Bipolar—Looking Back, Have You Always Been?

Now that you’ve been diagnosed, do you think you’ve always been bipolar, or can you pinpoint when it started?

I think maybe I always have been. Maybe I had something more serious when I was younger. As a small child I had hallucinations even, an invisible man that used watch me with demon eyes and chase me. He was always walking around, or sleeping in various places around the house or outside. I was terrified. I feared for my life and my safety, always.

I have never known a life without anxiety and depression.

I am sure that it is true that childhood abuse triggers bipolar disorder.

I wasn't diagnosed till age 53, but I've suspected there was something wrong with me since I was six. I had night terrors then---my parents took me to a child psychiatrist who told them he thought there was something wrong, but wasn't sure what it was. Typically for them (they liked to bury their heads in the sand whenever something challenged them that they didn't want to believe), they never took me back, and that was the end of it till my first depression and SI at 10.

I can also remember periods of extreme high energy, although the depressive episodes were more frequent in those days. (Now it's like half and half.) All this got worse as I grew older, and finally I lost my $#!+ completely in late 2011. I was first diagnosed Bipolar NOS, then at 55 I received my bipolar 1 diagnosis. I have never known what it's like to be "normal". I had anxiety as far back as I can remember, and I've always been uneasy around loud noises and crowds. But I was high-functioning for a long time, up until a few years ago, and I've been stable for the most part for two years.

I'd clearly had severe traumas as a young child, which had an impact. Then ongoing traumas and major losses. I was a straight A student, a standout athlete and student council president for several years. I finally had a meltdown inn my late teens, after a string of traumas. While diagnoses we unclear for several years, we'd settled upon Severe Atypical Major Depression, which became impossible to treat. This is now called Bipolar II. So, yes, I've likely been BPII, there just was not a diagnostic category for it then on the BP spectrum.


WC

I remember depression as a child, and then high school I feel I had bipolar2, undiagnosed. Finally late 40's got the correct diagnosis of Bipolar 1.

I was diagnosed with sza when I was 28 years old. It has been a rocky road ever since. I believe my diagnosis is correct. I am more schizophrenic off meds. Most people don't know I'm ill. I don't disclose it to everybody, especially the people I work with. I am doing fine now. However, it took me a long time for me to accept my condition. I was off meds in my early 40's and was hospitalized off and on for four years. I finally accepted my condition and have been compliant with meds for the past five years. I feel a whole lot better on meds than off. I am happy with what I have. I'll never be rich or smarter than I am. But, I feel for what it is worth, I am doing ok despite what I've been through with my illness. I am grateful.

I was diagnosed at 26, but I think it started when I was 14. At 14, I crashed into a horrible depression that didn't get better until I was 17.

it's hard to say.

I like to say it started at 9 (that's when people really took note of something not right), and, I am pretty sure that I had a manic episode before diagnoses.

saying all that above, though, I went through a lot of childhood abuse, and I was never quite right- I never felt I truly acted how I should be acting, and I remember doing a lot of wild things as a kid, and a lot of self neglect even then

all I know for sure is that when I got my diagnoses, I smiled to myself, because I was just so greatful this thing had a name, I wasn't just some crazy person from another dimention, their are loads of people like me.

I have had anxiety for as long as I can remember too. I hallucinated when I was 9 and I told my dad what I saw. Being a Christian he thought I was being attacked by the devil so he prayed over me.
When I hit puberty is when my first depression showed up. And when I wasn't depressed I would clean and organize my room to a T.
I wasn't diagnosed till I was 32, after I gave birth to my daughter. I went bat **** crazy. PP psychosis. But it's been a way easier road now that I'm on the right meds.

Back into my teens at least. I was diagnosed in my mid 30s and I am late 50s now.

EDIT to add - I don't know if social awkwardness is related or not, but that's been lifelong.

I can't remember a time not being like this, but I didn't know or recognize what was going on because I just assumed this was the way I was supposed to be. I just new something was "off" or "insane" about myself, an "it is as it is kind of thing".

Dang... I can't tell you how much that pattern rings true to me. (and scares me more than a little) I came ripping out of a depression much stronger than ever this January and happened to have my appointment just a few days later...

depakote vs just a few more weeks; it could have ended so badly. Just dumb luck, an available slot, and a doc willing to open with the stabilizer first.

Extreme childhood trauma...anxiety, bedwetting, etc. MDD at 15yrs old...diagnosed (finally!!) as BP II at 24yrs.
I've always known I'm a sick cookie...

Ive always been even as a little kid.

Yes traced it back to age 6 so likely from birth

Definitely at 14. Before that, I'm not sure.

I was ****ed up as a kid but it was from emotional neglect. When my dad died when I was ten I went into depression where I wouldn’t shower or wash my clothes for days and skipped school as much as possible. Sixth grade was equally as bad, I didn’t comb my hair and suffer d extreme separation anxiety from my mom. Got bullied in middle school because of it. But in seventh grade I had a complete switch. I got my hair cut, bought some new clothes, and became the happiest I had ever been. First hypomania? Maybe so.

Then it all went to hell in eighth grade.

I started going to therapy when I was 15, for anxiety/self harm/depression. My therapist apparently diagnosed me with bipolar around that time, but never told me for reasons unknown to me, just put it in my charts. Looking back, I thought that mania was stability, and my "baseline" so to speak, I just couldn't understand why I would so suddenly get depressed. It probably started when I was around 11. I was formally diagnosed at 18, and I'm 19 now. It's still weird to me, and I tend to doubt my diagnosis still, even though it makes sense and so far medication has worked wonders for me(lithium, now lamictal)

I think I have always been. I even remember feeling different from all the other kids on the playground in kindergarten and just never could pinpoint it. I never remember a time when I didn't have anxiety or outright panic.

In college, I got an eating disorder (common in people with bipolar) but was diagnosed as major depressive with panic disorder. The depression meds made my manic stages worse until I showed up at a pdoc appt. in a super manic state; then, she re-adjusted my diagnosis.

I always have (from elementary school on), struggled more with the depressive than the manic phase.

My life has been one crazy ride. I got fired more than once and accused of being on speed. This was back before they did drug tests. I self medicated with alcohol and weed for decades. I was diagnosed with depression in my thirties. I'm 62 now. I just got the biploar diagnosis a few years ago.

After I got my diagnosis it made so much sense. I can remember things from at least my early teen years that were most likely from being bipolar and it just got progressively worse as it wasn’t treated.

I think my bipolar symptoms started when I was in my early 20's. I experienced some depression as a teenager, but I think it was situational.