ADHD & BPD - what do we know

I keep finding information about the overlap & co-occurance of these & im just especially fascinated, I don't know why..... my Daughter in Law has a definite adult ADHD diagnosis & my son has clear traits & certainly having both would answer the severity & complexity of some of my consistent day-day issues quite well.......I know, I know, Bipolar 1 to one side for a moment 😳 as its pretty clear to me now when that is under control & when its not, its especially vivid & it takes a helluva lot to go to either pole in any serious way in my opinion, certainly as a slower older person metabolically.

Here's a couple of recent interesting research articles about this, this one from last year:

https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-021-00162-w

Title - Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) revisited - a review-update on common grounds and subtle distinctions

EXTRACT" but with my highlight

Abstract

Background: Overlap in symptom domains particularly in the field of impulsivity and emotional dysregulation in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) have stimulated further research activities since our last review from 2014.

Main body: Disentangling features of impulsivity in ADHD and BPD revealed that impulsivity is a feature of both disorders with patients suffering from both ADHD and BPD having highest impulsivity ratings. BPD individuals have more problems using context cues for inhibiting responses and their impulsivity is stress-dependent, whereas ADHD patients have more motor impulsivity and therefore difficulties interrupting ongoing responses. For emotion regulation difficulties the ranking order ranges from ADHD to BPD to the comorbid condition, again with the patients suffering from both, ADHD and BPD, having the most pronounced emotion regulation problems. Environmental influences namely adverse childhood events were shown to be linked to both ADHD and BPD. Traumatic experiences seem independently linked to impulsivity features. Thus, some authors point to the risk of misdiagnosis during childhood and the necessity to screen for traumatic experiences in both patient groups. Genetic research confirmed genetic overlap of BPD with bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenic disorders, as well as genetic overlap of BD and ADHD. A population-based study confirmed the high co-occurrence and familial co-aggregation of ADHD and BPD. Interesting questions in the field of gene-environment-interactions are currently dealt with by genetic and epigenetic research. Few studies have investigated treatment strategies for the comorbid condition, though the issue is highly important for the management of patients suffering from both disorders and presenting with the highest symptom scores.

END EXTRACT"""

Here's another peer review research article from 2019 called:

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder And Borderline Personality Disorder In Adults: A Review Of Their Links And Risks

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6850677/

EXTRACT" but with my highlight

Abstract

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are particularly common disorders, that are highly comorbid in adult populations. The symptomatic overlap between adult ADHD and BPD includes impulsivity, emotional dysregulation and interpersonal impairment, which makes the differential diagnosis difficult. Our review aims at focusing on recent data on the comorbid ADHD+BPD form, as well as the risk factors involved in the emergence of the two disorders. While adult ADHD and BPD share some genetic and temperamental risk factors, adult ADHD is characterized by more severe trait-impulsivity compared to non-comorbid BPD; BPD patients display more severe trait-emotion regulation symptoms compared to non-comorbid ADHD. Patients with the comorbid ADHD+BPD form have severe symptoms in both dimensions. Early-life exposure to adverse events is a shared risk factor for the development of ADHD and BPD, but type and timing of adversity seem to play a differential role in the development of BPD and ADHD symptoms. Age of onset used to be a discriminative diagnostic criterion between ADHD, an early-onset neurodevelopmental disorder, and BPD, a late-onset psychological disorder. However, this distinction has been recently called into question, increasing the need for more research aiming at delineating the disorders from a developmental and clinical standpoint. Clinicians should carefully consider the comorbidity, and consider ADHD and BPD dimensionally, in order to provide more effective patient management. This might improve early preventive interventions, and treatment for comorbid conditions in adulthood.

Also from Article. Extract"

Four possible explanations as to why the two disorders frequently co-occur have been put forward: i) ADHD may be a developmental precursor of BPD; ii) BPD and ADHD may correspond to different expressions of the same disorder rather than two distinct clinical entities; iii) ADHD and BPD may be distinct disorders sharing common etiological risk factors; and iv) the presence of one disorder may increase the risk of developing the other

Why is this important, why am I interested? 

I don't know. 👅💗🙏

DEEP Theta Binaural Beats ➤ LET GO of Fear, Overthinking & Worries ➤ 432Hz Deep Relaxation

 

Ive been using this for a few days now & I think its like taking Valium without any side effects or come down, although i've never taken one so how would I know......... First time I used it I basically passed out on the floor & it was the first time in I can't remember how long that the felt sense of anxiety sensation I have constantly down my spine in my upper back & shoulders, vagus nerve pain/contraction/constriction/agitation - completely disappeared - so thats pretty wow!

I mean it comes back terrifically easily when something triggers me, like the dogs go off or wtv - I think i've got Trauma bonding with the dogs..... seriously its been a nightmare. Maybe not trauma bonding, maybe just a vicious circle of us all having easily aroused nervous systems & not being able to break it. Wtv. So painful.

Bizarrely I do see getting the dogs when I did as a monumental act of self sabotage that saved my life..... the story of my life...... a contradiction in terms........nothing is clear........its all obscured by confusion or it has been very much so until maybe now, maybe getting less so now, I hope so.

Also this is one now a favourite too :)

Along with the Sukie Baxter's PolyVagal material, these are all having profound effects on me atm......it just makes me think about cultures that prioritise massage or other touch in an easy to access community sense or wtv & that if everyone was able to afford therapy as well (eg free co-counselling swap) the wellness ratio of the general population would absolutely skyrocket........instead in the West we've got Dopamine Nation: TV, prickly social media, porn, gambling, gaming & alcohol/drugs instead to distract us from the entirely constructed slope of a financial playing field that the GlobalElite have created for us to live our lives out on where 'everything' ends up in the ownership of the very very few...... nobody can win at that...... nobody, well maybe just psychopaths & sociopaths, but only because the world has been created in their own images.........Hmmm.

(I just spotted a quasi autistic word jumble I did there but I like it so much im gonna keep it :)

Late Diagnosis Anger/Trauma/Grief

I was talking with my wonderful, awesome daughter in law who has late diagnosed ADHD very recently at 33, about how angry I’ve been feeling & she told me that late diagnosis trauma is an actual recognised thing in mental health….. it’s ‘what could have been pain’….. yep that’s part of what’s been going on definitely, I keep getting really angry that I can’t have things happen that a more well person, someone who’s been okish, ok enough could have had like a career, relationships, friendships, achievements, I dunno, travel, err there’s lots of things isn’t there. I’ve literally lived in survival mode my entire adult life not knowing what the fuck was hitting me all the time, I didn’t know what was happening or why. 

So why am I getting angry now? Well, I thing my brain reconstruction process is in pretty good shape right now, best it’s been in a very long time, possibly ever which is great & a cause for great joy & for feeling very very proud & pleased that I’ve achieved that against such greats odds…… & I do think that feeling is there, it’s just partially obscured by this anger & trauma & loss about how much I missed out. Just bare with me, I’ve got to process it my way, I know people want to just say focus on the positive, the present, the future, don’t look back in anger or whatever but I’m raking it over to try to make sense & release some of it, Its just my process I guess. Certainly just a year ago I didn’t have the brain capacity to process anything other than am I having a good day & how to try to stay ok or a bad day & how best to triage that. 

I’ve been locked in my room on my own feeling crazy for all these different parts of my life, so many, long bipolar lows mainly but also for the 8 years after the Psychiatrist misdiagnosed/failed to diagnose me in 2008 I now know I was massively brain damaged at that time & at that actual appointment, which is why I couldn’t explain what I was experiencing to him. His misdiagnosis essentially put me & kept me in the house not knowing why my brain was broken or even that it was for nearly another decade of confusion. I had already given up alcohol, as i realised I couldn’t be trusted with it but that was my social anxiety buffer removed with nothing to replace it. 

It was just so baffling, probably since that first brain damage of the first Bipolar high & crash at 18. No, damn it……I felt brain damaged much earlier, I had over the top rage attacks as a child I don’t know when that started but it was still happening at 13/14 when I quit eating for 6 months. And as I went amongst it all as a teen & got into alcohol these merged into dangerous rage triggered by jealousy over boys, even physically attacking other girls - impulse control had left the building already…. this is how I left school at 17 with next to no qualifications. I hadn’t been able to concentrate on schoolwork for years, since about 12 is how I remember it. (there’s a real ADHD vibe about this period)

Bipolar highs definitely cause brain damage in & of themselves & the crash to low is completely surreal & feels like my nervous system completely disintegrating. Short term memory is decimated, as well as decision making & impulse control etc. I’ve heard PTSD be describe like Alzheimer’s & both my kids will verify how badly like Alzheimer’s I was post crash 2016 & now looking back I can start to see & appreciate the other times that I was left with this Alzheimer’s brain & the slow crawl back or else the resorting to extreme behaviour to get some respite & relief from the feeling of being disarranged cognitively as well as emotionally dysregulated by minutiae. 

Currently listing to Binaural Beats Deep Theta & it’s simply the most healing thing I’ve done in a long time for my nervous system 💜💜💜 Someone reminded me about them recently🙏 I used Binaural Beats for years between 2006-2015 but I invariably had no working headphones so I just had it on in the room which I think is not so good - that’s how poor I was financially before the disability benefits i got 2017 post diagnosis, I could not afford headphones. I was 50 & I couldn’t afford headphones, what can I say. 

Silly Sexy

Instagram - mine is on holiday from reality - which incidentally is what it was - im just disillusioned with the world of lying images right now tbh - 

Chronic Stress Weakens Connectivity in the Prefrontal Cortex: Architectural and Molecular Changes

Found this article rummaging around on Twitter in reference really to the PTSD that is now currently being wrought rapaciously across Europe & further afield with the new War.

Peer review research article from last year describing exactly what i'm always going on about. Its physical brain changes/damage caused by an unrelenting stress response that may be the result of difficult external circumstances but, more importantly in my mind, may have been merely modelled from a care giver in childhood or from psychological stress that wasn't attended to. Even lack of psychological support & sense of belonging cause brain damage. This is were i've been, on my own for the longest time. 

It makes me so angry. I'm feeling really angry. I've smiled my way so as not to bother anyone, through years & years of feeling brain damaged like big chunks of myself were missing & that not being able to cognitise information was fine, that not being able to remember words or what I was saying just now was fine & that living with a permanent felt sense of intense anxiety was fine just keep smiling..... im feeling so angry that mental health is seen as not physical that its all mental emotional 'stuff' that can be sorted out with the conscious mind...... The VagalTheory info (see last post) is clear that in a major way, it is dysfunction in the nervous system that is creating the difficult stuck, broken or unhelpful mental states that we all battle with, far more than the thoughts we think being the genesis & creator of our mental ill health.

All the mental stuff is just an interpretation, a guess, maybe, if we're lucky, a really good intuitive guess at what the body is trying to say.

Anyway. Im just feeling anger at the moment & im not smiling anymore. It wasn't fair. I was taken advantage of by so many people who should have known better. If I'd been physically ill in my twenties, thirties etc i'd have had support & sympathy from so many quarters. Because I had mental illness, depression, anxiety, ADHD-like high speed mind, physical, physical, physical - difficulty concentrating, difficulty explaining, difficulty feeling safe, difficulty controlling impulses, difficulty making decisions, brain damage, brain damage, brain damage.......im going to be angry about this on my blog until im not...... it may be some time...... im trying to accept that I can't afford therapy & im angry about that.....I can do self EMDR, I can learn bodywork to heal my nervous system, I can do these for free. I just feel ive been through so much.....im just so angry about it. I guess it will blow over. 

I just realised i'm proving this working hypothesis wrong in a way by being angry but, no, that's emotions, healthy emotions informing you when you've been violated or that something is wrong, that's different, emotions move, flow, shift, the nervous system states do not easily do that, they are stuck gears in the nervous system or synaptic blockages, its different albeit somewhat overlapping.

 Quote - Abstract

Chronic exposure to uncontrollable stress causes loss of spines and dendrites in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a recently evolved brain region that provides top-down regulation of thought, action, and emotion. PFC neurons generate top-down goals through recurrent excitatory connections on spines. This persistent firing is the foundation for higher cognition, including working memory, and abstract thought. However, exposure to acute uncontrollable stress drives high levels of catecholamine release in the PFC, which activates feedforward calcium-cAMP signaling pathways to open nearby potassium channels, rapidly weakening synaptic connectivity to reduce persistent firing. Chronic stress exposures can further exacerbate these signaling events leading to loss of spines and resulting in marked cognitive impairment. In this review, we discuss how stress signaling mechanisms can lead to spine loss, including changes to BDNF-mTORC1 signaling, calcium homeostasis, actin dynamics, and mitochondrial actions that engage glial removal of spines through inflammatory signaling. Stress signaling events may be amplified in PFC spines due to cAMP magnification of internal calcium release. As PFC dendritic spine loss is a feature of many cognitive disorders, understanding how stress affects the structure and function of the PFC will help to inform strategies for treatment and prevention.

Heres the Link to the Article.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/24705470211029254

Sukie Baxter - Tips to Start a Trauma Healing Movement Practice

I just want to push this channel again. Subscribe subscribe!  This is such awesome material dealing with PTSD, cPTSD, GAD, anxiety, nervous breakdown & bipolar muscular tension issues - releasing body held trauma with movements based on PolyVagal Theory. 

“Going slow is going fast” once you get that it falls into place really nicely - wonderful stuff , so helpful, so calming, so relaxing 💜💜💜

Dr John Cambell Talking Natural immunity with Dr Pilz

 

This was a really great detailed discussion covering a lot of interesting ground, a worthy 36 mins of your time to understand the evolution of the Covid Virus over the time its been around.

Being politically on the Left (and quite active as that on twitter) I have felt it necessary to keep pretty quiet about the following but I am, what I would call an Original Anti-Vaxxer of 35 years standing. For me, the historical data is clear, clean water, sanitation, improved access to good nutrition, protection from the elements & relative relief from poverty saved us from disease epidemics, vaccines were just bystanders to this great shift in child mortality in the early 20th century IMO. Also, germ theory uptake was massive too, I mean basic hand washing, cleanliness. Where people live in filth, conflict, oppression, malnutrition & general human degradation vaccines do provide relief but not entirely without cost.

Big Pharma profits so massively from vaccines & drugs, we need to ask where is the profit in providing clean water, relieving poverty etc - there is none, no monetary incentive, though the human profit is obvious to all. In the same way, war is profitable, incredibly lucrative, but detrimental to all lifeforms on Earth bar the .01% Superich - yer, the ones with all the big Yachts, private Jets & now Private Space Travel, those ones.

Again all this is just in IMO - I'm not even sure I'm legally allowed to have a public opinion on these subjects any more with the highly censored & oppressive nature of the times we are in.

Anyway, that was a personal byline really - the message is in the video - in which 2 highly credentialed mainstream Dr's describe the preferential nature of Natural Immunity proffered by the latest version of the virus - which incidentally came about by passing through a largely unvaccinated population - their healthy immune systems effectively downgrading it for the good of all.

Also, they discuss how for many people, the vaccine has provided a vital bridge over which to escape the worst of the earlier more deadly versions of the Virus, but will become pretty redundant imminently, as Omicron becomes naturally endemic with every chance of providing long term natural community immunity. 

In this new virus reality described above, Vaccine Passports do not have any meaningful purpose whatsoever other than a State imposed profound injury to our fundamental human rights.

(NB/ Covid=Lab Leak IMO)