1. Bipolar disorder (I was never informed either 1 or 2, but my symptoms match 1), 27.
I've been quite depressed since I was a child but I had plenty of reasons to be sad, the most obvious one having a foreigner estranged father.(left when I was 4) My first major depressive episode only occurred when I was 15. It was really bad, I didn't do anything but be laid down waiting for death. Literally anything, you can imagine the situation, though I won't get in details here otherwise I might get emotional and sad.
After I had already improved w/family support(meaning walking, talking, eating, etc) I was prescribed clonazepam, then paroxetine but they didn't work that well and so I was prescribed citalopram that lead me to my first manic episode ever and me being sent to a mental institution for about 2 months when I was 16(2006). There I was diagnosed and started taking risperidone, biperiden and lithium. Each time antidepressants were reintroduced(after I was only with lithium) I'd get severe, dangerous mania and the cycle would start over and over and over. Only in 2010 I managed to get ridden of this intense mania, my meds were reduced to a minimal carbamazepine dose by other doctor and I was prohibited of taking antidepressants, never prescribed again.

2. In 2010 to 2011 I was changing from lithium to carbamazepine then it was reduced to the dose I still take today, 400mg a day. And that's it.

3.Depression still happens constantly but mania never happened again, though hypomania appears from time to time is not anywhere close to the other awful mania. I still lack some sleep from time to time.

4. Honestly pre-med my life was way better. I got out of the major depressive episode with family support. It was just because I still wasn't back to school that my failed psychologist sent me to a neurologist to prescribe me antidepressants that eventually led me to the manic episode. Afterwards, every time I was rebuilding my life, my then psychiatrist wouldn't think it was enough for "normal" and would try another antidepressant(like fluoxetine and clomipramine) and mania would come back.
In 4 years I developed way more issues than I once had, much more trauma that still haunts me in my nightmares. Frequently I have dreams of being insane, beyond salvation and it just feels like the awful mania to the point I cry in the dream, wake up crying until I realize I'm safe. So pretty much I developed some sort of PTSD. Also I had always felt pretty worthless before, after the meds, mental institution and all these mania episodes I developed a much bigger sense of self rejection, self stigma.
I can only say that this current med makes me feel somewhat safe, but I always wonder, what if. What if I had hold up and never taken the antidepressants in the first place? What if I took my time with only therapy, a different one, since that one wasn't working? What if I just accepted that I was truly sad and had to process all feelings I had hidden away over the years? It's like citalopram turned a switch on and now I have to carry all these painful memories and scars with me forever.