I'm new here so be patient.

My pdoc thinks I'm ADHD, and bipolar 2. I was in disbelief, but I may actually see it. I want to share my story. I will talk about suicide a bit so it might be distressing. I am not suicidal now. It's the past stuff. It might be triggering to some viewers. I am questioning my diagnosis, and just sharing my history.

For the past 6 months I had a lot of discomfort. Actually for most of my life especially since age 15, emotional and psychological discomfort were no strangers to me.

In my first episode (age 15) I thought I was manic. Talking real fast calling friends, and acting real hyper. Yelling out in public, even when I am alone. I just had this super over energized feeling. I felt terrified by my own behavior and out of control.

I can remember acting real hyper, and laughing at innapropriate times (my brother witnessed this and would tell his friends, "she's been sick").

Mental illness was a last taboo no one spoke of in my house. I got beaten once and threatened with a mental ward when I began self harming.

It's the darkest secret in my family, next to abuse. My mom refuses to accept that I was ever hospitalized- says it never happened, and that she never tried to hospitalize me.

Quite a few things in my life never happened.

My nickname in highschool was psycho girl. I had a really major depression, and also I think I had a mixed episode at the time. I always had this terrible hyped up feeling. No psychiatrists and no docs were allowed. I was terrified of doctors because how my family used them as threats.

Then I slowly levelled off in my emotions and was just plain normal for a few years until age 22. I was hospitalized and told I had bipolar 2 depression with a mixed episode.

Then I was okay for a few more years. I may have been hypomanic- and just not aware but I completed another diploma with honours in that time. Around age 30 things began to slide again. i became suicidally depressed then. The urge to want to die was overwhelming. My first suicidal ideations began at age 15. I began to talk openly to family about them. they became disturbed or angered by that.

I would constantly ask my mother questions about wanting to die.

I told my brother when my cousin died (I was 18) that I should've been in that coffin- not my cousin.

At age 22 I had a suicidal ideation about finding a town or some remote place and just dying.

I was diagnosed bipolar 2 at age 22, and then told at age 30 it was just depression. i had a depressive suicidal episode then too.

The doctor swore up and down it was not bipolar. Though I think he kept asking about "increased self esteem" which I think is a poor line of questioning for asking about mania, because whenever I thought I was manic I had no self esteem, and felt horrible, and out of control. I could never relate the impulsivity to self esteem. I would laugh at weird stuff, and seek out attention when I was like that.

I was told it was just reacting to PTSD, but I know it was not. Something else was going on. I do have PTSD and flashbacks tend to be very clear and situational based. This was just impulsive behavior I was experiencing. I just felt no control.

Now I am relatively stable. I may need medication soon ( I stopped a regiment 3 months ago, and I am feeling a gradual change and slowing).

Now I tend to get hyperactivity, and just sometimes a feeling of inner unrest. It was quelled by the meds somewhat- topamax.

The ADHD part of me? Well I have problems with feeling overwhelmed by certain situations. Subway rides for instance can be painful. I have to read the paper and listen to a walkman at the same time. I feel great distress if someone disrupts me.

I've had a hard time going out. restaurants can overwhelm me. I know they do other people, but sometimes I feel particularly overwhelmed. I really stopped going to alot of places, and felt affected by that since 2006. It's like I'm over stimulated by my environment.

I have word finding issues when speaking. I open my mouth to say something and it's like my brain just can't get out what I am trying to say. I find it awkward and embarrassing. I feel like some sensory button is broken in my brain.

That's just some experiences to name a few.

I made it through high school, university, and college. I'm not stupid. Lately I just feel that way.

Can ADHD sort of seem like bipolar, and be bipolar. How could I have two separate illnesses? IF I really do have both illnesses.

The only reassuring comment I can make right now is that you aren't alone. I'm in a very similar situation trying to get the diagnoses figured out. Hang in there.

To answer your question, the symptoms of bipolar disorder can overlap with ADHD with subtle differences. Then again, they often co-occur, so it really depends on your unique situation, I suppose.

I am 26. Was diagnosed ADD @ 20, BP2 @ 25. These 2 lovely disorders do in fact coexist. I have been researching the comorbidity of these disorders a lot and more people with any type of BP also have ADD than not.

From what you said, you seem to have a lot of the same issues I do, except I have never been super-suicidal. See a specialist, preferably a WOMAN, and one who has experience treating adult women for BOTH BP and ADD. Your run of the mill GP will not suffice.

I am taking Wellbutrin and dexedrine and find them very effective. I flat out refuse to take mood stabilizers at this point in time because the side-effects are so severe and so intellectually dulling.

Best of luck!

My bf said you're not bipolar and adhd. I broke it to him last night that I was diagnosed Bipolar 2, and then it was refuted, then I was rediagnosed again.

I am frustrated by healthcare right now. I don't feel ill now so I won't take anything. I certainly don't need lithium right now, as it was suggested to me.

I just want to forget about mental health for a while and just live.

LeeAnne, stay strong. Why is your boyfriend "diagnosing" you? If he's in a position to diagnose (in other words, he has an MD or a Psy D), consider getting a different healthcare provider... it would be a compromising position to be in to date one's psychiatrist/ psychologist, not to mention ethical considerations. Otherwise, take what he says with a proverbial grain of salt.

Remember, you know yourself best. You sound highly intelligent and your ability to compensate thus far has been laudible, especially given your lack of support. It's pretty clear that you are a very strong person.

Having said that, no one should have to brave these things alone. Are there any friends you can talk to/ confide in about these things? If not, consider using a journal or finding a counselor if you need a more objective 3rd person perspective of what's going on.

It must be dismal having to deal with an unsupportive family, especially one that fears mental illness to the extent that they deny the reality of its existence. I have had similar interractions with family members and it's rough!

Maybe support groups would be another option (in addition to this one, that is!) ? :o

LeeAnne,

Hugs, hugs and more hugs. We sound so similar in a lot of ways. I started to experience mood problems (suicidal depression) at 13. Very depressed, but no real manias until I was in my mid20s. Very embarrassing breakdowns, hospitalization, took meds but secretly thought I didn't need them (now I acknowledge they probably saved my life).

Thought I wouldn't need meds again, got married, had a baby, knew I was ADD but shunned the BP, life overwhelmed me, went back to the doctor, and BAM -- that BP disorder again. Ugh. I also did well in school and "survived" it all.

I understand the not wanting to be on meds, but -- especially with the flashbacks (which I also understand) and the episodic nature of remembering, along with the episodic nature of BP (if that's what you have, but it's pretty clear you have a mood disorder of some kind), it's not the best idea to get on meds WHEN you need them -- it's to take them so you don't crash. It's worth it, SO worth it, to end the suffering as much as possible.

Also, BP/mood disorders tends to be progressive, and if untreated, more difficult to treat as your brain gets more ill and unbalanced. Also, -- the remembering and resurfacing of memories and the problems associated with them often "wait" until you get older and the more difficult part to live through can be in your thirties. IMHO it's not good to wait and have a major breakdown before you are stable and your system can handle it . . . because if it's there, it's there, if that makes any sense at all.

This is where my 'mood disorder' gets doubtful. I don't think it's getting worse, as a kid my moods slid in all directions. I have had bouts of mania as a teen. Though I wonder if it was just behavioral stuff triggered by my family life.

I have never quite gotten that bad since.

I have had issues with wicked depression, and wicked anxiety/feeling like I am losing it etc in my 30's. Yep the memory stuff goes on a different route as you slip into your adult role, and that can be distressing.

I've spent a lot of time unmedicated so it leaves me wondering if I lived this long, and I am not dead or completely insane- is it a mood disorder?

Well, I'm not dead or insane yet (I don't think at least!), but I just don't think life is such a monumental struggle and load for people who don't have mood disorders. My husband just baffles me because we have had lots of stressful things happen, but for the most part he maintains an even keel. I don't think you have to be completely off the wall to have a major impact on your quality of life with a mood disorder.

Also, for those who have incurred great trauma in life, our brains don't develop the way others do, and that impacts our hypothalamus and a lot of other regulatory mechanisms in our brains.

Many of us who have survived a lot of junk have a very strong investment in "being OK," like, being ALL RIGHT and surviving no matter what, but I just believe life has to be more about eking by day by day without total collapse from the strain. I see other people who just don't live that way, and I yearn to have the same stability, if not to "enjoy life," then to be of greater service to myself, my family, and my community -- not using every ounce of energy I have just to make it through the day.

I just want more, and if medication helps me get there -- I'll do it. I want to be a good mother to my child, and I know I could do better if my emotions were under better control. Not that I take it out on her, but it is a tremendous emotional strain to keep it all together.

Hi Leeann,

Thanks for shring your story. With your history it must have been very difficult.

And as others have stated. ADD/Bipolar often co-exist. More often that not.
Depending on the type of ADD and Bipolar you get dx with. They are often hard to decipher between. Especially in the beginning stages before the Bipolar progresses.

I was dx with ADD combined type at age 24. Then a year later mild clinical depression.
While the ADD meds helped, nothing ever worked on the depression. I didn't get diagsnosed with Bipolar II until 2006 at the age of 36. After that my ADD diagnoses was changed to ADD inattentive. We believe that the original dx of Combined type was actually the Bipolar. I didn't really have the hypomanic part of Bipolar in severity until later in life. And I mean the really ugly side of it. I had it in smaller forms. Depression shadowed my life most of the time.

Hypomania in the severe form is what led me to my dx. For someone like me who was more used to the constant black cloud of depression , being a sloth, and sleeping too much. The constant drive to move, not sleep and spend money like an idiot when I was once a miser, coupled wiht the worsening aggitation and anger towards my family, esp my kids, drove me over the edge.

Getting the dx literally saved my life. It also saved my son's. Who was dx early one with ADD/ODD. But after my dx was also dx with Bipolar II , just in time to have the bomb of hormones hit, and severity worsen to cutting, suicide attempts, compulsivity, and substance abuse that sadly we didn't catch soon enough to stop him ending up incarserated.

The bad thing is in the early stages they are so much alike and BPII is a rapid cycler we appear normal a lot of the time, it's not until the disease has progresed to the more dangerous and life altering stages that it's caught.

So yes you can have both, yes it's normal to have lived all along and this long and have both. It is part of the normal progression of the disease to worsen in the later years of our lives too. The different types of spectrums have different onsets as part of the criteria as well. My son is the most severe, and the most at risk , which is early pediatric onset Bipolar II. If we hd not caught him when we did, we might have not caught him until he had progressed to the Bipolar I stage which is really dangerous. Or we might have never caught it, and he would have ended up dead, most likely by his own hand.

My onset was believed to be post "teen" age hormones. Cycling up after post-childbirth hormones. (that is another stage, they are finding now, post partem onset)

Then there is the classic, 30-40 year onset range.

There are so many, stages and spectrums, it is only to your advantage to become as educated as possible to help in your own recovery. And get rid, stay away from, or limit your time with people in your life who are trying to convince you , you are not sick, don't need help or meds. That could be the end of the road for you. That would be like tellling you if you had a diagnoses of Cancer or Diabetes it's all in your head, continue to do what you are doing, don't take meds and you will be fine. If your family, loved one's, or friends love you, they will be willing to help and support you and become educated wiht you. If not cut them off as much as possible, until you are more stable. Then find support from people who understand you , will support you, and encourage you to seek and continue treatment. This is a great place to start. As you have already seen, you are not alone.

Go to the stickies section here and read the information and links to sites, to become educated. Do try to keep a journal, either in paper form or personal blog form even if it's private, so you can track your cycles, get familar with your triggers, medication up's and downs, for yourself and your doctor.

And if you can, find a doctor who specialized in treating Bipolars and ADD patients.


Hang in there and take care.

Hope

I don't think I'm seeing the right doctor right now, and would prefer to see a specialist.

Sounds like a good idea, let us know how it goes!

Hope :)