What are the odds of me having bipolar type 2 AND OCD?

I've been obsessed about this for some time as I believe that my bipolar diagnosis is too simple for explaining the way I behave. I might've developed bipolar in my teens, but I believe that I've been suffering from OCD from day 1 in my life. I'm pretty sure of my self-assesement and the only thing that prevents me from declaring myself as suffering from OCD is that my shrink doesn't believe it. If a shrink doesn't say it, then me saying that I have OCD is "wrong" in my head. She herself has been wrong in the past when it comes to my diagnosis, but I won't go into detail.

I've had almost all of the OCD symptoms for most of my life. When I was a kid, I had an extremely morbid sense of guilt about everything that I did. When a natural disaster struck my family, I automatically and sincerely believed that it was God punishing me for being too happy in the recent period. I've always had this magical concept in my head that for every good thing that happened in my life, a bad one must follow, and if it didn't, way worse things would happen in the end.

I sometimes would be filled with anxiety because of the intrusive sexual (even the nastier things), violent and blasphemous thoughts that I was having. Again, I was afraid that God would punish me for these thoughts. I was so religious that I actually considered becoming a priest in my teens and came closely to that. I am now an atheist.

Another interesting symptom are some of my "magical thoughts". I would, for example, walk down the street and depending on how many steps I made and how, I would've either averted or caused a bad or good thing to happen. I've had lots of things such as this and I'm completely aware of just how irrational they are.

I'm in my early 20s and my perfectionism up until now has cost me the capacity to have a job. I'm a computer programmer and only with the help of medicine have I been able to get past the "start project, notice a minor and wrong detail, scrape the whole project and start again until I get it *right*" routine. I've had incredibly and unrealistic high expectations of me and of the people around me.

The only therapy that I've responded most positively to was SSRI monotherapy. I've been on antipsychotics and felt like they were doing nothing for me except make me sleep better at night and help me gain weight.

Anyway, should I pressure my psychiatrist into considering these symptoms? Do you guys relate to what I just wrote? I've read articles online about how bipolar and OCD can be comorbid, but the odds of having two rare mental illnesses are low and for me to assert exactly this sounds pompous to me, as in I want to achieve more "special snowflake" points.

Is there a reason why your doctor refuses to acknowledge the ocd diagnosis/thoughts or are they just focused on treating the bipolar? Maybe you could ask for a second opinion. To be honest, a good doctor shouldn't treat the diagnosis, but instead focus on the actual problem and symptoms in hand.

Going from your post alone, you do have very obsessional thoughts and anxieties and you could well have both bipolar and ocd. I also noticed borderline personality disorder mentioned at the bottom of your post. That could explain why the doctor is hesitant in acknowledging the ocd thoughts as they may just see it as anxiety or they can sometimes with the bpd diagnosis be quick to blame it on that as do not know the real problem or take it seriously.

Stephlet87 wrote:Is there a reason why your doctor refuses to acknowledge the ocd diagnosis/thoughts or are they just focused on treating the bipolar? Maybe you could ask for a second opinion. To be honest, a good doctor shouldn't treat the diagnosis, but instead focus on the actual problem and symptoms in hand.

I live in Eastern Europe and I think that psychiatry is a bit different here when it comes to illnesses' definitions. She might not be willing to follow either the DSM or the ICD as she's kinda too old to want to learn them or thinks that her school of psychiatry that she got taught is superior.

Stephlet87 wrote:Going from your post alone, you do have very obsessional thoughts and anxieties and you could well have both bipolar and ocd. I also noticed borderline personality disorder mentioned at the bottom of your post. That could explain why the doctor is hesitant in acknowledging the ocd thoughts as they may just see it as anxiety or they can sometimes with the bpd diagnosis be quick to blame it on that as do not know the real problem or take it seriously.

Actually, the borderline diagnosis is just one of the two personality disorders that I've been diagnosed with. The other one, ironically, is schizoid personality disorder. And even then, that's the result that I got from a psychologist's test, but she told me that the test wasn't really congruent to the way I acted and talked. But I'm so emotionally volatile most of the time that my bipolar disorder can manifest as either of those two personalities.

And I'm almost sure that I have these two illnesses at the same time, but I don't want to be that guy that, if he were to confide in someone with the explanation for why he acts the way he does, tells people his self-diagnosis instead of an actual one gotten from a medic. I'd feel fake. Being in the OCD box would make me feel less of a weirdo and more of a person with a medical "illness". I'm not trying to get sympathy from people with this diagnosis as I'm sure that most people wouldn't understand it as they don't understand why sometimes I act like I'm on a constant cocaine trip or on a constant ride through hell due to the bipolar.