When did your mental illness(es) begin?

Remember hallucinations at 11 years old. Didn't get diagnosed till I was 33.

age 6, I'm 57

It's really hard to say, as I've never been officially diagnosed with anything. I've always just kind of had an idea of what's happening with me, and only recently started even trying to set any sort of treatment process in to motion.

In high school, somewhere around grade 9, I started pretending to be 'sick' on days that I just couldn't handle going to school/even being awake. I slept through so much of my life at that point.
I don't know why- I wasn't really bullied, people apparently really liked me (I really thought every hated me, though.), and I had friends (but usually was too uncomfortable to be around them).
I just... never really stopped doing that throughout school. I didn't graduate because of that.

I self-harmed for a few years between 15-17, and ended up hospitalized after a cry-for-help suicide attempt at 16.

I don't remember a time when I wasn't sort of 'sad' to some extent. It's just always been that way.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking over things and trying to gather my thoughts before I go see anyone, but am also worried I might over-think and end up imagining things that where never there to begin with, if that makes sense.

I remember bursting into tears regularly and staying up late and not being tired with racing thoughts when I was 12. Diagnosed BP at 26. Now 34.

Aged 6 years...Diagnosed at 34.

Same with me... Maybe even younger for first panic attack, like 4 or 5. Suicidal by 8 and seeing a psychiatrist at 10 years old. I also remember having hallucinations around this age, too.

Finally diagnosed at 39 years of age.

I'm not real sure when it started but definitely by age 14. I was diagnosed at age 53, and I finally accepted the diagnosis a month ago, age 59.

I had a great childhood but do feel like I was ADD, and could never stay focussed. I somehow made it through college. I felt some mild depression after getting married at age 22. After my second child I finally got some meds for my depression. Then got meds for ADD which spun me into a manic episode in 2005. I feel like I've been rapid cycling ever since without much relief.

I can remember symptoms of MI starting at 6 or 7

I distinctly remember sitting in the bathtub at 9 yrs old sobbing because I couldn't tell if the world was 'real'. I thought I was alone and my world around me was an illusion. My mother had to work hard to convince me she was real. I was a severely depressed 6th grader. Unrecognized though. Probably I was cyclothymic until premenopause at 42 and some major life upheaval threw me into full blown bp1. Diagnosed at 43.

Sorry I feel kind of good about this, but finally there's another person with BP 1 who wasn't diagnosed till relatively late in life. It happens a lot with BP 2's, but not so much with us 1's because our symptoms are supposedly so much more dramatic. But it doesn't always start out like that, and even if it does, having your social-climbing parents sitting on you (and you learning to sit on yourself) because they don't want anyone to know you're mentally ill has a stifling effect on the mania, if not the depression. That was why I started drinking so early in life, and why they let me.....better to have a kid who's a lush than a psycho, right?

People have asked me so many times "how did you get through 50-some years without knowing you had BP?" Well, a) I suspected it for years, but didn't know for sure until age 53, and b) when I reached critical mass, things got really bad really fast, and I had a few pretty severe manic and mixed-mood episodes before getting a handle on things earlier this summer. The diagnosis just evolved over time---started out as BP-NOS. It happens....my pdoc didn't want to tag me with a number until he was sure of what I had, and then it was like "Damn, I'm sorry, but we gotta label this thing."

Not to say that doctors are greedy---mine isn't, in fact he told me he'll give me a steeply discounted rate when he goes into private practice early next year---but as medicine is practiced nowadays, most "diagnoses" are basically for billing purposes. The money people have to have something to go on, and apparently Bipolar 1 is more lucrative than the other forms because I get charged a hell of a lot more now than I did a year ago. I asked the billing office about that last week when I was in---I kept seeing this "Level III" designation on my paperwork, and being the cost-conscious uninsured patient I am, I wanted to know what that meant.

Well, no one seemed to know exactly what it was, but what it came down to was, there were four levels of care and my dx put me in one of the two "complex" categories. Oh, goody. Here I think I've got a nice straightforward case of bipolar disorder, and some pencil-pusher decides it's worth $349.00 every time I plant my butt on the sofa. A year ago I was paying $176.00. Who knows?

Now I don't know where the hell THAT came from.....guess I'm just frustrated with medical bills, period. They're coming in thick and fast from my hubby's cancer diagnosis, procedures, treatments etc., we're already over $30K in the hole, and there's no end in sight. We have basically resigned ourselves to the fact that between medical bills and student loans, we are never going to have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of for the rest of our lives.

Oh well, we were poor for the first 15 years of our marriage, and now we're poor again, only not poor enough to qualify for food stamps or medical. Nor am I disabled enough to get SSDI (thank God! I'd rather live in this kind of poverty than collect money when I can still work). But you know, I'll live in a cardboard box if I have to, if it means my husband gets to stick around longer. He's worth it to me.

i am diagnosed as schizoaffective right now.

i was dxd as having trichotillomania at 9 as i said before.
it was then psychotic depression at 12 when i tried to commit suicide.
it then became schizoaffective depressive subtype at 17.
it was then schizophrenia at 21 but i think went back to schizoaffective.
ive had numerous severe psychotic episodes involving the law and hospitals and the public. never been to jail thankfully.
been hospitalized over 13 times. maybe 14 or 15. i dont remember.

i came from a broken upper middle class family. divorce really. then near homelessness in my late teens with my dad. very low money right now. on disability. divorced ruined everything. my mom left my dad for someone else. our individual lives fell apart. he had two strokes. almost died. ive been traumatized through nonfamilial things such as seeing a stabbing. and other things. and familial things like seeing my dad almost dying.

My bipolar began young, I remember having symptoms as young as 5, although not diagnosed until 16. Both my parents suffer from from the disorder. I was damned from the start in having it. The disease killed my mom, and also killed any relationship between me and my father. I have spent years trying to hide it as to not be seen as a horrible monster my mother was viewed as. Once I was in high school I received the diagnosis and had to complete school online. Now I am just trying to be survivor and have the disease, not suffer from it.

I've had symptoms all my life. I was taken to a therapist when I was 6. I wasn't diagnosed and treated until I was 16. I've always known something was wrong with me.

Around 10-11. Extreme mood swings, violent explosive anger and horrible depression. Wasn't diagnosed until 27.

Btw, is anybody else who been messed up since childhood sorta glad you weren't "treated" until adulthood on your own terms?

I know lot of people say that they wish they were helped earlier and parents and teachers noticed... but i feel "gee, I don't wanna think what would I be if I gotten into the system in tender age".

I was diagnosis with Major Depression when I was 32. It wasn't until I was 49 that they diagnosed me as Bipolar.

I would have to say yes Venus I'm glad no one noticed because back in the 70s mental health was just another word for hell. I was quiet, mousey and didn't say boo to anyone just stayed in my quiet little corner with my books. Mostly I got left alone.

I haven't been treated yet, tbh I'm a bit scared what will happen. I know I'm not right, my parents fought a lot (physically and verbally) when I was very young, and split up aged 9 or 10 (can't remember much tbh - or just subconsciously blocking it out for my own protection, more likely)

But I am glad in a way I have had many years to think things through myself my way, especially with an adult head on my shoulders - if I find things scary now, I would hate to think what it must be like for poor children being told what is best for them....

Joe

So it started with having way too much imagination. I saw things from about five or six I guess. Some sa and then saw more stuff. For the most part though despite the scary faces I was in control of my world and all of those that lived in it and then I gave in,or up and saw more stuff. Alcohol was pretty much the thing that made me feel good. Even at six or seven. Saw a lot of dead people didn't share that. Got to about 12 and began disliking myself at the same time would feel elated and saw magical things. But started to have words obsessively forming on my head spent a lot of time writing things down because they were so important then spent a lot of time running from school having extremely suicidal thoughts. covered my tracks and drank some more. Started losing time, voices constantly, I felt ashamed and didn't talk about it. Sometimes nothing could stop me I was a genius I worked hard I aced things but in the end I would always fall short of what was expected. I'd drink to much and freak out. I wouldn't drink enough and couldn't cope. I o'd many times. I was told after my son I was psychotic depressive. Mostly before that I had been labelled emotionally unstable and a particular irritation to the system. Told many times I needed a firm hand. But this is not all I am because I really do have a big heart. Treated with anti-depressants my images and thoughts moved to stellar heights. I have moved in fractals and seen what I thought was heaven only to find it's all a lie and at the top of the brightest orb lies the most putrid of existences. I don't know how to escape this at some point they said you have BPD but it doesn't really end there we think you are BP as well along with an alcohol dependency which I have tried to kick and even been successful for a year or two here and there.
Any place this is not me complaining about dx's. I think they are ever changing , ever fluid. Personally I am not sure there is a cure. Perhaps I have not talked to any humans for awhile and this comes across weird. This was wriiten with the best of intents my apologies if it lacks finesse. Sorry am venting.

My bipolar started at age 17 with my first depression. Not diagnosed as bipolar until about 23.

Hit my first depressive episode when I started middle school at age 11. My pdoc now said it sounds like I used to have cyclothymia (mild form of bipolar)and phased into bipolar 2 from there a few years ago-I'm 19 now. My mom said she always noticed slight ups and downs when I was younger. I always felt different than everyone else too. It just didn't completely start presenting itself until the stress of middle school hit. Past dews years I've also developed generalized anxiety disorder. It started when a stressful event happened in my life.

Mine started long ago, when I was a child. I was diagnosed with autism at the age of 5, but I had it all my life, since birth. I also have had generalized anxiety disorder since very young but I don't remember when it was officially diagnosed. I don't remember what it is like to NOT be anxious. Low self esteem forever, all the schools I have been to have said that. Same with depression but I didn't become suicidal until age 11. I don't remember the exact age but it was somewhere between 11-13. At the same time I had a traumatic event happen. Someone tried to rape me. I started hearing voices at this time. I also had visual hallucinations and severe depression. I had the ups and downs throughout my life. At age 11-13 the doctors were thinking between bipolar, schizoaffective or early onset schizophrenia. After around 16, I just had the anxiety and it lasted until 23 with very little mental health problems except the severe anxiety. Now since 23 its been getting worse and worse and this year was the worst. Now I have schizoaffective bipolar type. Even with anti psychotics and mood stabilizers it gets bad. Over my lifetime I have been hospitalized 10 times. I am 30 now.

Looking back, l have had it since my mid twenties. Happened when I went to a new country, learning to adapt in a different culture, learn a new dialect etc. Symptoms then included unbounded optimism, quitting jobs whenever I had a grand new entrepreneurial idea (fortunately it's only been one idea at a time) and rapid fire talking which drove my then spouse nuts.

It was only when I was depressed that I sought help. Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac, Celexa and a few others I can't remember but they didn't seem to work so after a month or two I'd quit and my cheerful mood would return, often to last for at least 6 months.

In the late 2000s I went through a divorce (in retrospect triggered by a manic episode characterized by a relationship killing behaviors) and I had the first rapid cycling (minute to minute) episode that I could not control. Ended up in the psych ward for 8 days.

Been on multiple meds since then, but late last year, I tapered off ALL drugs as I wanted to find out what the heck I was taking them for, as I seemed to have a med for each symptom.

7 months later, I ended up being on the first serious depressive state accompanied by serious suicidal thoughts that I was too scared to act on. Met a good shrink who took an hour and half to analyze me, and was diagnosed with bipolar. (I suspect type II, but will be seeing a new shrink in two weeks for an hour to discuss? Not yet sure)

The good shrink at the psych ward put me back on Trileptal and Seroquel, which together have been working to lift me back up. Still not on antidepressants, but the depression is lifting.

Sorry for the long response, but this also constitutes my first post.