My time before diagnosis was spent mostly in deep depression - all the way back to childhood. My very first pdoc said "we can go all through your past and your family and all that stuff - or we can face forward and start building you a life." We knew that my illness was not based on life events, so we faced forward, and I've tried to do that ever since.

In all the years since, I have not allowed myself to dwell on my pre-diagnosis life. I lost too much of my life to untreated illness; I won't waste more on looking back, and risk becoming bitter at what happened.

I know bp2 and bp1 can be hugely different. When I was first (mis)diagnosed as depressed, my doc told me that I was essentially, rolled up in a ball under a corner table (emotionally) and he wasn't sure he could reach me at all. Still, I had a job and an apartment.

I was far more miserable pre-diagnosis than I ever have been since.