How did you all find out that you are bipolar?

Sorry if this is an invasive question.

Hospitalization for depression told me something was wrong. Losing two jobs in a row had me think more about my moods and the possibility of being bipolar. Then I was diagnosed by three doctors in two different states as being bipolar. Since then, I have been able to identify my hypomania and mixed episodes, which I found to have had all along, and the role anxiety is playing since it comes with my depression quite frequently. I wish I had a tdoc to help me through this.

I went to see a counselor through my work employee and family assistance plan because i was cheating on my husband and feeling very agitated. Her office was in a mall and i was an hour early, so by the time i went in i had multiple big shopping bags full of clothes. I was very hypomanic, verging on manic, and did not know it. She tried to get me to calm down so she could ask some questions, but i couldn't still or slow my thoughts. She stopped the session and sent me to a walk in clinic with a note saying she thought i needed immediate medication, and she made an urgent referral to a pdoc. I went to the clinic and got some ativan, which helped a little, but i was kind of mixed, so i would take the ativan, which slowed me down enough to sit still and cry for hours. Then i saw the pdoc, who diagnosed bipolar and prescribed lamotrigine. I didn't take the lamotrigine, and instead flew to the Dominican Republic with my husband to try to sort things out. We were drunk for the entire trip, but it did help repair the relationship. My mood eventually stabilized on it's own and i never went back to the pdoc or counselor, or took the meds. I thought the diagnosis must be wrong, until a few years later when i had another major episode. I saw another pdoc who diagnosed bipolar, and i refused meds and didn't go back to see her again for 6 months. During that 6 months things got progressively crazier, so i finally accepted the diagnosis and started meds. I've been on various combinations of meds trying to get it right ever sincd, and that was over 3 years ago.

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When I was 13 my sister was dx Bipolar it was an aha situation.

At 16 I was dx by therapists (2) as depressed to in the alternative program I was in. I got job training and My GED half a year. Then entered Community college. The program was basically PHP for half a year with mixed ages. I left the school system after and with it all the mental health services. My old Addiction counselor tried to help me get therapy but I couldn’t without insurance. He saved my *** several times the next year from un dx mania. Even voicing his anger to my engagement but he just bailed me out less then a week before with the DEAN. I tried to get helped with my eating disorder several times. It fell on deaf ears even when pregnant.

At 21 after 2 week of being non-responsive my husband demanded I see a doctor or I'd be served divorce papers. I wasn’t even responding to my son and it wasn’t fair to him. We went to GP and dx depressed given AD but that just made me angry so we switched Ads. The next one made me homicidal so we stopped it & called the GP he said if its that bad take me to the ER. Yeah that didn't happen. We switched GP and my new patient apt. I was hypo manic immediately he stopped the new patient stuff tried to explain I was BPII and gave me depAkote and an appointment the next week. I crashed and he sent me to a Pdoc. Pdoc was an idiot I spent the next years in a mixed episode and tons of dx. Mostly psychotic I literally could not be left alone in a room by myself without me either injuring myself, breaking something or both for two years. I walked out with a dx. Of mood disorder nos & ED nos.

Skip a couple of years and voice my anger about forced treatment. My husband got an awesome job and then they changed his supervisor and he went spiraling down. It was finally to the point we had to get his meds or 'Id loose him. He'd already been reprimanded for telling a lady “what do you want me to do about it.” Before he got to take the meds he went (hypo) manic. So I kept him home calling in sick for him and when he tried to go back they said He'd need a Dr. note so we walked into intake. He got dx and started meds and therapy. Time went on and it was becoming clearer his therapist was thinking about signing me in to the crisis unit. Me in my infident wisdom of hypomania I went to intake for therapist. Well I almost got sent to the crisis center during intake because I had word vomit and I was laughing about my past delusions while explaining violent thoughts. So I got a quick appointment with T and a pdoc. I was told I can tell Pdoc I dont want meds. I got Dx. Bipolar w. psychosis.

Thank you so much for the great reply! I am sorry you have been through so much hell just because of the bipolar.

Thank you!!!

I was diagnosed at age 43 Im 46 now ... we ( T and I) traced my BP back to about age 6 .. I thought everyone had a racing mind and wild shopping events and quick decisons out of no where .I thought everyone self harmed in some way or another . I have had anorexia since I was a child .. so fun fun .. Its all okay tho .. BP is just a part of who I am.. Things could be much worse .

Thank you very much for replying, I know it must of been hard to tell me all these things and they are really much appreciated! I am very sorry you have been through all of that. I hope you are feeling a little better now

So many things in common. The dangerouus and often fast driving with music so loud the windows need to be down to not go deaf while bawling your eyes out and yelling along to the song at the top of your voice. Louder and louder faster and faster just to get the emotions out.

The working single minded at work like a madman posessed....able to preform above and beyond with speed and accuracy without need of slowing down. Hour after hour of concentration like on drugs or a caffeine high. I was one best safest forklift drivers in our mill for my bipolar.....little did they know how often I wanted to kill or be killed.

The working at home, starting a task in the middle of the day and working til well after dark just to get it done....time of day seems to mean nothing.....just single minded task oriented focus....

The lack of regard for ones own life, health or welfare....just the desire to push your own body as far and as fast as it can go....physically, emotionally, mentally.

The insatiable desire for intimacy, then beating yourself up for it. Then relieving that stress with intimacy again....like a viscous repedative cycle. ..

The need to feel deeply and profoundly connected to another human, yet feeling totally isolated in a crowded room. The inability to cope in crowds. The desire to be normal yet not fitting in no matter how hard you try. The misreading of social ques and not able to pick up on the politics within friendships..

These are just some my symptoms over the last 14 years sharing my body with my bipolar monkey

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Complicated situation...

My dad died when I was ten and my mom went into a deep depression. Fast forward four years, I started self harm and having suicidal thoughts at 14. Things snowballed, I was hospitalized and in treatment centers for most of my adolescence. Never heard mention of a dx that I recall. Graduated high school from special school for emotionally disturbed kids, went to four year college somehow.

Went off meds halfway through senior year of high school, btw, became unshakeable depressed as I can now see through my journal writings.

I made it until I think October in college and then OD'd on Advil. Not a Sui attempt, just extreme self injury....but I was committed against my will into the psych ward around the college for two weeks. That was the first time I heard bipolar bandied about. The doc put me on lithium.

Cue the worst year of my life up until now. Seven hospital stays, dozens of meds and med combos, dangerous self injury, etc, culminating with a Sui attempt that my very well have been successful had I not felt guilty about my mom finding me (it was impulsive) and fifteen ECT treatments.

And the whole time I'm telling all the dr that THEY are crazy, not me. Nowthag I know how anti depressants affect me I have to wonder...

Anyway I managed for six years on my own, got through college, had a baby, got married, and started a career....and then everything crashed down around me. Suddenly the storm started up again. Screaming anger. Crushing depression. Dancing to my own head music. Washing dishes so fast they are breaking. Speeding. Loud music. Seeing things. And finally, self injury for the first time in six years. and since I had worked through the trauma in my life after I had ECT (I spent six months in a PHP for women's trauma) I had nothing left to believe but bipolar. And I STILL denied it.

But I'm finally able to accept it. I do have bipolar just like they told me. And I'm not a failure for it. That's the important part. It's not ME vs THEM. The doctors (some at least) were trying to help. But I still have to advocate for myself! No ADs!

When I had textbook mania, to a psychotic level. I literally thought I was God, I had paranoid delusions that something or someone was out to get me, I began to have mild hallucinations,...
Finally, my wife brought me to the ER, where I started screaming in impatience," ok, I admit it, I am God! I am God!"

It was pure mania, I had to be put in a straight jacket and shot up with Thorazine or some tranquilizer to knock me out.
They put me on Depakote, seroquel and some sedative I cant remember just for a week or so.
I recovered quickly to sanity, but that episode in 2010 led me to finally accept the diagnosis that I am indeed bipolar 1.

My therapist at the time saw it coming, sent me to a one-time visit with the pdoc that worked with her program, who put me on seroquel because I wasn't sleeping, but I refused to take it. Fast forward a few weeks and I had painted rabbits all over my walls, hadn't slept for about a week, was walking an hour across the city every night because I couldn't go outside during the day. Somehow I still kept my job through all this, though I was only working two days a week. It all broke when I got on the subway after work one day and all of the sudden I could HEAR people's thoughts when I looked them in the eye. They told me to kill myself. I didn't have enough seroquel so I picked up some over the counter sleeping meds on the way home, and was ready to do it - to this day I don't know what saved me, but it occurred to me that my therapist had been saying this was going to happen and that I should take myself to the psych hospital when it did. So I went, and they admitted me. I was there for 3 months and they tried meds and observed. Several professionals agreed before I got the diagnosis, a social worker, psychologist and several pdocs.

Funny, I thought I wasn't one of those people who had crazy stories, I was like "wow you all have so much drama"... but my story is kind of dramatic too. Damn.

When I was fifteen I did a 180 from being the shy kid who didn't talk to being irritable and not taking anyone's crap. They diagnosed me as depressed and put me on anti-depressants which looking back had caused mania for me. I would snap within a second if someone looked at me the wrong way, road rage, etc. I was also a cutter at the time. Oh and also at sixteen I was diagnosed with OCD which took over my entire life, but that's another whole story in itself. So at about nineteen I stopped all of my pills, they were not working it was just getting worse. At twenty I decided to attempt suicide, the OCD at the time was just too much.

Then over the years it got worse. Right before my wedding I really started to spiral back into the irritability phase, I think the stress not sure, maybe that was the trigger. At 27 I decided to start therapy and see a pdoc. During a therapy session I was talking about some story that was recent about one of my rages and he looks at me and says I think you might be bipolar not depressed. He talked to my pdoc and they started me on Lamictal. At 50 mg I could feel the change and I realized that this was what had been wrong all of these years. I was diagnosed as BP 2 at the time. I am now 34 and have been thru numerous meds and still no luck except for Haldol for 3 weeks, but that didn't last. I have only been in the hospital once. And was recently diagnosed as BP 1 with mixed episodes, which also is starting to make complete sense as to why I feel depressed and manic at the same time. So that's my story!!!

I was about 19 or 20 when I was first diagnosed. I was going through a divorce and I had a nervous break down I had also had got arrested for driving at 155 in a 65 I was going to flip my car and kill myself. Well I ended up in the hospital for three weeks. Well I took my medications for about three months and I quit taking them. I went about 17 years without I was mostly manic during these years. Well several years ago while I was driving my semi truck I had accident that was not my fault. I thought I had killed this person who hit my my truck just from the looks of his pickup. I was lucky and he was fine. This pushed me way over the edge and later my pdoc told me I also now suffer from PTSD along with being bipolar. I sold my truck and trailer cause I was no longer safe to drive as I now started to rapid cycle. Well after I quit I went two years without treatment and was just a wholly terror to my family I did not hit them but I yelled and screamed all the time and hit walls and broke things. Well I broke down one time and my wife told me I needed help or she was done. Well that was the first of four times that I hospitalized. Well the last time they got me the right medication and I have been stable for the last couple of months.

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I was diagnosed when I was 36. Iwas all set to burn down one of my houses I rent out because the tenant wouldn't cut the grass. I had told them to move and they refused so I thought I'll burn that damn house down and they'll have to move. I was in a black rage. I remember thinking I'm being irrational but I couldn't stop. I actually went over there with a gas can, poured gas on the porch and was getting ready to light it but I saw a cat in the window. I didn't want to kill the cat so I left. When I calmed down I was scared I could have killed the people in that house in my rage. I went to my family doctor and told him the story. He said wow, I can't help you. You need a psychiatrist. He got me an emergency appointment. THe pdoc asked me a lot of questions and we talked about the many times I would run through my house acting crazy looking for things that were wrong and screaming at my family when I found something. How my drivers license was suspended many times for speeding. How I spent way more money that I could afford. when I thought about it I realize that a lot of the time I was manic and didn't know it since I was a teenager. He diagnosed me bipolar 1 with psychotic features and put me on Depakote, celexa and Ativan. This worked well for a while but I've changed meds a lot over the last 12 years. I've had to be hospitalized twice for suicide attempts. My current meds seem to be working pretty well. But I do miss the hypomania and occasionally decide to stop taking my meds.

I was living with a man who kept saying I was crazy. I didn't believe him. He made me an appt behind my back (not sure how he did it) tricked me into going by telling me we were going somewhere else, dropped me off, and chirped out. I was first diagnosed at that appt and treated for acute mania. The only reason I wasn't hospitalized was because I had no one to care for my child. He was later abusive and when I left him, I went off my meds, believing it was all really his fault. My meds were very clearly not doing anything anyway. I moved out of the area from my pdoc and just never got a new one. I just concluded she was a quack since the main reason for my diagnosis was a lack of sleep. I slept for 30 minutes the night before that appointment.

The second time, I was in one of the worst mixed states I've ever experienced. I was sitting in my car in the driveway determined to go anywhere else, bawling my eyes out. My current boyfriend called me because he was afraid, and I frantically started talking SI. He carefully talked me out of suicide, and calmly hinted that he thought I might be bipolar. Since he always seems to be right, once I was heavily sedated, I talked to my pdoc about the episode. He was mad that I hadn't called sooner, but I kept thinking I was fine, even after the fact. I wish i still had that doctor, but list my insurance. This was all triggered by a college class, I now realize... I still didn't take my diagnosis seriously until I was a bit more medicated and thought back on my life. I have a lot of crazy stories and I'm pretty sure ALL of them were some sort of episode.

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I first suspected I was crazy when I was 15

Didn't know the name of my crazy until 10yrs later when I was dxd, as my parents chose the path of denial.

I'm not quite surrre how I ended up in a pdocs office, something to do with depression, rage, voices screaming at me, me having *****fits at work, and my bf reminding me he's been telling me since HS to get help and that I'm old enough to do so for myself now...

The details are fuzzy (thank you frucking lithium) but I do remember crying for weeks, ripping out some of my hair and arguing with voices out loud. My GP labelled me clinically depressed as I had just lost my dad and brother in short succession, but his pills ramped me up and had me singing, dancing and bouncing off the walls of the office in like 3 days...

Met with pdoc a bit later and after going through my history in minute graphic detail (as my memory was still stellar at the time also him reading my journal didn't hurt,) he slapped me with a bipolar dx as my experience wasn't purely grief related, although it did bring out the worst of the monster.

So that's the gist of it I guess...

Wow, nice to know I remember more than I thought I could recall when starting this reply

Its easy to see the signs when you look back....the highs where I was the popular kid, the out there attitude, then the withdrawn one thing go wrong whole world collapse symptoms.

I was diagnosed as result mania following messy divorce, several half hearted suicide attempts and hospitalization, and the financial ruination of myself immediately after divorce. But believe I could and should have been diagnosed 9 years earlier when I was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome...

For me...my life would have been so different if I had been diagnosed 24 years ago rather than 15, but we are all the sum total of our experiences......what could've should've would've. ...well not much point to it.

Now I try my best to be the best person I can, be that manic, depressed or somewhere in between.

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I found out when I was 31? After cycling and a suicide attempt.

I knew from the age of 14, first suicide attempt that there was something wrong with me.

Self medicated with drugs until I finally crashed at time of diagnosis.

I had been treated for the depressive side since I was really little; just therapy as my folks were told I was just being a normal moody child at first., stupid therapist. All anyone cared about was the depression; no one thought / cared about the maniac side as they saw that as great that I was out of bed, somewhat functioning, over the moon, and no longer depressed. Several suicide attempts, hospitalizations, AD's, and docs later, there was still no help with the other side of things. No one listened.

Even into my twenties this went on, only being treated for the depressive spells. I kept trying to find someone who would listen, that things were not normal. It wasn't until my mid 30's that I happened to move out of state, and had to find yet another new pdoc, but this one listened to me about the other side: racing thoughts, weeks of insomnia, dangerous activities, shopping sprees, rapid speech, inattention, irritable, and periods of hyperactivity and thinking I could do anything during these times, AND explaining that something was wrong. This cannot be normal. That though the AD's helped with the depressive periods, what do I do about the rest? I could not finish school or hold a job, I would lose relation after relation, what is wrong with me, help me please?!

He immediately changed my meds and put me in touch with a DBT therapist, because I had developed some coping mechanisms over the years but these could be improved too. He said the diagnosis is not what is important whatever it came out to be, it is getting the help you need and not to focus on that. I honestly did not care what it was called; he was right, I just wanted help.

It took some trial an error but within three years, we found the right combination and I noticed about that time my diagnosis code for the billing changed to BP. We talked about it then, the ramifications, and how to discuss it with family, friends, etc. I am just grateful someone FINALLY listened; help was out there for the finding.

Diagnosed at 53 after a lifetime of always feeling something was wrong with me. I'd actually suspected bipolar after reading a copy of Jane Pauley's book Skywriting---my sister also read it and told me "I think you have that (bipolar)". But I didn't want to take lithium, which I thought was the only treatment for it, and I didn't want to believe I was mentally ill so I ignored it until I couldn't anymore.

I was sent to a psychiatrist when my regular doc said I had something too serious for him to treat. I was madder than a wet cat, but I went because I was really losing my $#!+ by that time. I'd been on Wellbutrin for a short time and it basically made me manic and psychotic, I was threatening to kill people and in a rage much of the time. In retrospect, I know I was lucky not to have been hospitalized, but by the time I actually saw the pdoc, I was merely depressed and he spent 90 minutes telling me how many ways I might not be bipolar.

However, he saw enough to diagnose me with BP-NOS on the basis of my history; that diagnosis has since been refined as my episodes have made things more clear. I've had a lot of trouble accepting it, but the dx explains so many things that have happened throughout the course of my life since I was very young---why I wanted to die as early as age 10, why I did crazy things like run off to Ensenada, Mexico with some friends and self-medicated with alcohol, why I'd go for long periods feeling really good and then crash into an angry depression. It even explains my lifelong seasonal patterns of feeling super-energetic in the early summer and early fall, depressed in the late fall and mid-winter, and mixed in the spring.

How did I find out that I was bipolar? . . .

When I was arrested by the FBI for six acts of terror against an individual on August 13, 2001 (i.e. vigilantism). I was looking at 30 years in federal prison - but after intensive psychiatric evaluations by forensic psychiatrists for both the defense and prosecution, I was diagnosed with type 1 rapid-cycling bipolar disorder. The obvious verdict was "not guilty by reason of insanity," and I've been on psychotropic medications ever since.

My life with bipolar has been like a Boeing 727 force landing in downtown Manhattan.

I was first diagnosed bipolar mixed the second time I was hospitalized. The third time I was hospitalized I was diagnosed schizoaffective.

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I knew something was up for awhile, but I didn't know it was bipolar/schizoaffective. I was diagnosed with "just" schizophrenia for years, but I knew something else was up(even though I didn't want to believe it). But nobody ever paid much attention to my moods until this year due to the mental health system failing me. That all changed though when I walked into my pdoc's office earlier this year with textbook full-blown psychotic mania and that's when I got the schizoaffective bipolar type diagnosis.

No kidding. Sorry to hear that. I've said some crazy things sometimes and am fortunate it never got me arrested. Said them through the years and at my last job which owner was/had been mayor for 25+ years. Of course he had connections. I did something (non threatening) and he fired me. He then told me he thought I was bipolar. Long story short, I eventually started treatment and am accepting it. My hardest part is how to survive financially from here on out.