HAVING SEVERAL SEVERE MENTAL DISORDERS ALL AT ONCE

This is my first post. Just trying, once again (attempt number .. errrrr .. 31,627 .. I think) to make some significant (or any) progress with the severest (yes, like Mt Everest, gigantic, extremely dangerous, almost impossible, etc) of my many concurrent problems

So, here is attempted cure #31,627...

• 
  Social Anxiety (SA)
  Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD)
  Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) 8O
  Depression (unsure if bipolar, manic, etc) :|
  Anxiety (just GAD ?) 8O
  Body Dismorphic Disorder (BDD)
  Mood swings (manic depression ?; half the battle is identifying what you have !) :x
  Split Personality (or "Jekyl'n'Hyde Syndrome" as I like to call it) :twisted:
  Sociopathic (& Social Deviant; & Introverted; & Psychopathic) 8):evil::twisted:
  Obsessive Thinking (& a bit of OCD & nervous habits to "handle" it) :roll:
  Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (?) :roll:
  Hyper-stress/Hyper-tension (ususally if Allergies playing up) 8O
  Allergies
  Fear of Intimacy (SA/AvPD?)
  Fear of Change (any change, no matter how small, is emotionally unsettling)
  Sexual-Identity Problems :?
  Anhedonia (inability to experience joy) :|
  Autism/Aspergers (?) :?
  Low Self-Esteem
  Toxic Guilt
  Anger-management problems :x:evil::twisted:
  Addictions (& Addictive Personality) :roll: 8O
  Paranoia (= severe Neurotic/Psychotic thoughts ?; comes & goes) :roll: 8O
  
  That just about covers it, for now........

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:arrow: Question to ponder on: When a person has a great many problems, and at least several are of GREAT & seemingly EQUAL
. . . urgency, which one/s to (try to) address first?

:arrow: Code: is used so I can have a line indent at left (No Code!, I say, No Code! (my favorite Pearl Jam album)
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• My

It's hard to compete with competent losers

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"He's scary, but he's a good guy . . . when he's not being scary"

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• s

Hi small,

One thing that I observe is how related different forms of mental illness are. If you have a cluster of these, it is probably because you have a stronger dose to deal with and it comes out in a few kinds of ways.

How to deal with it all? Maybe try looking at all of those conditions and finding what they have in common. If you can see how they are all variations of each other then maybe you can work on them all at the same time using this general approach.

I honeslty think that 'one type' of problem feeds into others; like for example, people with SA are probably going to also suffer from issues with intimacy, since the two conditions are really similar. And having issues with relating and empathising with others is also to do with 'boundaries' which is similar to the problem of SA, intimacy, etc...
Basically, you may have a strong degree of all of these to deal with, which probably are all spin-offs with the same origin.

So, I'd look to see the similarity with all those above problems you mentioned and work on all of them with this general approach.

I also have a hunch that when you are in the midst of a problem, you tend to complicate it. Even when it comes to the social anxiety that I am dealing with, there are several different forms that this can take, yet they're all just variations of each other and the same basic thing. But, I think that, because I am not down to solving my problem, I can't see it so simply therefore because I am still stuck in it. Being that, I think that if a person hasn't solved a problem at its root, than all these little offshoots form out of the root, and the problem is seen to take a more complicated nature. So, follow the 'offshoots' to see what origin they all have in common. And maybe be flexible with adapting this general approach so that you can address the more specific details of the problem you are experiencing at the moment.

....That's my ''advic" -but, I'm not a trained psyhologist/psychiatrist. Ask the opinion of such a person and treat my opinion as just someone's opinion. That way, if you don't trust it enough, you can just keep it as another approach. ...So, yeah, ask someone who has really studied the mind; I just speak from what I think I know.

Thanks CFK & LMM for your useful feedback..

Okay, so now I shall try to list these various conditions in terms of their common roots ("getting back to the roots")

Here goes...

• Primarily involving PEOPLE
  Social Anxiety (SA)
  Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD)
  Body Dismorphic Disorder (BDD)
  Boundary Issues (includes: Fear of Intimacy, SA)
  Hypersensitivity (related to Boundary Issues) :x:evil::twisted:
  Sociopathic (& Social Deviant; & Introverted; & Psychopathic) 8):evil::twisted:
  Anger-management problems (& occasional "Rage Attacks") :x:evil::twisted:
  
  Primarily involving SELF-WORTH
  Low Self-Esteem
  Toxic Guilt
  Sexuality problems :?
  
  Primarily involving MIND (Thoughts)
  Obsessive Thinking (& a bit of OCD & nervous habits to "handle" it) :roll:
  Paranoia (= severe Neurotic/Psychotic thoughts ?; comes & goes) :roll: 8O
  Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (?) :roll:
  Split Personality (or "Jekyl'n'Hyde Syndrome" as I like to call it) :twisted:
  Autism/Aspergers (?) :?
  
  Primarily involving MIND (Feelings/Emotions)
  Anxiety (just GAD ?) 8O
  Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) 8O
  Fear of Change (any change, no matter how small, is emotionally unsettling)
  Depression (unsure if bipolar, manic, etc) :|
  Anhedonia (inability to experience joy) :|
  Mood swings (manic depression ?; half the battle is identifying what you have !) :x
  
  Primarily involving BODY [Actions]
  Hyper-stress/Hyper-tension (ususally if Allergies playing up) :roll: 8O
  Addictions (& Addictive Personality) :roll: 8O
  Allergies

How am I doing Little?

Might schedule an app't with "me shrink", and take "all this stuff" to get their so-called "expert" opinion on what general route I should take. Frankly, I'm very surprised that "all this stuff" (the general method of addressing problems when HAVING SEVERAL SEVERE MENTAL DISORDERS ALL AT ONCE) hasn't cropped-up in ANY of my "years and years" of so-called "therapy" before, if mememory serves me right (!?)

Hi again Small from Little,

I am not sure as to whether you are sarcastic towards my treating everything in a general sense or not. Again, please only treat my "advice" as the best that my limited understanding of psychology can provide.

I looked at you list, and you know how I stated that often mental illneses have a cluster effect-? Now, with respect to you, I think it is correct to say that (from your list) that my mental illness is milder than yours. (I think that this is right because you seem to want this truth acknowledged and with it acknowledged the greater difficulty you are faced with overcoming)

...yet, looking at your list of problems whilst observing that you have a more severe degree of general problem, I honestly could tell you that I have/had minor, as in less severe, problems with many of those in your list.

You mentioned that for you the specific problem you deal with at the time rotates between all of those in your list. So sometimes things manifest into, say, bipolar manic depression, and other times into avoidant personality disorder, for example and then at another time these 'morph' into becoming one or a few of the other illnesses on your list. For me, I probably am the same as you, only perhaps I notice it less because the effects are less extreme.

Basically, I am going by a theory that all your illnesses do have a common base and that because what you have to deal with is more difficult than what I have to deal with (I hope you are not offended by such a statement, since in its harshess at least it acknowledges that you have things tougher than me and your difficulty is understandable).

I think that you should not ignore the specific problems and only concentrate on the 'root' -only what they all have in common, that is. I think that it makes the most sense to in fact do both; to have some grounding and sense of what all your specific problems share in common with a flexibility in seeing how they then become more complicated and specific.

You have even made the observation that some of the illnesses on your list could simply be a variation of another on your list. I also think that it is important to have a sense of how all of these are similar and how they would have the same/similar origin. Like I stated before, a problem that I experience when trying to tackle social phobia, is that I see many little problems; and that on a particular day I identify a problem with 'this' issue or 'that' particular situation. My strategy (which is the only basis for my advice to you, you see) is to try to see how all these little problems have the same origin; and to work my way backwards.

One day I may have an issue with extroversion vs introversion and feel a sense of inferiority for being introverted; another day I may simply feel a lack of emotional control and a fear of being too emotionally 'open' and lacking in a sense of proper boundaries. Now I would treat these problems independently, yes, but with an understanding that they are variations of each other. Just as, for example, it makes sense that a person with great sensitivity would also be likely to suffer from a degree of egoccentricity -that having a lot of sensitivity would in turn make you more caught up with your feelings and less in sinc with those of others (ie: hypersensitvity is related to boundary issues and -I like to call it- a poor management of empathy) ...notice that if these problems were exaggerated a little more that they would look a lot like yours.

...But take my 'advice' with a grain of salt. See what your 'experts' tell you. And I would go only with what I thought having considered a few opinions. I wish I did know more.

Hi Little,

No i wasn't being sarcastic. The truth of the matter is that in pretty much all of my sessions with shrinks, i was always too wrapped-up in what particualar issues were "on fire" at that time, and so never got to "slow down", and "casually" discuss the big picture, due to my specific problems being way too urgent (felt they had to be at least discussed, if not worked on, which took up all the therapy time). To put it another way, there was barely enough time in the session (1 or 2 hours) to simply INFORM my therapist of what events of "dire" importance (in my mind at least) had occurred in the week or two since the previous session. Too much (problems), too urgent (problems), too little money (for more session time per week), too little time (therapy time), too stressful (the therapy after-effects).

I've altered my previous post to include Hypersensitivity & Boundary Problems, both of which I have, in abundance!. Just temporarily forgot about them, amidst all the other shit going on (which I guess you could say is a GOOD THING - when ONE problem makes you forget about ANOTHER problem !?)