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Both of us have this.

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Within days from each other my significant other and I both got diagnosed with PTSD. We both possibly have ADHD, and I have bipolar disorder. It’s kind of a relief. The diagnosis. He’s deployed. It’s been a rough road. I love him but it seems like we’re not connecting right now. It’s hard to connect from far away. I felt numb yesterday because the day before I was triggered. Some days I don’t even know what to do with him. Or myself. One day at a time I suppose. Do any of you as a couple share the same mental illness?
 
My SO and I both have ptsd. It is extremely challenging at times, as you noted. But it sounds like you both are on the road to getting help (assumed based on your being diagnosed) and that is huge. You will both change tremendously.

Personally, having a shared diagnosis a mixed bag. There are some things we understand about each other without explanation, but sometimes we miscommunicate in a big way. When he feels open, I'm closed and vice versa.
 
I have cPTSD and generalized anxiety disorder. My husband also has generalized anxiety. I think we were drawn to one another because of shared levels of perfectionism brought on by that anxiety but we have some significant problem areas.

For one thing, we struggle to shop together. Grocery stores are out completely as are most large stores because we both freak out in stores, cannot effectively communicate and just end up highly agitated. Occasionally we'll have a reasonable shopping experience but these days we try hard to avoid it. We can also get really ugly on home improvement projects. The control freak comes out in each of us and we are far better off working on separate projects away from one another.

I have moments where I don't know how we live together and they sometimes feel like they last forever. But most of the time, we find ways to cope and compromise and I think things are better than average for us in real life because the empathy we have for each other's conditions when we aren't in crisis mode is pretty astounding. That doesn't mean the rough patches are not rough, though. They can be pretty hard to handle.

I imagine that having a physical separation during rough times would be very hard to manage. I am sorry you are going through that. I hope you are able to find a way to feel at peace with the situation.
 
Not presently, as I’m not in a relationship at the moment, but most of the time the people that I date / have dated share my brand of crazy. My exHusabnd did not.

The nicest thing about that -for me- is that it removes that issue from the relationship almost completely. When almost everyone in your life has the same shit going on? It’s not about WHAT is going on, but HOW they deal with it, and WHO they are. I really never realized that benefit until I came here and have watched countless supporters gutting themselves over behaviors, personalities, etc. that they excused/sacrificed for “because” it was PTSD. <chuckling> One of my all time favorite quotes is “Dude. He has PTSD. Not an alien-brain-sucker!” Cha. Exactly that. We’re still all of us “us” & we’re responsible for our own behavior. Just because I’ve been hit with a rage-storm, or haven’t slept -or slept well- in days, or my anxiety is through the roof, etc.? Isn’t carte blanche to be an asshole. If I’m being an asshole? That’s on me. The next person with PTSD you meet may have all the same symptoms as me, but how they deal with them? Is going to be different than how I deal with them. So it’s this pretty badass leveler, when virtually all the people you date have nightmares, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, quirks up the wazoo... because those things don’t matter. The person does.
We both possibly have ADHD, and I have bipolar disorder.
Hello from ADHD-C-Land!!! :)

Word to the wise; ADHD & Bipolar disorder share so many symptoms they’re considered “sister-disorders” ...but they’re also 2 of the very very few disorders that can’t exist comorbid in the same brain. There are complicated sciencey-reasons why... but the easiest way to understand is to look at meds. ADHD peeps have opposite-stimulant-reaction, stimulants are clarifying & soothing; meanwhile stimulants kick bipolar people into Manias & Mixed Episodes. Meanwhile, bipolar meds used on ADHD people? To oversimplify just a smidge... The antipsychotics cause psychosis, mood stabilizers cause emotional dysreg, and antidepressants cause depression.

IE the meds for each disorder reeeeally help the disorder they’re meant for, but royally f*ck over people with the other disorder.

The premier psych hospital in my city has dedicated times each year where they admit the poor damn sobs who’ve been misdiagnosed & medicated for both... to strip them off all meds, find out what’s really going on, and get them the right meds for the disorder they’re actually dealing with. It’s an absolute travesty... largely caused by GPs who would never in a million years perform open heart surgery, & refer cardiac patients to a cardiologist... but blithely dispense psych meds, rather than refer to a psychiatrist. And then more and more psych meds, to deal with the side effects the first meds caused, because the person was misdiagnosed. The “luckiest” people in this clusterf*ck are the ADHD people misdiagnosed as bipolar, as pulling them off of bipolar meds comes with a screaming rush of sanity... although it still takes months inpatient to wean them off safely... but the bipolar peeps spend months weaning and then have to spend a year tailoring cocktails that match up to their neurochem, without mindf*cking stimulants causing their symptoms to skyrocket. Seriously. The whole thing is an absolute heartbreaking travesty.

It’s quirky how often ADHD & Bipolar peeps become the best of friends, though. I’ve had more bipolar friends than I can shake a stick at, and they’re usually in the same boat, eyeballs deep in ADHD peeps. In addition to sharing symptoms, even if the cause is different, the personalities involved tend to get on like a house on fire. ADHD & Aspies are another common pairing, less because of a commonality of personality, and more often the levels of honesty involved is just freaking relaxing.
 
My boyfriend (well he is an ex now as of a month ago) has Aspergers and the communication issues and his inability to see things from other people's points of view was really the reason I decided to end the relationship after 4 years. Despite his slower processing of emotions, he was brilliant when it came to my dissociation and I felt a sense of stability being around him at times when I was all over the shop. He said I also helped to ground him when he was feeling anxious. In that way we complimented each other. So we had a neurodiverse relationship and although we had different things to deal with, we shared the commonality of understanding what it is like to find things that bit harder due to a condition / way of processing info.
 
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