Mental Health Multiple psychiatric disorders: Wich one you find to be the worst?

[njirem]

In case you may suffer from multiple psychiatric disorders, wich one do you find the most difficult and invalidating? What symptoms you hate the most and do you find the hardest to deal with?

I am of course an addict (alcohol, amphetamines, marijhuana, downers..in recovery though, im 103 days cleand sober), i have GAD, PTSD and ADD. I have also have periods of depression.

The hardest for me would be social anxiety because of the GAD (everybody needs a partner and friends, but im lonely most of my life) and nightmares/flashbacks/panick attacks related to PTSD/GAD.
These are the things that seems to grab me from time to time and leave me almost defenseless, causing craving for drugs or complety apathy and depression.
I am on the waitinglist for EMDR but i fear it will not help me, after a lot of years in therapy and many meds, i am starting to run out of options.

Nightmares always come back, even when i feel fine during the day, im still haunted, makes me wake up shivering and sometimes it ruins my day or even week.
During the day i can get panick attacks when i see a group of people that remind me of when i was younger, get very affraid again of violence, i now cope with it by knowing im a big guy that knows jiu-jutsi, but it still weakens my knees from time to time. I hate it.

ADD related symptoms are the easiest to cope with, i avoid very crowded and loud places, and i can function good enough to at least do something for society. There are also positive sides to my ADD, i'm creative, i have humour and i have a original view on things that surprises others sometimes, i get that feedback a lot.

The thing i can control, live WITH, is addiction. I know its a choise to use and i am far from defenseless against it, its addiction talking when i crave, if i let it pass or take action, i am the ruler of my addiction.

Lets hear it, share about your difficulties perhaps we can learn something from one another

 

[Erikmen]

I have a lot of anxiety and maybe bipolar borderline plus all of the social panicking you described, however, I wonder if these are psychiatric disorders or just psychological symptoms for having started to live without drugs.
By having dealt with meds and all for so many years I suppose I lost part of the natural mental growth I think I would have developed then, instead of now.
Didn´t become as mature as I should have.
I imagine what I would have been if it wasn´t for all these years I was aside society and under heavy medication all the time.
That must have caused some sort of psychologically changes. I sometimes don´t feel that I fit so well in friendships specially in working environments.

 

[Erikmen]

Only me? Well to give you a straight forward response, I think Bipolar would be the worst social psychiatric disorder when you have to deal with work and family on a daily basis..however, that´s me only.
I know that there are worst psychiatric disorders, way worse.
I just think that borderline bipolar, together with extreme anxiety seems to be bad for business.

 

[paranoid android]

I am diagnosed with Bipolar disorder NOS with mixed state and rapid cycling and sometimes psychotic features. I am also diagnosed as having a anxiety disorder with aspects of GAD, social phobia and panic disorder. The latter has been fairly easy to treat as benzos have taken care of it more or less. Though i still do something get bouts of anxiety now and again mostly these days it seems to be related to Bipolar disorder.

So yeah bipolar disorder is far harder to control. I take Lamictal and Seroquel for it as well as a anti-depressant such as Wellbutrin or a Tricyclic such as Trimipramine or Amitriptyline if the depression part becomes a real problem. I find that Lamotrigine helps stabilize my mood swings pretty good as well as helping both the depression and mixed states alot. The Seroquel is as of a good anti-psychotic as i can get now really with the insurance i have. Zyprexa works far better for me but it's either seroquel, risperidone or a typical anti-psychotic as the only atypicals they cover are Quetiapine and Risperidone. It does help my mood over all and if anything seems to help the depression more then anything else.

 

[herbavore]

If I look back at my childhood and the extreme generalized and social anxiety that characterized it, despite a happy home, loving parents etc I can only surmise that all of my so-called disorders were in fact the result of a high level of sensitivity. In my extended family and again with my own son I can also characterize the extreme emotional states that get called disorders or illnesses as the results of extremely sensitive natures. As I watched my own son grow up, particularly in relation to school, I felt as if I were getting to see my own childhood issues from the perspective of an adult and a survivor. The metaphor that came to mind was being born without skin. Everything that might feel like a pleasant breeze or even a slight chill to someone else feels like torture. Slowly and painfully you grow skin. Like everything in life there are downsides and upsides, though. The upside of being ultra-sensitive (I prefer that to over-sensitive) is that it can develop empathy, it is associated with artistic creativity and it heightens the experiences of life. The trick is to survive those early years without 1) buying into the modern idea that you are crazy 2) not becoming completely isolated and self-judgmental and 3) learning to know the lay of the land of your own mind so that you are more in control of the thoughts that follow your emotions--in other words getting tyto know what you can and cannot control and accepting each.

ADD can be a bitch but again I have to say that it has its gifts if you can live a life in which you are not always swimming upstream with it. An art teacher can have a pinball machine for a mind while a cubicle worker would not be well served. Find a life that suits your nature, believe in your own sensibilities and much of what you thought was a problem melts away.

 

[JackiePeyton]