Everyone's experience either with having both disorders or knowing of someone who does is going to be different, just as each of us with bipolar experience it differently. What I can tell you as a support group participant, the 3 people in our group who identified themselves as having both disorders were very different in the group setting than the people who identified themselves as bipolar or depressed. It was much harder to get them to respond positively to encouragement from the group and sometimes they expressed anger towards the group for trying to be supportive. Yet they came back every week. This is just my experience.