[thinkvantage]

Specifically bipolar of course....I'm trying to think about what's relevant to bring up with my doctor.

Thanks.

[CopperStar]

Hard to say for sure, because I have more issues than just BP.

But if I had to guess, I think I started cycling after I graduated from high school. I had always been very shy and introverted, with no social life, dressed very frumpy and identified as a nerdy sort of person.

But that first year after high school, I kept teetering between an irritable, panic-attack-loaded depression, and what in retrospect may have been hypomania or mania. I spent every penny I made at my job on all sorts of crazy, non-practical things, and I would morph into a social butterfly at random. Eventually it all merged into a terrible mixed state, and I couldn't function at all.

[thecrankyone]

Hard to pinpoint exact symptoms but I know around puberty is when things started to fall apart for me. I was always a strange kid, but things got worse when puberty kicked in. I was also an early developer. (Bra at 10, first period at 11).

I would go days with out hardly sleeping or I would stay up until 3 or 4 every night. I would (and still do) hold conversations with my self of others (not imaginary, just playing out loud what most people keep in their head).

One night for no explainable reason I went around and took all the phones off the hook. I would get lost in a made up world in my head and spent more time in fantasy than in reality (this was decades before the 'net).

I would stay up all night and read out loud or rearrange my room. I drove like a maniac at times (in high school, I am a farmer's daughter who started driving at 14) with no sense of my own mortality.

I would spend entire weekends without ever leaving my bedroom, except to use bathroom or eat .

[Trippin2.0]

Trying to off myself 1 weekend at age 15 and running across a field topless the next.

[thinkvantage]

Did you ever just have some stupid ideas that you didn't follow through with or often think about something and then 2 mins later have no interest in it at all?

[DysphoricManicMom]

I was 10 or 11 and I was at a friend's house down the street. My friend's stepdad was being a smart *** and somehow the convo ended up with him saying sarcastically that I didnt like him, and I responded by saying no I didnt like him and I think I was just kidding because I thought he was...but he ended up saying something mean, or something to the effect of leaving, or at least thats how I perceived it. Well, I ended up running home crying and once I got inside my house I was crying and screaming uncontrollably. My Dad tried to console me, and I couldnt even tell him what happened. The way I was acting was as if someone attacked me or raped me--he thought something horrible had just happened to me. I still couldnt tell him what was wrong, so he eventually just let it be and I later calmed down. I had the courage to tell my older sister and her response was...that was all that happened? But she believed me and later told my dad. But that is the earliest I can remember overreacting to a stressful event. Later in adolescence I'd kick holes in walls and scream at the top of my lungs until my voice was hoarse when my parents wouldnt let me do things with friends or if my parents were arguing. Still to this day (Ill be 30 in a cpl months) I have poor impulse control and throw fits like a preschooler.

[Curiosity77]

Getting super super depressed at age 11, feeling suicidal for no reason. Then at age 12 i had a bizarre experience of feeling sure i would die at 17. And then periods of energy and agitation, and excitement and depression through high school years. But I didn't get any diagnosis til age 19, and that was a depression diagnosis. I wasn't diagnosed bipolar til age 29, despite many years of symptoms.

I suffered depression even during childhood which became more dangerous as I grew into adulthood. The real cycling didn't really get noted until much older, but in retrospect, it started as a young adult.

[thinkvantage]

Originally Posted by Curiosity77

Getting super super depressed at age 11, feeling suicidal for no reason. Then at age 12 i had a bizarre experience of feeling sure i would die at 17. And then periods of energy and agitation, and excitement and depression through high school years. But I didn't get any diagnosis til age 19, and that was a depression diagnosis. I wasn't diagnosed bipolar til age 29, despite many years of symptoms.

Why did it take you so long to get diagnosed?

[Edgar's Mom]

The first time I tried to kill myself I was 5. I had witnessed my Dad have a brain hemorrhage (he lived) when I was a toddler and it had been explained to me that you can die "if the blood rushes to your head"

I remember hanging upside down over the edge of my bed until my face red and pulsing trying to die.

It was ridiculous and of course not what they meant, but I didn't know that and the intent and determination were there.

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[Christopher1990]

i was always pretty happy for the most part. but, i think i was highly emotional deep down. i remember switching schools i had a mini episode. just flipping out, crying, for hours, raging. lots of holes in the wall. idk. i think i have always been very sensitive.

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[secretgalaxy]

I was always a weird kid. At three I wanted my mom to stab me with a knife and kill me because I didn't want to live. I would easily go from happy to sad to irritated as a kid, but it went into a bad depression from 11-14 (also an early developer, getting my period at 11) on and off, then had a hypo manic episode. Then went through a manic episode before my 18th birthday. Now I'm diagnosed with Bipolar and PTSD, and am on meds.

[BlackSheep79]

It hit at fifteen. My whole personality changed. Misdiagnosed as depression, and given antidepressants for years that caused mania. Stupid pdocs back then never considered BP, just a moody teenager. Came off the meds around 19-20. I was sick of being a guinnea pig. Then literally a few months before my wedding at age 26 the **** hit the fan. I look back at the years in between and I guess I was just managing it. I was then diagnosed at 28 finally. It's so hard to know what's what because I've suffered from OCD my whole life, and I really was consumed by that at 16. So a lot was going on at the same time when the BP started.

[Disorder7]

I'm curious about all of the questions. Are you doing research? A student?

If you're bipolar, only you know how to respond to your doctor's questions......

[~Christina]

I wasn't diagnosed until age 43.. But looking back ..

Self harming at age 6, Suicidal by age 9 ... bought new cars yearly , allowing my then 7-9 year daughter to just point to the one she liked ! Going out for pancakes at 3am , just because, Decided to buy a house on a Monday and made an offer on one a few days later and closed in 30 days.. Fast forward 4 years decided on a Friday I was tired of mowing my yard and decided to sell my house and find a cute apartment, My house sold a week after it listed for cash !

Between all the good times I had some really ugly dark times.

Had I been diagnosed way back when.. I would have missed out on some spectacular stuff if I had been snowed under to a drooling zombie.

[~Christina]

Originally Posted by Disorder7

I'm curious about all of the questions. Are you doing research? A student?

If you're bipolar, only you know how to respond to your doctor's questions......

Good catch.. make me wonder to

[Curiosity77]

Originally Posted by thinkvantage

Why did it take you so long to get diagnosed?

I don't really know. I think because i can usually function, and seem ok to people, even when i'm not. I always had other explanations, like using substances, but the symptoms continued substance free, and continued getting worse sometimes. I spent time in a treatment center at 20-21, with a misdiagnosis, although i don't know how they missed it, because it seems obvious looking back. But I didn't figure it out til age 29, when i had a severe episode, and nearly destroyed my marriage

serious suicide attempt at age 9.

people still look at me and always wonder.. 9?. that's awefully young.. most people that age don't really know what they are doing.

and it's something i've learnt to live with.. i get that all the time.

many people still can't believe that someone so young thought about ending everything

[marmaduke]

I about ending it all at a young age, for me it was because of abusive parenting.
Did you folks have good, loving parents?

Always interested in the nurture v nature debate.

[BrandonAK]

Doctors will look for episodes of mania. If none of those exist, then you'll be pegged with MDD or the like. Make sure you highlight the episodes, lengths, and give specific examples.

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