I recall having my first depressive episode when I was around 9 years old. I remember I was so confused as to what was happening since nothing was going on in my life that was particularly bad. I cried for weeks and stayed by myself. I never got help for it.

I see patterns of possible hypomania as a child where I went through periods of time where I was super active, creative, etc, but it's hard for me to determine if maybe that was my personality. True hypomania did set in at age 15 though where I did not feel like myself at all. It felt so strange, yet so good from the euphoria and feeling grandiose, but I did a lot of impulsive things during that time, which was out of character for me. Hypomania definitely turned into mania at this point.

That's also when I had my first mixed manic episode following the euphoria (one of the worst, scariest episodes ever, had to go through delusions and paranoia, and went unmedicated since my parents were completely against it, although the school was pushing for it to happen), and then I was depressed for months afterwards before cycling into hypomania again. I was first treated with medication around age 19-20, but it took a while to get proper treatment and results.