Hi, I'm new here, and like a lot of the stories I've been reading, mine is kind of long, too. I started feeling like there was something wrong with me when I was as young as about eight, I would have awful temper fits and cry for no reason. But I grew up with a mother whose anger could be set off by almost anything, and it was a scary thing to watch, so I hid my growing emotions in my room or when I left the house. By high school, I was in trouble constantly, until I finally quit and got a job. My parents made an attempt to take me to psychologist, who evaluated me and said I had a typical teenage "attitude problem". By the time I hit seventeen , I had a total breakdown. My mother was gone by then, I had left home but came back for awhile to stay with my Dad and lived in the room outside attached to the house. I came home one night, turned on AC/DC as loud as I could, and just started screaming. I kept on screaming until at some point I guess my dad heard me and came out, he tried to calm me, but I didn't even really realize he was there. Finally, I fell asleep. He took me to another doctor the next day, who decided family counseling was the answer. I never saw my actual diagnosis. Over the next 20 years, I ruined 3 marriages, had problems with drinking and drugs, became violent with my ex husbands and in general. The only ones I neverr hurt , physically anyway, were my children. When my second husband left, I went back to work to take care of them, and met a girl at work who seemed just as crazy as I was, so I started talking to her. I asked her why she was the way she was , and she told me she was bipolar. I asked what that was, and as she started explaining it, I thought, "That's me!" Shortly after that, I moved to another state, where I started seeing a psychiatrist, as the girl suggested. I also asked my father, if when he got my diagnosis from that doctor all those years ago, if it said anything about manic depression. He said it said something like that. I have that eval now.It said I showed the signs of manic depression, and if not put on medication, would be at high risk for alcohol and possibly drug abuse, everything in it was like my life come to pass. I was angry. I'm still angry. I was diagnosed here, where I live now, at the age of 31, with Bipolar II, with Social Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, and Intermittent Rage Disorder. I'm on treatment now, and maintenance for drug dependence, but I feel all of that could have been prevented, and mine and my children's lives could have been a lot different. My parents handle the whole thing as an embarrassment to them, my Mom read 2 chapters of a book about I bought and then found it too depressing that her child had that, and my father acts like I'm fine. I'm in that category of the medication only partially works, so this is as good as it gets, and I go into depressions constantly. I just don't understand why if I have to deal with it, nobody else is willing to, except for my 16 year old son. He loves me no matter what, Thank God for him. But my family hurts me, and they either don't understand or don't care.