I first went to therapy at about 10 years old. I got 'upgraded' from family therapy to individual therapy after the doctor noticed something was amiss with me. I was also 2 years into being physically abused at this point. Nothing came of the therapy appointments and I didn't mention the abuse at the time because I thought it was normal.

About a year later I was skipping school a lot and I was placed with a therapist at school. He knew something was up with me but couldn't tell what it was since I wouldn't talk very much. He felt I was bottling my feelings and he was absolutely correct. Nothing came of this and I started going back to school when my parents found out and abused me for it.

After that nothing happened treatment-wise although I was depressed and suicidal throughout my teens. But I survived. The abuse stopped around when I turned 18 and was strong enough to fight for myself.

I started a family in my early 20s and when I was 32 I experienced my first panic attack. It was bad - happened while I was driving and that would become a feature for years although I was not afraid of driving.

I saw a doctor for the regularly occurring attacks and he put me on buspar for a month and sent me on my way. But the attacks kept on coming and were getting worse.

I saw another doctor and he put me on paxil and diagnosed me with generalized anxiety disorder after a massive panic attack where I blacked out because my heart was racing so fast.

I went manic with paxil but had no idea what was happening. I also saw myself from the outside looking in for weeks and just thought that this is how things were supposed to be. That badly affected my life at the time.

I ended up going from one AD to another for years and my depression was getting worse. I had manic periods too but had no idea that there was something was wrong with that.

At 42 I was referred to a psychiatrist and she too kept trying antidepressants to try to treat my depression and anxiety. I now learned about what being manic was and that it's bad and she realized something was up. A couple of years later she referred me to a university clinic where they determined that I'm bipolar. During this time I also started talk therapy.

I have been treated with mood stabalizers and antipsychotics ever since.

Things have not exactly been good but I'm somehow getting by. During all this time I raised a family and continued to work although looking back at it I probably should have been hospitalized during my more severe depressive eppisodes.

So overall it was many years before I got treated and years later when I was finally diagnosed.