How did you realise you were bipolar?

I had a manic crash at the age of 45 and was diagnosed. In hindsite I realize I was sick all my life.

I started seeing my therapist for PTSD. At the time, i'd been prescribed a few different SSRIs. One day during a session she told me to look up hypomania. I was so angry because of it's association with BP. She was almost fired that day. In the next session she explained to me that my body seemed to be reacting to the SSRIs like someone with BP. She referred me to a pdoc. By the end of my first session with my pdoc, I was diagnosed. There, of course, was plenty of evidence in my history. I still have a hard time accepting the dx. I want it to be something else.

Oh I wanted to add in the hospital they had me take like 4 different tests too once I was sleeping. It took forever to get me sleeping. But I wouldn't have accepted the diagnosis I don't think if I didn't have those results in black and white...

I haven't posted anywhere on these forums since late 2012, so hi everyone. Anyways in February/March 2012 I went into a manic episode due to an AD I was on, (didn't know what it was at the time though). I was technically diagnosed bipolar in late summer of 2012, but didn't believe it, at the time I was in therapy for a few months, but decided that I didn't need it and stopped all treatment that I could handle everything on my own, and was in a delusional state of thinking that psych meds were nothing but a ploy by the government to control the population and or poison us. But for the past 4yrs things never got better only worse without treatment, and for the most part neither my family nor myself beloved something was majorly wrong with me. That is until this past October when I went into a severe manic episode (unmedicated) and attempted suicide by overdose, and lost 11 days of memory from it (disassociation). It wasn't until I was was put into a PHP (wasn't elegible for an inpatient hospital) that they diagnosed me as Bipolar 1, I was put again on an AD (along with an AP and mood stabilizer) well I had another bad reaction with that and along with a response to a stressful situation attempted suicide again (I was possibly manic at the time, but not too sure). So now I'm in treatment, and now believe my diagnoses (bipolar 1 and PTSD), I just didn't realize how bad it was until this past October, but looking back it all makes sense...