When did you experience your first episode?

I just realized that I was suffering from bipolar disorder for a lot longer than I thought I have been. When I was younger I was hyperactive, depressed, unable to concentrate, prone to panic attacks, and I was easily frustrated. It's so strange looking back and seeing how long I have been living with these symptoms. I just upped my dose of abilify and I'm hoping that my BP goes into remission.

When was the first time you had a BP episode? Do you remember? What was it like?

I was 12 and went with the family to El Cerrito CA from CO to visit my grandma. I was in her living room flirting through the window with a little Asian girl next door. Suddenly I experienced this stunningly harsh anxiety that washed over me, and I was petrified...running around the place trying to find my parents. I can't remember how it ended.
The next spring my grandma had a stroke so she came to CO to live with us. I was 13 and was noticing some things: I was experiencing OCD behaviors like every time I looked at a round light I had to swallow when I went to the hospital to see grandma until she passed, or I would screw up my face in this ghastly yawn (that my mom told me would be permanent). I was scared of my own shadow, but would steal anything that wasn't nailed down.

On the positive side I was playing classical piano, and was winning competitions and achieving certificates and accolades left and right. I was going places with it...but that wouldn't last long. I wasn't wired for prosperity. So that 1-2yr period was the harbinger of the dysfunction to come. By age 16 I was a tornado of outlandish behavior, dysfunction, substance abuse and sexual obsession that wouldn't end for 4 decades.

asked for valium at age 16,,, just could not unwind, very angry raging childhood and as a young adult (an example . used to drive around with a gun hoping to stop a crime, rescue someone, ect..). very self destructive behaviour (driving over 100 almost every day),, thankfully never did drugs or alcohol (to God filled for that)... I was his avenging angel of wrath (scary looking back now... ) never really dxed till went ip for a week after a bad ad trip..(I guess my first real documented episode). @ 55 ...little over two and 1/2 years ago..

I really thought everyone thought and acted as I did,, no close friends so I guess I grew up in a vacumn, i did not know what BP was till called that while ip .... been hard believing and accepting it, but the more I remember and understand been this way (f**ked up) most my life.... the funny thing is I was a preacher and went to bible college and really thought I was doing God's work during all this time.... I am just so lucky I never killed anyone or myself along the way....

thanks for asking.. "bad memories".. but good to get it out...

I was self-destructive too (except for the hearts I broke). I remember a couple of perhaps rage incidents somewhere in the 5-10yr old range: I would curl up under my piano and play like I was grinding up a naked black woman with the pedals as controls. Later a therapist suggested I was actually grinding up my mom, but imagined a black woman because it would have been unacceptable to think of doing it to your mom. Funny, because at that time in Northern CO I had never seen a black woman.

Next one was when I was staying at a family friend's farm. They had built an exact replica of the main house...as their daughter's play house. She had outgrown it years before, but I found 8 barn cats and shut them in between the windows and the screens...so they were stuck in there for hours all arched up.

At around 16 we set fire to a cat once, and I've died a thousand deaths for that cruelty. Its anyone's guess if these were previews of problems to come.

My first time was about two years ago, the day after my 28th birthday.

I remember most of it, but there are some blurry parts in my memory. It was very traumatic. I started not sleeping due to stress. I barely ate. And that's when I had my first trip to inpatient care.

I still get flashbacks of all that went on. But your right it started long before that. Because looking back on my college and high school years I can see the steady course of mania and depression. I could accomplish so much in such a short time with little to no sleep and then I would crash for a couple days to recover. I thought that was normal behavior! I had no idea what a healthy lifestyle looked like or how to handle stress. Thankfully, I'm learning now.

I can track mine back to when I was 16 convalescence (which was dismissed at the time as me being a rebellious teenager every time I had an up swing)

Looking back it is so difficult to see when the BP started as I have a history of child abuse thus severe PTSD as well. I was suicidal at age 9 and by my teens I was a VERY moody, dark but sometime vivacious person. At times I had lots of energy and others I went to bed straight after school. I guess it must have started in my teens. At age 22 I had a mental breakdown due to the PTSD but I can also see BP in it. Age 33 I had another breakdown and six years later I am still trying to recover. I was finally diagnosed at 37 after a clear manic episode followed by mixed then depression. It is still difficult to differentiate between the BP and PTSD sometimes, the symptoms can overap a lot.

I was 14 when I became majorly depressed. I started crying every day at school, staying up all night crying, and eventually, cutting. I saw my first psychiatrist and was diagnosed with major depression and put on antidepressants. The antidepressants caused mania. However, instead of pursuing a bipolar diagnosis at a young age (I guess), she kept the major depression diagnosis and lowered the antidepressant to a minuscule amount which, once the mania subsided, helped with the depression. I was better for only a short time until my sophomore year, at age 15, I became severely depressed, paranoid and psychotic. I was also raging, not sleeping, having major panic attacks, and having to leave school on a daily basis because I couldn't function (until I finally had to drop out and be home schooled the remainder of that year). I saw a different psychiatrist who after only a few visits diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. I was extremely volatile for a number of years until, at about 20, I thought I was healed because I was so much better (despite promiscuity, one night stands, rage, lack of sleep, over drinking, etc at that very time--whew the hindsight). I truly had no major breaks again until age 28. I had some moderate to, on one occasion, major depressions and some hypo manias but nothing happened that would have led me back to a psychiatrist until that psychopathic breakdown I had 3 years ago.

I cant say for sure. Anxiety started at a very young age, at least 7. And I know depression was present when I was grappling with depression by age 15 or 16. Mania didn't present itself right away. Its hard for me to remember because I was battling abuse at home. Its all kind of blurry.

It seems as if a lot of us suffered from anxiety and/or depression in our teen years.... hmmm... Thank you everybody for sharing! It's feels good knowing that I'm not alone!

I was diagnosed at age 4, I believe. My parents said I was a very different child and they just knew that there was something going on. I think it's because my parents were so observant that I'm as great as I am today. Well, as well managed as I am. I think I'd be far worse if I hadn't had an early intervention.

The OCD I can track back to elementary school. I did a 180 when I was 15. I have blocked out a lot. I do remember being depressed, suicidal, and cutting. My parents were told to take me to a pdoc when I was 10 but they denied anything was wrong. Finally at 15 they did. They diagnosed me as depressed and put me on ADs that caused mania, but they were idiots back then and didn't diagnose teenagers with BP. At 16 I was diagnosed with the OCD. Finally I think at about 18-19 I stopped my ADs I had enough. Things calmed down, maybe, or maybe I was blind and didn't see what was going on? A few months before my marriage I remember it went bad and I was diagnosed a year later at the age of 27, I'm now 35. I wished back when I was a teen they were diagnosing BP like they are now. I believe my life would be different, but I feel I'm a stronger person for what I've gone through though.

I was 18, in my second year at a military academy. I was at the top of my game and at the top of my class. Then I became severely depressed, and the bottom fell out. I stopped studying and eventually dropped out. Although I completed my education at one of the best schools in the country, resigning from the academy has always haunted me. It is the one moment I go back to when evaluating my life. I had many depressive episodes after that, but it wasn't until I was a little over 40 that I realized that I was bipolar.

I would be proud that I had the "stuff" to make it into the academy in the first place, At 18 and facing the stress of BP and to go on to finish school was a miracle in it's self, I would not see that as a failure but a sign of strength to have survived and then to succedd. I see nothing to have remorse over.. peace to you my friend...

i was 14 when i entered some kind of dark angry depression (maybe even somewhat with mixed features) that took completley over. i recovered..but the first REAL hyp/manic episode i had was at 17.....
i was always a super sensitive little kid, never colored in any color but black and def had some wierd ocd issues,.

Permenantly excluded from 2 schools by the age of 15. I think I was probably hyper all the way back then. I was a pretty unpleasant young man and quite violent from a relatively early age. I guess some childhood sexual abuse didn't help. Serious suicide attempt at 19 (razor blade to both wrists).

It's hard to look back retrospectively, but I think both of the above incidents were red flags, but back then, things were swept under the carpet.

I've been picking and scratching literally as long as I can remember.

I've always felt like the odd duck, as though everybody but me were in on something that I didn't' get.

My younger brother was born premature (he's 4 years younger) and had many problems such as learning disabilities (he would fall in the area just above the highest functioning MR. As such I my issues were largely over looked and/or thought of as something I could control.

I remember family therapy sessions and such that looking back it should have been clear I had mental health problems but they were totally missed.

I would say the real problems started with puberty. I was in my first bra at 10 and had my first period at 11, basically making me a little girl with the physical body of a women.

I was not prepared mentally or emotionally to deal with that, and my very Catholic uptight mother was not able to be of much help. (I pretty much learning everything I needed to know on my own or from friends, took a long time to get truly educated on the actual facts. Luckily I was voracious reader).

I would act weirdly, live in a fantasy world but keep up the appearance of normality and get good grades, though I had only a few friends and didn't participate in many activities.

I would be up all night doing a project or rearranging my room, watching tv, or something else. Then I would be the opposite just barely getting by with the bare minimum. I still managed to graduate with a 93% average. In college things got really bad.

It wasn't until I watched a biography on Patty Duke that it totally hit me that her behavior was almost a mirror of mine, even though our lives were totally different.

I finally was diagnosed in my 30's but was 40 before I was serious about getting help and finding meds that help.

At 20 went into severe depression out of nowhere. In fact, I'd been having a GREAT time preceeding it. So it made NO sense at all -- because there HAD to be a reason, right? At the time I didn't know about endogenous depression. Or bipolar. I was at university at the time, and everything had been going great. Suddenly, I couldn't manage to go to classes -- barely ever even managed to leave my room. It went on for months. Had to drop out.

Never went back. Things were swept under the rug WAY more in those days (and very much so with my family -- heavy-duty denial of OBVIOUS problems), so there was to be no help. I was merely something to be furious at -- for being some kind of slacker ingrate(!!!) (Good grades, hard worker, scholarships and work-study. Go figure. Grrrr.)

Many years of many episodes (so classic in both strong hypomania and depressive phases...) before being "forced" to go see somebody. I'd known for a very, very long time there was something major wrong with me, but was too afraid to know what.

I'd had "peculiarities" forever, but don't speculate much over it. I just count the crash into the massive depression as the start, because it was life-changing and an impossible to miss marker. No fuzzy speculation about it.

I've always had this. Eating disorder @8, Drinking @ 9, cutting @ 11, "popular" by 13. I knew what I had by 13. I even asked for medication, just to be told that all that was wrong with me was I'm a brat. My first OD at 16. I was able to convince the er not to get an evaluation.

I think I switched from bipolar 2 to bipolar 1 several years ago. I was diagnosed about 3 yrs ago.

Before that, I din't know about hypomania. I thought it was just the way I was.
I have always been moody and depressed.

During high school, got into fights. Drank fare amount with other, and smoked pot. For many years not diagnosed, but now know why I did some of the things I did. Only until age 61 diagnosed and placed on medications. No more pot or alcohol.

Age 14 is when things started setting in for me. 16 was my first bout of mania looking back... Self medicated for 9 years where I was either drunk or high 99 percent of the time when awake. 90 percent of that I was high.. Diagnosed at 25. Stopped all drugs and now on meds. Made quite a mess of myself during those 9'years.. Hyper aggressive sex addict etc..

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Don't remember. I used to say I had my first anxiety attacks around age 9 but I think it was more like 6.

As for bipolar stuff...maybe a little later, but I don't know things I can clearly remember happened when I was about 8 years old.

When I was very young, about 8 or so I started having extreme moods. I remember being very melancholy at that age and also out of control hyperactivity at times. I had my first spiritual experience around that time and now I can attribute that to childhood mania.