I was diagnosed bipolar NOS at 53 and bipolar 1 at 55. But looking back I realize the disease started when I was a child, and in fact I was probably born with it. It explains so much of what happened in the past---my inability to sleep when I was little, the night terrors, the sudden outbursts of temper, the frequent irritability, the depression, and the times when I was so 'up' that I drove people nuts with my incessant talking and took big risks with my life and my finances.

I wish sometimes my illness had been caught earlier in life so I might have been medicated sooner and not had so much difficulty wrestling it into submission. It took me nearly three years and a hospitalization to get things right. OTOH, if you'd have told me I would need medication for the rest of my life, I probably would have rebelled and not gotten treatment.