dual diagnosis bipolar and autism

[monkeyclogs]

hello

The dual diagnosis of bipolar and Autism is where I'm at. I'm 46 and despite a pretty long and dramatic mental health history, it was only 4 months ago that they decided to assess me for Autism. There is some debate as to whether the bipolar is a misdiagnosis of ADHD but that's something they can't decide until im off what was a ridiculous number of medications. Work in progress on doing that safely.

I guess I'm here because I've read a lot of books on Autism since the diagnosis, with lots of other people's experiences but i've failed to find one that matches mine. It's making it really hard to accept the diagnosis as something more than another theory that will eventually be disproved. There have been a lot of diagnoses over my 46 years, all of which led nowhere in terms of understanding and coping with my 'symptoms'. I understand that this might be because they overlooked possible autism but there seems to be an expectation that my response to this new diagnosis should be "aah everything makes sense now" and it really isn't!

Is there anyone on this forum with a similar story?

 

[Alexej]

HI and Welcome @monkeyclogs
Sorry but I dont have a story like yours, but your welcome here and i'd give it some time and see if there is someone in here with your story.

Certainly for the autism bit there lots of life experience here.

 

[tree]

 

[Neonatal RRT]

There can be some crossover with autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia... if you can imagine a Venn diagram. Some traits are common to more than one of these conditions.

 

[monkeyclogs]

There can be some crossover with autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia... if you can imagine a Venn diagram. Some traits are common to more than one of these conditions.

I found some of these online. It's really confusing where I fit. One diagnosis i was previously given was cptsd which made no sense because the 'symptoms' predated the 'trauma'. Interestingly when I found a Venn diagram of cptsd v autism all of my cptsd symptoms fit into the middle part with none on the cptsd side and quite a few on the autism side. but, some of my 'symptoms' were not on the diagram at all and there were a lot of traits on the autism side that just don't fit.

 

[TBRS1]

I'm autistic and bipolar. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 60 something.

Heck of a ride, ain't it?

Welcome aboard!

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Welcome. We are all different, but being neurodiverse gives us commonality.

 

[monkeyclogs]

I'm autistic and bipolar. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 60 something.

Heck of a ride, ain't it?

Welcome aboard!

hi, it"s really great to meet you

i have so many questions! I'm sorry if it's inappropriate to ask.

Were you diagnosed with both simultaneously or was there a time where you knew you had one but not the other?

Also, i dont know where you live or what the healthcare system is like for you but here in the UK i've discovered that the mental health team know virtually nothing about neurodiversity and the neurodiversity team know much about bipolar
If it is the same for you, how do you navigate this?

 

[TBRS1]

I'm in the U.S.

The amount of awareness and/or care depends on A) what one can afford, and the related issue of B) where one lives.

I was first diagnosed with long term severe depression. Only after that did the rest of it creep out into a broader diagnosis.

The result was what you - and a surprising number of others have pointed out - Suddenly, it all made sense!

Aside from that, the autism diagnosis doesn't do much for me that a good councillor or mental help professional couldn't do without it: learning to navigate anxiety and panic disorder caused by the stress of being autistic in an allistic world.

I was "cured" by retiring. No more stress of trying to act "normal" and being forced to mask, no more problems (mostly).

 

[monkeyclogs]

Thank you for sharing. It really does help to know that you exist too! I am grateful that our health service is free to use but it can be incredibly confusing to navigate!

I understand how retiring may have helped. It's not quite the same, but the sum of my mental health forced me to rethink my work life and as part of that restructuring I moved out of the city. I've found that in my new, less demanding life with new people I'm a completely different person. Everyone talks about unmasking after finding out but I think I've possibly been doing that already and I just didn't realise that's what i was doing. It's been interesting that, of the few people i've told about the autism diagnosis, the people from my old life are a lot more surprised than the people from my new life. One friend in my new life actually responded "oh, we all just assumed you knew"

 

[the_tortoise]

 

[JayLapointe]

There can be some crossover with autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia... if you can imagine a Venn diagram. Some traits are common to more than one of these conditions.

There has been a lot of new research lately that is pointing towards the co-occurrence of Autism/ADHD particularly among Level 1. That while previously they thought Autism and ADHD couldn't coexist, now they're beginning to think it might actually be more common than not. This particular meta study showed that across the 9050 articles/studies they reviewed the numbers suggested anywhere been 2.6%-90% co occurrence. But as more research is done, the percentage of folks with both seems to be steadily rising. More or less in a similar way Autism numbers seemed to jump as the awareness of the condition became more widespread and more practitioners new what to look for. I have a feeling that eventually they'll come to the conclusion that AudDHD is the norm among lvl 1 folks. The Prevalence of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder Without Intellectual Disability: A Systematic Review - PubMed

I hadn't considered the ADHD as well angle for myself until my brother and his kids all were diagnosed, turns out I got that as well and while Autism diagnosis explained about 80% of my life, the ADHD side tied things up with a nice little bow of squirrel chaos.

 

[monkeyclogs]

very interesting!

And i'm please to hear that you found the missing piece of the puzzle in an adhd diagnosis.

At my Autism diagnosis the psychiatrist said that if they'd known then what they know now I'd probably have been diagnosed as Autistic at 14 or earlier based on my history. Instead I got misdiagnosed and it never got questioned until last year.

On the bipolar/ADHD it's less clear. There's very little information that exists around the time i was diagnosed in my medical notes and my memory of this time is very patchy. In my medical record I was admitted to hospital and by the time I was discharged I'd acquired a bipolar diagnosis and was on a lot of medication.I find it quite shocking that there's no record of a process that was followed to come to that diagnosis or the decision to put me on the medication.

I've had episodes of severe depression (which could be interpretted as autistic burnout) and hypomania (which could be interpretted within ADHD). The only psychosis I've experienced, as far as i can remember, are hallucinations following severe sleep deprivation. If i'm sedated to force some sleep it disappears. My awareness of all of these states is less about mood and more about fluctuating capacity.

Or I could just be bipolar and Autistic

I do know that 6 months ago I was on a cocktail of 5 different medications which I had been told it might be dangerous to come off. So far I've come off 4. It's been done slowly and cautiously so we could reverse things at any sign of a problem but so far none of the things they thought might happen have happened.

Anyway, I was reassured to hear that they now know enough that if a 14 year old was presenting with the same symptoms as me, that neurodiversity would be at least on the radar!