You described GAD so well. People read DSM and think it describes themselves or someone they know. But if one hangs out in an inpatient unit or a psychiatric clinic, one is struck but what a vast difference there is between, say, ordinary anxiety and GAD or the anxiety that accompanies other psychiatric/neurological diagnoses.
GAD can and does overlap with PTSD (Complex type esp) or with Schizophrenia (I've been told by psychiatrists, nurses and schizophrenics that anxiety within schizophrenia is painful and, well, palpable). GAD is indeed anxiety that resists being "talked down" and I'm so sorry that you have this.
IMO.
In my case it does overlap with basically everything else I have. I have CPTSD. I have a dissociative disorder. Both diagnosed by the time I was fourteen. I have ADHD and autism, both diagnosed as an adult. Nothing is an island and everything interlocks with everything else and affects everything else.
I will say, my GAD is more manageable now than it has been, ever, in my life until the last few years. Why? I got the energy and the resources up to finally get my ADHD diagnosis and I got medication for it. (I was denied a dual dx by the person who dxed my autism nine years earlier, despite me laying out to her very clearly why I thought I had both.) I'm sure you know, but many here probably don't, that a big way a lot of people with ADHD are able to focus for longer than a few minutes is to unconsciously power their focus with anxiety. The body dumps adrenaline, which helps to sharpen your focus. That, and caffeine. I didn't know that until relatively recently, and it made a whole lot of things about my brain make sense.
With my ADHD medicated, I still have GAD, but I don't have to run my brain on anxiety any more. Things are still on fire in there, but I'm not unknowingly throwing petrol on it continuously just to get myself to remember to do basic tasks like eating and bathing.
So yeah, I have a very real perspective on two of the mental illnesses/disorders LS is claiming to have, and though I am not bipolar, my partner's father is, and we have done so many revolutions of the carousel with his condition over the last twenty years. He has burned pretty much every bridge in his life he ever had. He got stranded in Europe, twice, with no money. Once was during COVID. (He lives in Australia.) He's gone missing multiple times. His life is very hard because he doesn't want to admit he has an illness or that his behaviour could be a problem. Hence, there are a bunch of his family who have no contact with him right now. But he lives independently, he holds down work, and he is not in any way insane. Difficult, yes. But not insane.
People live with these conditions every day and don't kill their children.
MOO
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