I've had problems ever since I was a teenager, so for years I got labeled with everything. When I was 18 I ended up in a hospital diagnosed with BP and out on lithium. I thought they were crazy because I never had UPs. I was just depressed! I ignored it for seven years and just soldiered on through my depressions, still convinced that hypomania was be made up by psychiatrists to drug people. When I finally accepted the dx this year (due to a couple of undeniable full blown manias) I was able to look back to that time and see things that could have been hypomania. Instances of higher energy, irritability, etc. stuff I would have written off at the time.