
She doesn't like or deal well with last minute plans. If she can get out of them through lying she will because she feels rushed. She does come across as lazy at times, she says she just can't go from one thing to the next because her brain is very loud.
She doesn't have issues with focusing on things, but seem to struggle with her executive functions, e.g. she has said at times she knows X needs doing, she knows how to do X, she know she will feel better when X is done, but she will procrastinate and feel unable to start it. A lot of her school homework was completed last minute and she's admitted often doing homework the night before in bed. Good grades though.
She is clumsy and often has bruises she can't remember getting. She says she doesn't get how people cope with driving because you have to pay attention to the road signs, the paint on the road, other cars, look in all your mirrors, indicate, do the gears, and people listen to music or have other people in the car talking them too?
She has shown fear of driving and doesn't want to learn because she says it's too many tasks at once and it seems impossible. There are too many other cars and possibilities etc.
She says she never has a calm brain and she has been oversleeping lately , she says sleep is peaceful and she always has vivid dreams and sometimes conscious dreams.
When she is stressed with lots going on in her head, e.g. lots of tasks and schedules and deadlines for things, it seems to physically hurt and distress her. She says she can't keep track of everything in her head, that there is too much in there. She seems to think random things a lot, so she says she will be speaking to someone about homework and randomly get thoughts about zebras thrown in, she doesn't then blurt these thoughts out, but she is just always thinking.
Writing lists is important to her and seems a genuine need, not just for remembering things, but because she says writing it down "takes it out" of her brain and relieves the pressure.
She struggles with being on-time. She says time goes very quickly and she doesn't understand how people fit jobs and hobbies and chores and family into a day, when she is currently doing none of that and still feels like she doesn't have enough time. She sounds so much time just thinking and preparing for things. I often have to tell her we are due somewhere at 11am, even if we aren't due until 12pm, because then we will get there on time.
I really don't know and I know you won't either. I'm just feeling bad at the moment and I guess ranting and going through everything. 
She has been with CAMHS ever since the eating disorder. But my fear is that by the time services became involved with her (12), that she had possibly developed sufficient masking? So maybe it wasn't picked up. They didn't come out with the "possible emerging personality disorder" until she was 17... And it was DD who went to them and said "this sounds like me I fit a lot of the symptoms", and they agreed with her.
So I guess if DD feels BPD matches, I should drop it? Not sure I can do anything anyway. I'm just a bit worried that if this is a misdiagnosis she isn't getting the help she needs and it's partly my fault.