[Icare dixit]

What started it all, for you?

For me, it was depression, but before that my personality caused something you might call hypomania. The depression was the longest ever (I really learned how to get out of it at that time, and I still use the same techniques).

[hopeless2015]

Depression ended up ip a year ago this month think the meds are close right now just have to work on those coping skills

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[ComfortablyNumb5]

Assuming you're implying to when my illness first showed symptoms. Before I was DX BP, they said I had MDD. But I was showing symptoms at ten when I started self harming. I'm now wondering if I self harmed out of mania and the anger that comes with it? Who knows. But I didn't have my first known manic episode until about age 17, after my MDD DX. If I had it sooner then I didn't know enough to be able to tell and probably shrugged it off and being hyper with insomnia.

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[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by RxQueen875

Assuming you're implying to when my illness first showed symptoms.

Yes! Sorry for any confusion.

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by RxQueen875

Assuming you're implying to when my illness first showed symptoms. Before I was DX BP, they said I had MDD. But I was showing symptoms at ten when I started self harming. I'm now wondering if I self harmed out of mania and the anger that comes with it? Who knows. But I didn't have my first known manic episode until about age 17, after my MDD DX. If I had it sooner then I didn't know enough to be able to tell and probably shrugged it off and being hyper with insomnia.

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I'd think self-harming could've been that or just a general confusion about strong emotions, expressed as anger and self-harming.

It's a time you start to find "useful", more stable expressions, forming a personality, I believe. My (self-)damaging behaviour started when I was just a few years younger. Depression started when I was about 10 and at 12 it became severe.

But it might've been different for you.

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by hopeless2015

Depression ended up ip a year ago this month think the meds are close right now just have to work on those coping skills

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But was that your first depression?

What are your coping skills? I made a Depression Guide thread some time ago, but it didn't really catch on. I still may try to revive it: would be nice/useful to know each other's "routine".

Hope things are looking up for you.

[pirilin]

I ate steak (good/medium rare/healthy). Right now (Not this instant). It needs (or may need, could need) a good floss (the teeth/gums/in between) to preserve (or make last/stretch/prolong) my (or yours/or anybody's)(duration/health.cleanness/freshness).
for (good tasting flavor/palate.) Ah, why bother. Not even close. Sui Generis.

[zepchic]

Depression...I tried to kill myself when I was 9. Nothing came of it. Then when I was 23 I had depression and went into student health where I was diagnosed bp. I went off meds and had a good 10 years without anything major happening, then last year I had mania like never before. I actually went into the dr. to get a benzo prescription, just so I could abuse it.

[gina_re]

I didn't know it at the time, but depression. I was away at college, and it was my first time really being away from home. And I was an out of state student. By the spring semester I was so lost, my concentration was gone, I had no focus, I was sad and home alone a lot. I eventually stopped going to some classes. It didnt help that they had me taking calculus, physics, and chemistry that semester. And not the introductory classes, the courses for the science majors (I originally was a meteorology major). I didn't return the following year. Went to community college the following year, failed those classes too. I gave up on school and beat myself up over it not knowing why. I eventually did graduate, just much later than originally planned. But I was stabilized since I figured it all out.

[Icare dixit]

For whom was that first depression caused by lack of stimulation, challenges or excitement? Too many challenges? Too little options? Or a combination?

Or was it you behaviour or that of others (maybe in reaction to your behaviour)?

Regina, is it fair to say it was too challenging, for you, at first? Or maybe too little distraction/stimulation, being away from home? Glad you did overcome that depression in time.

For me, the mild depression started after (quite extreme, definitely for a child) reactions to my behaviour, which was rather "out of control" (arguably it wasn't really). That it turned to severe depression really had to do with a lack of stimulation, lack of challenges and excitement, due to the total suppression of my "unhealthy" behaviour I began to display a number of years earlier (which caused the strong reactions).

Clearly, my behaviour was good for something. It was (and is) used to rationalise my failure, which is/was basically due to memory and emotional problems, but also my need to be more stimulated, largely due to my perceptual "problems", not seeing details, seeing things more in a reduced, abstract form, and thereby seeing less differences and change, basically.

[BastetsMuse]

Originally Posted by Icare dixit

What started it all, for you?

Hard to say what started it all, but what got noticed was a depressive episode. I was given an AD that triggered a mania, and there we were. However, I can see history before that time of mania and depression.

[gina_re]

Originally Posted by Icare dixit

For whom was that first depression caused by lack of stimulation, challenges or excitement? Too many challenges? Too little options? Or a combination?

Or was it you behaviour or that of others (maybe in reaction to your behaviour)?

Regina, is it fair to say it was too challenging, for you, at first? Or maybe too little distraction/stimulation, being away from home? Glad you did overcome that depression in time.

For me, the mild depression started after (quite extreme, definitely for a child) reactions to my behaviour, which was rather "out of control" (arguably it wasn't really). That it turned to severe depression really had to do with a lack of stimulation, lack of challenges and excitement, due to the total suppression of my "unhealthy" behaviour I began to display a number of years earlier (which caused the strong reactions).

Clearly, my behaviour was good for something. It was (and is) used to rationalise my failure, which is/was basically due to memory and emotional problems, but also my need to be more stimulated, largely due to my perceptual "problems", not seeing details, seeing things more in a reduced, abstract form, and thereby seeing less differences and change, basically.

Being away from home and not knowing what to do was the trigger. I also felt more alone than anything. Since making friends has always been an issue for me, being in another state where I didn't know anyone didn't help. Fall semester I was able to get through with good grades, it was spring semester that really hit me hard. Plus the weather sucked, it was always cold, cloudy and snowing.
A few years later, I was diagnosed with MDD and an AD was prescibed, and as so many of us have experienced, I went hypo and began my journey with bipolar disorder..