BPD; same thing as Atypical Depression?

ajr8 wrote:Everyone here knows about BPD, do you know what Atypical Depression is?

Basics of Depression
1. Intense feelings of emptiness and sadness
2. Loss of interest and pleasure in most activities
Features of Atypical Depression
1. Hypersomnia; sleeping too much
2. Increased appetite or over eating, often leading to disordered eating
3. Mood reactivity; depressive symptoms remit or vanish in response to positive events
4. Interpersonal rejection sensitivity, causing severe relationship and interpersonal problems
Facts about Atypical Depression
1. More common in women, and is rarely diagnosed in men
2. The most common subtype of depression
3. Onset starts earlier than other mood disorders
4. Symptoms are more chronic and cause more dysfunction than other mood disorders
5. Commonly co-occurs with eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse

Does any of this sound familiar to any of you? Because it certainly does to me. I see so many similarities with AD and BPD. Does anyone here have a doctor who has mentioned AD to you? There seems to be so much overlap between these two illnesses I'm wondering if there is a connection or if they are like sibling disorders. What do you guys think? Can you identify with AD at all?

ajr8 wrote:Lilyfairy, that's what happens with atypical depression. When something good happens your mood gets better, but it always comes back, it's like having short but very frequent depressive episodes that go away briefly when things start to go well for you, I can relate to that a lot, same for the other AD symptoms.

ajr8 wrote:It makes me wonder if this particular set of problems is always BPD or just this form of depression, it's confusing me a lot lately because they seem so similar.

ajr8 wrote:If you ever received this diagnosis, they would have called it Major Depressive Disorder with Atypical features. I'd be willing to bet that Wellbutrin, which I take in the morning, gets prescribed to people with AD, because that medicine gives you more energy and it decreases your appetite.

atomicuniverse wrote:What I've noticed in the diagnostic criteria for AD is that it doesn't really have symptoms that would be caused by either a major trauma or a malformation in the brain. It looks like CBT in combination with medication therapy would be an appropriate treatment, whereas with BPD, the appropriate treatment is at least 1 year of DBT only in combination with medication if the symptoms are severe enough. Per the all-knowing Wikipedia, it has also been shown in studies that the underlying cause for a lot of people with AD is a thyroid issue, and not severe childhood neglect, abandonment, genetic pre-dispositions and structural differences in the brain that are shown in people with BPD. I think comparing AD to BPD is like comparing something with surface rust that just needs to be sanded down and shined and something that's rusted all the way through and needs a part to be replaced :/