I feel better now but still decided to share the feeling.

I am new to the board and was exploring it feverishly yesterday, for almost all day. I got the impression that the median age is low and the mode gender is female (although I have met wonderful men here, old and wise and young and smart). The gender thing is odd because it is not depression - bipolar strikes equally both genders. Or am I reading too much into avatars that seem feminine to me? Or are women more open to sharing and to giving advice and thus constitute the majority of the board? Or am I just plain wrong (I am a woman as I guess my name plainly proves).

I read about breaking up with boyfriends over seemingly small things, about raising little children, about having supportive parents involved in health care decisions, and about being just recently diagnosed, and that gives me a feeling that this board is largely young (with exceptions, of course!!). And I feel plain envious, because I too was bipolar when so young but I was not diagnosed, and my parents denied vehemently that I ever might be bipolar, so I was diagnosed not at 20+ but at 35, first incorrectly with Bipolar II (I am I), first with insufficient treatment, then came gradual loss of a family (I have children and I do not see them), a serious suicide attempt, loss of a spectacular job (I am working now in a modest environment, which is probably a healthy thing for bipolar, I am just counting losses), then time had to pass to get decent treatment that still does not work always (probably partly due to kindling theory - I had too many untreated episodes so now my episodes kindle all too easily - big thanks for family members who did not even suggest I go see a pdoc two decades ago despite awful genetic history). So I am now 40 and just figuring things out, just starting to do mood charting and to organize my day according to circadian rhythms, and have some structure, and catch my hypomania before it becomes full blown mania. And I feel old and doomed.