[Melmo]

Did you have them all your life, or did it start later in life?
After my daughter's dad and I split up in January 2011, it started from there. I got depressed, and then everything just got worse. I maybe had some issues before that but I just remember starting binge eating a few weeks after that, becoming depressed and my moods spiraling out of control.

I think mine started with a traumatic stress syndrome reaction, but I was always a
very sensitive person and had a hot temper. My diagnosis originally was Cyclothymia; who knows what it is now. (I think it's still Bipolar II.) But I'm content and live comfortably.

You will be better; your post on the relationship with your X is reason enough to develop bipolar from traumatic events, in my view. Stay with therapy, please, until you get the stress of that relationship resolved. Your bipolar disorder is likely to get better the more you care for yourself.

You seem very intelligent and willing to get to the bottom of the obsessive thinking.
You can do that, believe me.

[liveforfish]

Around 11 years old. Not diagnosed till 23.

[~Christina]

Goes back to about the age of 6.. Just diagnosed 3 years ago... So many many years of stuff to wade through.

[kindachaotic]

Me too, Christinia. Kindergarten was tough but by age 6 I knew I was different.
Not in a good way, *everything* was a struggle.

Dx'd 19 yrs ago but have only excepted meds since Sept of 2000
Has made a world of difference, guess I'll be on them long term.

[Chupacabra]

I can honestly say I think it's always been there. I remember being very young, bursting into tears & lying about why- because I knew there was supposed to be a "why." I started self harming in elementary school. My mom has told me that when i was small, sometimes I would stay up all night & have more energy than usual.

I was diagnosed at 17.

[BlueInanna]

I have no idea. I tried to hurt myself around 15/16 and went to a shrink who agreed with me that I thought maybe I am hypersensitive... I didn't like him and talked my way out of it. Went on my own to therapy around 5 years ago at age 34 for depression, dx became bp2 maybe 2 years ago. I had a lot of magical imaginary friends as a child. Maybe I was just ill. God that breaks my heart. I don't want my happy memories to be an illness.

[Travelinglady]

I have had problems with what I call "low-level depression" for much of my life, because of an abusive childhood. I was diagnosed with borderline when I was in my twenties and with bipolar when I was in my forties.

[Raindropvampire]

Because my childhood was so completely abusive it's hard for me to tell what started when. But I know I've heard voices and smelled things that weren't there since about 12 been suicidal and depressed since 7. Wasn't diagnosed as bipolar until about 30.

[Trippin2.0]

Idk because I was always a weird child, sweet as sugar one moment, volatile and explosive the next. But I knew for sure when I was 14, that something was verry different. Didnt get dxd until I was 25 tho, after a trauma (my brother was murdered and my dad had a fatal heart attack).

[Darth Bane]

for me i think it was always there. my mother called me moody since childhood. since bipolar is mood disorder and i experienced mood changes like always. when i was 16 i faced full blown mania for 1 year next year depression. then hypo mania for next 5 years and then depression for next 2 years. i guess this cycle will repeat forever.

well:

i first was told when i was 9 years old. though i think i had it for longer than that.. probably life, because i was never really unaware of any issues

I don't remember when it started. I think I was fine before I started school

[jmv1962]

Good post. It's interesting to read all of your responses.
I was diagnosed about a year and a half ago. I fall somewhere between cyclothymia and BP. I think my onset was about 5 years ago. Starting around then I was coping with a serious back problem, then a hip problem, escalating Fibromyalgia symptoms and several broken bones from an accident thrown in there for good measure. During that time my symptoms were attributed to clinical depression. However anti depressants made the situation considerably worse.

Unlike most of the folks posting my onset was in my mid forties. I have read, and my therapist has suggested, that a combination of too many steroids (injections by several different doctors) combined with a very stressful job and home life sent my brain chemistry off kilter.

On the positive side, we seem to have found a combo of drugs that is helping although I still have rapid cycling and I'm far from symptom free. I take Lamictal and Effexor.

[THE16THDOCTOR]

Signs showed as a kid. Was tested once went to a doctor but she was a moron and couldn't figure it out. (And incredibly nasty ill never forget that) so my parents never took me back and didn't understand. Thought I was lazy or just needed to get out. I finally got diagnosed bipolar and panic disorder when I was 20, ten years ago.

[Voltin]

I believe I've always been depressed as a child , sa began early I know that . I'm finding the tentacles as of late, touching on events of the past that show symptoms through my childhood. A question of perimenopause or depression the MD started me on anti depressants which seemed to help until they had to be upped in dosage more frequently . Then came the psych visit who with questions determined I was BP about 4 years ago , right before I hit 50.

[Odee]

Was originally diagnosed with depression and GAD when I was 15. Those symptoms resolved and didn't show back up until I was 19. I'm 21 now. You can say I've been 'ill' for 6 years, but I really think it's only fair to say 2. Because 2 years of illness is easier to overcome than 6.

My experience has been no where near as long as a struggle as others, but it doesn't change how it hurts in the moment.

[bunnifoo]

My mother says she noticed a change in my personality and behavior when I was around 5 years old. So I guess around then, but things got worse when I was around 10 years old. Wasn't correctly diagonsed until I was 29 though.

[manicminer]

Looking back I had signs something was wrong for most of my life. They all combine into a horrific manifestation of what was diagnosed bipolar disorder at age 20.

[C.Oliver]

I come from an abusive home. But I was always depressed. Not because of it necessarily but just very very depressed and suicidal. I also showed signs of OCD very young. I was also VERY anxious and dissociative. Nobody noticed.

As a teen runaway I was wild and crazy to the extreme. I won't explain, too graphic. Probably bipolar, borderline and severe PTSD set in then.

I didn't get diagnosed until I was about 36. Now I am on a mountain of meds but I am still extremely depressed like always and anxious, with OCD, and PTSD. I don't think I will EVER be fixed. That is just me, just who I am...

C and Oliver (my Service Dog)

[Bipolar mom]

First panic attack at age 6. Suicidal thoughts at 10. Depression started somewhere in between.

[Secretum]

I've had ADHD for my entire life. I was also a very anxious and "sensitive" child. I began having intense OCD symptoms at age 11, and had my first psychotic depression at 12. I'm not sure when my mania started. My first clearcut episode occurred at 14, but I had brief periods of elevated mood where I believed I could do anything throughout childhood. I think hypomanic optimism might be normal for children, though...I didn't have suicidal thoughts until I was 15, and they didn't bleed into plans until I was 20.

[Neversolost]

I'm thinking the day I told my boyfriend I would not marry him - 3 months before our wedding ... 33 years ago.

... Or maybe it was when I was a kid and my choices made are a result of that???

Good question.

[BipolaRNurse]

I wasn't diagnosed properly till age 53, but when I got that dx, it caused a whole lot of things that have happened over the past 45 years or so to make sense. In fact, I think it all started around the time I was five or six, got progressively worse over the next few years, and then really crystallized when I had my first serious clinical depression at 13, starting a couple of months after my grandmother died.

Naturally, I never put the depressions, which happened every few years or so, together with the wild-and-crazy periods where I partied and drank like a fish for months at a time. I also did some incredibly dangerous and foolish things, like take off to Ensenada for a long weekend with some acquaintances from work, and threaten people with garden implements when they pissed me off.

So yeah, I'd say I've had bipolar for the vast majority of my life. Too bad I had to be so stubborn and stupid to deny what was fully in my face for the past decade or so.....I was just scared that I'd have to take lithium, and of course I believed the term 'bipolar' itself implied that one was crazy.

[wildflowerchild25]

I had severe anxiety for as long as i can remember. I used to be terrified of storms, bridges, elevators, tunnels, etc. Anything I thought could kill me and my family. I've always been different at school too. Bullied, ignored, all that. I didn't get any treatment until after my dad died in fifth grade. Even the my mom was too depressed to be able to take me so i stopped going to therapy. Didn't go back till i became suicidal at 13.

Now i've been scoffing at my dx of BP2 for years and only recently have I begun to think there.might be some truth to that....