What was your first symptom?

When I started realizing that having suicidal thoughts daily wasn't normal at all.

I was doing homework one afternoon when I was 11 or so when all of a sudden I felt the happiest I ever had in my entire life at that moment. It was intense. I rushed through my math problems and even wrote a long note to the teacher about how stupidly easy those questions were. I was so happy I didn't care to notice that I got every single one of those questions wrong. When my mood crashed the following day, I looked back at the monstrosity of a letter I had wrote and hastily erased as much of it as I could. The teacher was still able to read it. I was so embarrassed.

I never connected that to bipolar until after I was diagnosed. Now I look back on it and it finally makes sense. I had a few more moments like that during my school years.

When I was 13 I heard the voice of "god" narrating all my actions. Then came paranoia, then all the bits that come with depression.

I think my first symptom was mania/hypomania, when I had just returned from a work trip abroad and saved up some money.

I bought an expensive car which was out of my league then, with a huge down-payment and had a 3-year car loan where I was paying nearly 45% of my then monthly salary.

I was talking a lot and announced that I was going to quit my corporate job and get into filmmaking (with no prior training or evidence to show a passion or interest), got in touch with friend's friend's who had connections. Like a friends sister who was an aspiring actor, and another friends brother who was an aspiring producer with no clear plan or determination or perseverance.

I was treating my friends out to dinner at 5-star hotels and expensive lounge bars, took an expensive holiday abroad, paying with my credit card and eventually had to borrow money from my mom to pay credit card bills.

This was immediately followed by a really long depressive period. A full on crash and complete isolation and self-neglect and gained over 55 pounds of weight.

From here onwards, I'v been cycling.

Probably some form of mania. The staying up for days, working on many projects at the same time. This would have around age 12. Projects we're usually taking apart my tv, boom box, Walkman and whatever else electronic in the house. I knew nothing about electronics then or now for that matter. Even then I would crash a deep haunting depression. My family just called it hormones.