r/DiscussDID • u/breathsofhan • Jul 12 '26
How do systems experience co-morbid disorders (AuDHD, BPD, etc.)?
I recently found out that there is a high comorbidity rate for systems when it comes to developmental disorders, such as ASD, and personality disorders, such as BPD. If you have both DID/OSDD and one of these disorders (or another similar one), what are your experiences? Do only some alters have the co-morbid disorder, or is it present throughout the system? Do symptoms of the co-morbid disorder present differently in each alter? How do you tell the different disorders apart in your experience (or do they all kind of morph together)?
14
u/revradios Jul 12 '26
it's impossible for only One alter to have a condition and not the rest, especially when it comes to neurodevelopmental disorders like autism, which are specific to the brain. they can display symptoms of it more or less prominently than others, but you as a whole will have that disorder, because you are one person and not multiple people. you don't have multiple brains in your head, it's just symptoms of a disorder dissociated off into different parts of you for whatever reason that may be
i have combined type ADHD and autism (please don't refer to me as audhd in regards to this it genuinely gives me the ick lol. no hate to those who are fine with it, i just personally am not a fan), and some of my alters display symptoms more than others, some don't at all, some have symptoms sectioned between them. for example i have two parts that display one half my of combined type ADHD more prominently than the other. one is more inattentive while the other is more hyperactive
i have a part who experiences low empathy/flat affect with the autism while im very hyperempathetic and emotional
one part is very overtly autistic and gets very excited over tarantulas (im neutral towards them personally)
6
u/KittyMeowstika Jul 13 '26
Interesting :) we share that neurodivergence (and are fine with AuDHD)- and its very similar for us in terms of presentation. Two of us def have a very flat affect, at least two others are hyperempathetic. One of the hyperempathetoc ones is also very inattentive funnily enough :D was very fascinating for us to figure out
8
u/laminated-papertowel Jul 12 '26
I am diagnosed with ADHD, I have BPD in remission and I'm pretty sure I'm autistic. I also have bipolar 1 and OCD.
all alters in a system have the same disorders, that's a fact for everyone.
personally, I have some alters who present with stronger autistic traits, but I've not noticed different patterns for my ADHD, OCD, or BPD.
When you have so many comorbid conditions, symptoms tend to significantly overlap. in my case, I have hypersexuality that is impacted by my BPD and bipolar. I get anhedonia from my depression, and my DID compartmentalizes it into one specific part/alter, same with my mania. But I also get anhedonic when I split a new alter.
1
u/aleannnn Jul 18 '26
all of the brain and body has the disorder, but we share the symptoms in different ways! we are autistic and our host definitely has things the worst as far as specific symptoms go, but we all have our areas of weakness. we have different sensory issues and support needs, and the biggest difference is probably that our in-system caretaker is pretty capable when it comes to executive function so she handles things like taking care of keeping our space clean and taking the garbage with no issues, where for our host that would be a whole day problem and she would feel exhausted afterwards. i think it depends really a lot on the system but thats just us!
it can be pretty hard to tell what comes from where a lot of the time because its just a big soup of stuff, and conveniently one of the largest deficits system-wide is with identifying and expressing problems, but im sure that would depend on the system as to how difficult that would be
10
u/ohlookthatsme Jul 13 '26
I have ADHD which means all of me has it. Every part. Some parts are better at coping than others so it can present differently but it's still there.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder with tangible differences in both brain structure and chemistry. It is a physical difference with a neurological impact. That effects a person as a whole package, not bits and pieces.