I went untreated until my early 50s, and for a time after I was diagnosed the manic episodes got more and more frequent, to say nothing of intense. It took a couple of years to get it under some semblance of control, and I'm happy to say that my last full-blown mania was in October of 2013. Now I just become hypomanic from time to time, but I can thank meds for that, not necessarily age, although I am 60 and have mellowed out a lot in other ways too.