Hi!

First timer on these forums, long-timer with bipolar.


I'm not sure where to start. I guess the beginning would be a good place!

So I've had bipolar since I was fourteen. I've definitely had my manic episodes, but I was mostly depressed for the last fourteen years. I basically had no friends and lived an incredibly sheltered life without experiencing anything. I lived with my parents and didn't have a job for years. I was extremely overweight and never had a girlfriend. I was a shut-in who spent all his time playing video games and watching TV, and I was in and out of mental hospitals and mental health treatment. I basically wasted half of my life.


Thankfully, things really started to turn around for me this year. I decided to take charge of my life at 29-years-old and make some positive changes. Now I'm living on my own, have friends, a job, I'm going to college, I lost a ton of weight, had a girlfriend, and I organize a social group. It was a strange feeling realizing that I've never been happy before. It was even stranger realizing that I could be happy in the first place.


I have yet to meet anyone else who has experienced something akin to my unique life of quiet desolation. Many other people my age I've met who suffer from mental illness have experienced much more than me. I figure I'd broaden my net a bit and see if there are any other late bloomers out there.

In addition, if anything I said resonated with you, know that there's hope. I never thought I would get better, and yet, here I am. Things aren't perfect, and they took a lot longer than most people, but I'd rather be where I am now then where I was.