I think most of us have an inkling of when our bipolar disorder started, even if we weren't diagnosed for years afterwards. Though I suspect that younger generations get properly diagnosed a little sooner than the older generations, I'm not sure of that. If you'd like to participate in the poll, please also consider indicating approximately how old you are now. That will inevitably show how old you think you were when bipolar symptoms started.

I am 99% sure my bipolar disorder started at 14 or 15 years old. I was 32 years old when I was properly diagnosed. I really wish I had been diagnosed sooner. I am now between 45 and 50 years old.

My first psych meds were when I was 14. I took an anti-anxiety med (Buspar). Then in my late teens I was given an antidepressant, which I took for maybe 3 days. In my 20s I'd go to GPs off an on only when depressed and/or severely anxious. They'd give me an antidepressant, which I'd take for maybe days to a couple of weeks max. I never went to doctors when hypomanic or manic, even though some of my hypomanic and of course manic behavior was really out there. Hypomanic and manic episodes did affect my life a lot, but I lacked the insight at the time to recognize them as illness. So did my family.

I was only diagnosed when attending a group therapy. The pdoc actually saw me hypomanic. Soon after my illness grew exponentially worse and my hospitalizations began, most for full-blown mania (often mixed, sometimes with psychosis). I have read that the course of people's bipolar disorder can worsen with years of no treatment. It seems to have been the case for me. I've been on disability for years now. I hope to get off, but I feel it is a major uphill battle. It didn't seem to be so much like that when I was much younger.

[Blueberrybook]

10-15 years. Before that, I was diagnosed with major depression. Anyway, the bipolar/depression was overshadowed a lot in the beginning because I had a severe eating disorder (anorexia). Then, once one doctor has diagnosed you with major depression, you carry that diagnosis around with you. My current pdoc clued in to the fact that I was bipolar when I showed up for an appointment in an obviously manic state. She changed the diagnosis on the spot and nearly put me in the psych hospital too. Part of the problem I have when I'm manic, like many people with bipolar, I overspend money, but I'm always ashamed of it, and I never wanted to admit it, even to a psychiatrist. I had mental health problems at least since my teens, and I have had sleep problems my entire life that I remember. Things got bad for me when I was in college; that's when the eating disorder, depression, not sleeping, overspending got bad.

Although, when I first sought psychiatric help, I hadn't slept in 3 days straight, so that should have clued them in to the possibility of bipolar as a diagnosis, but they blamed the not sleeping on the changes in brain chemistry brought on from malnourishment caused by the eating disorder.

I AM glad to have the right diagnosis, finally. Even though the meds are not perfect, I feel they are working better for me, especially since antidepressants are not great for bipolar people to take, at least not me, they tend to cause mania if I take them long-term.

I've only been diagnosed once in 2015 and I'm still going through denial.

[Nammu]

My bipolar started in my 20's but I didn't seek help instead when I was 26 I tried suicide and ended up involuntary IP labeled major depression with PTSD. The PTSD kept the symptoms confused for years along with the AD they kept giving me. It took ten more years to be identified as BP and another ten years before I relized how the ADs contributed to my unstablized condition.

[Pookyl]

I was diagnosed in Oct 2014. I woke up on a Monday and went to see my GP manic. She made an emergency appointment with my psych while I sat there in giggles. 3 days later I turned up very manic to my first psychiatrist appointment. Diagnosed with bipolar.

[~Christina]

Mine started at age 6 or so , didn’t know it of course.

Suicide attempt at 25 , was put on Zoloft , looking back I can see it sent me hypo for the better part of a year , bought a house and new car lol

Fast forward to age 43 , got my official “label” I wasn’t shocked I looked back at my entire life and everything finally made sense.

I do wish I had known earlier , I had to wade through 40 years of crap in therapy.

[Northchild]

A hospital doctor had me diagnosed as bipolar in June, 1993 while I was inpatient for clinical depression. This was my first episode that was severe enough to require hospitalization, though I had experienced quite a bit of suffering due to bipolar before that. She did not see me manic, or even hypomanic - she based her diagnoses solely off of interviews with me. My main complaint was of course severe depression. The doctor gave me Prozac, discharged me, and sent me on my merry way.

I was back in a hospital in less than a year.

So, 0 years I suppose.

[VerMOZZica]

It took me a few years to get properly diagnosed with bipolar 2 .I was first treated for major depression.

[csgxo]

It took many years. I started treatment for depression and anxiety at the age of 13 and was diagnosed at 20.

[scatterbrained04]

My symptoms started at 13-14. I didn't seek help until I was 26. I was diagnosed bipolar on my first visit.

My therapist thinks I had BP around age 14, but I didn't get diagnosed until 24. However, I voted 1-5 years in this poll. I sought help in 2013 and was diagnosed with depression. It wasn't until 2015 that I got the BP label.

[franz kafka]

I was originally diagnosed with bipolar at age 16, but around age 18/19 I ditched psychiatry and lived med-free until I went back to see a psychiatrist for OCD at age 28. I was quickly diagnosed bipolar 2, then bipolar 1. I was only diagnosed schizoaffective last year, but I think my illness progressed to that rather than having the schizo element the whole time. So 0 for bipolar and 3 for schizoaffective.

[cool09]

It take 8 years on average to be diagnosed bipolar correctly. I was diagnosed bipolar in 8 years but I have so many symptoms. I was also diagnosed with Asberger's last year. I am 54.

[Unrigged64072835]

Was diagnosed with depression in 1995. Also diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, so that was a thing for over 20 years. I didn't get diagnosed with bipolar until my pdoc at the time put me on Lamictal instead of yet another anti-depressant. That was in 2013.

I think I had all these traits from a young age; however, when I was growing up treatments weren't that great and my parents didn't want to deal with that.

I'm 52 now.

[Wild Coyote]

My diagnosis has always been correct, the DSM has changed.

I used to be diagnosed: MDD, Atypical (treatment resistant)
This is now categorized under Bipolar Depression.


WC

[Miss Laura]

Diagnosed with Depression when I was 24 in 2009. Then by Oct 2010 I was diagnosed with Bipolar type 1... I'm going to say it took a year for me to be diagnosed

I had problems in school when I was a kid, and no one tried to help me until 5th grade. But my mom was extremely disfunctional, so the school counselor calling her in did nothing.

I was diagnosed around 1997 but I didn’t believe it because phen-fen (diet pills speed + anti depressant) set off the mania. A psychologist friend said that didn’t count.

I was diagnosed again 2014 or so as BP-2 and 2015 as BP-1 after propanolol set off mania due to insomnia caused by the propanolol.

[liveforsummer]

Looking back, in my late teens/early twenties symptoms of depression where present, was put on imipramine and I started cycling from depression to hypomania (though I didn’t recognize this at the time). Probably took it for about a year. Then starting in late twenties I went to my gp a few times over the next 15 years, primary complaint anxiety/panic attacks as was afraid to be truthful and the meds I was given I would take for a few days then ditch them. Things started going downhill in 2014, then 2017 hitting rock bottom and was open and truthful for the first time and was diagnosed (GP saw me in both hypomanic and depressive states and referred me to pdoc). So to answer the question from first signs to actual diagnoses about 30 years.