For me ..... when my life imploded on basically every level and I was suicidal. That’s when I was diagnosed Bipolar at age 43. Now through Therapy we have traced it back to age 6

So all my adult life up until I was 43 I always worked high pressure jobs more often than not I worked at least 2 jobs, I bought a house on my own, let my 6 year old daughter pick out which car to buy in the row (it was a green eclipse by the way) actually did that twice and neither tie did I even test drive them , hellllo Mania !!! But I didn’t see anything wrong with it. Okay I had a really racing mind all the time. I had periods of being depressed but more than missing a day of work here or there I had bills to pay and a child to raise.

During the year or so before I was diagnosed BP ... I suddenly was in pain from head to toe I could barely breath the pain was so intense. Just work up one morning and cried out loud. So began the Doctor visits and testing. After a year of specialists my Doctor threw up his hands and said you have Fibromyalgia you can try Neurontin for the pain but mostly people have to just learn to live with pain .. WTF???

Then it resulted in my literally losing my will to live..

I think eventually even without the chronic pain my Bipolar would have come to a head.

If I didn’t have Fibro and psoriatic arthritis , chronic pain I do feel I could certainly work full time , probably would need a job with lower stress. But I would not be 52 and on disability with no real ability to get back in the work force... and THATS been the hardest to accept.