Wow! That's a loaded question. I'll be 60 in June. Back in the day, one didn't seek psychiatric help if one was true working class. The macho culture was very strong where I grew up, & my father kind of reinforced that with his, "Do you want me to give you something to really cry about?" attitude. Looking back at old report cards & college transcripts, the BD is readily apparent. A semester or two of straight 4.0's...followed by semesters of incompletes, or worse. I was all over the board, but my father attributed my lapses to laziness. It wasn't until I was commited to one of the old state hospitals in my early-20s that I was diagnosed & medicated. How much was the times I grew up in, versus the home environment I lived in ? They both contributed, IMO.