For me I didn't notice till university. A friend told me, as if he'd expected I'd known. I would go through periods of depression, usually your classical depression, and I wouldn't leave my room for days, wouldn't be able to get out of bed, life would seem pointless. And I would get a lot of hypomania (in fact, I'm pretty sure all of grade 11 and most of grade 12 I was hypomanic) where I would feel awesome. I remember having days where I would just say "my life is f****** perfect!" and it was, or at least felt like it. Everyone loved me, and if they didn't it didn't matter. I was a star when it came to drama and stuff like that, and I had a large circle of friends. There were a few mania's in there, but they were brief and I had friends there when they happened (lucky!) so I didn't jump off a bridge trying to fly.

University hit and I went into a lot of depressions and mixed states. I would struggle to just to class and in second year i failed a lot of courses because of it. I was constantly tired, and crying for no reason. If I was depressed in first year it would feel like there was no reason to be depressed, that I just was and I would cry but I wouldn't know why I'm crying. I started the process of getting a dx around that time. It's taken me 2 years... which is pretty impressive in my mind. I'm still working at treatment.

Lately I get a lot of mixed episodes, or super-ultra-extreme rapid cycling, where I'll be really happy and then suddenly really depressed, and then manic, and then calm down, and then sleep, or something like that. It's draining... Or I'll be manic, but feel depressed, but not be able to calm down. It's like getting pulled in two directions. It's brutal.

I'm a weird variety of Bipolar 2 apparently. The way it's always phrased is "you have a mood disorder that most resembles bipolar, and is very similar to bipolar 2" and so it's just bp2. I've got other issues too that make it hard to accurately dx everything at once.

Now, I'm seeing a social worker doing something that's really similar to CBT, and I'm getting on meds (currently on lithium and were seeing how that's going). I see a pdoc every 2 weeks, a social worker every week, and I'm getting into an inpatient program soon, and then after that there's some more CBT and group therapy. It sounds like a lot, but I'm also dealing with other things so don't be intimidated.

Well, that's bits and pieces of it... there's a lot to my life I guess, as short as it's been, and I'm not so good at remembering things. I didn't really do the whole drug/alcohol thing because of my upbringing and because the first time I smoked pot I dissociated and almost jumped off a building. Since then I've had a bit of an aversion, despite the want to try everything, and because I hate my manias so much that I just don't want to trigger that. Oh, but I did do the sex thing! Lot so the sex thing! My mother is now scared to look in my closet, lol. And an affair. And some really bad relationships. No SI because of a fear of cutting, and no suicide attempts because I know that my depression will lift if I can just last it out.

Hope this has helped, sorry it's so scrambled.

Good luck in your search.