Childhood Trauma & Bipolar

Do any of you feel like your childhood plays a part in your bipolar diagnosis or that you were different as a kid. Whether it was being a bully, getting bullied, abusive parents/teachers, or other traumatic experiences that made you hypersensitive or very emotional in some way?

In my experience, I was somewhat sheltered and didn't interact with other kids that well although I did have a good sense of humor and had either best friends or enemies. Parents were pretty lenient but did yell at me a lot when I misbehaved. I remember when a neighbor died it was very traumatic and I didn't understand it. 9/11 was pretty traumatic for everyone and I began to question some things after that. Middle school was really the worst for social anxiety at times and I drank with some friends to calm my nerves. I think I was fairly bright when I was young and therefore bored in class a lot and misbehaved. Had a few awful teachers.

I am wondering if Bipolar is environmental. I know it is partially genetic from twin studies.

From what I've read the working theory is that a genetic predisposition for bipolar waits inside you to be flipped on like a switch by extreme stress. While my childhood was stressful, I didn't first experience the symptoms until I was about 16 after my parent's divorce, then again at 32 during my own. Those events (like a childhood trauma) probably qualify as stressful enough to trigger the disorder, if the idea is correct.

Yes, I've read in a couple of books that stress plays a very important role in become unstable.

When I was 18, I was stressed out beyond belief. That was my first manic episode of several of them. I would go up and down with mania, hypomania, and depression.

Most of the stress was family-related. I had a terrible relationship with an abusive mother and my switch for bipolar was easily turned on because I remember my psychosis and grandiose ideas. They wanted to put me in a hospital, but I didn't go, because we couldn't afford it. Life was very hard for me back then.

My young childhood was more or less okay, save a few major events that scared me a bit. When I was 13-15 I was regularly sexually assaulted and had an incident where I had a head injury and that's when a lot of my instabilities started, although I didn't have full blown depression or mania until years later. I think they both played a part, just not sure how big.

I've had hallucinations since I was in first grade, but they never really got severe until I was a month away from graduating high school. I had a pretty good childhood. My mom snapped on me like a lunatic once or twice, and my dad called me a name here and there, but overall, I had a decent childhood. Both sides of my family have mental health issues, mainly anxiety and depression (I have absolutely terrible anxiety). I don't think anything my mom or dad ever did or said to me contributed to me having Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder.

I can see how it would affect a mood disorder. I mean trauma releases the stress chemicals pretty quickly and over time that would become a habit for the brain. Makes sense that mood disorders often get worse with age for that reason. So if a person is bipolar, they might have highs and all but the lows might be very severe with anxiety and paranoia making them perhaps obsess about things related to trauma (childhood or otherwise). I know I've had that hit me intensely for sure.

I had a lot of childhood trauma thanks to a dad having a misdiagnosis, wrong meds and him constantly being provoked to do horrible things by my mom when he was in a bad headspace.

My mom is an undiagnosed as far as I know histrionic narcissist with Munchausen's as well as by proxy. She'd basically use us both for attention from others by making us sick or distressed then asking people for "advice" on what she should do as the poor martyr mother that she'd claim she was. One of those "I always take care of them though I feel terrible with illnesses and they're constantly sick and horrible with mental issues but I'm there for them because they're my family" things.