Questions on bipolar--being nosey

I thought this would be an interesting question. I like to hear other people's stories.

When did you find out you had bipolar? Did you experience some symptoms during your lifetime that made you question the "why" of your behavior or anything else--like your moods?

I suspected I had bipolar when I was around 32, but didn't get diagnosed until I was 38. I had a manic episode when I turned 18 years right around or near the time they held the prom and then high school graduation. I was all over the place with my moods and my actions too. I had so much stress from home life and from school. I know that for people who know me well, it was hard to believe I almost didn't graduate, but it's true. I gave up on everything at a certain point. I had to be made to do my work, show up to school, and deal with my difficult home life. I did graduate but my grades were really bad that last part of school. I was an A student. I wish people could have seen that something wasn't right about me or my behavior.

I found out I had bipolar in April of 2014 after a breakdown of sorts.

I always thought there was something wrong with me mentally. I just thought it was depression. I went to a clinic when I was 18 to see their psychiatrist to put me on anti-depressants, but they told me to just get therapy :/ I didn't want therapy, so I never got treatment. (I did eventually start seeing a counselor in about 2013 and she just assumed I was depressed.)

I'd like to add, that I can see now that I did, indeed, have manic episodes, but wasn't aware of it at the time. I didn't know anything about bipolar disorder so I didn't think anything of my spending, promiscuity, drug use, excessive talkativeness, and less need for sleep (or no sleep at all). My mom described it as I was acting drunk during these times, but I was sober.

In about 2014 I started doing some research on my moods and I thought maybe I had bipolar. I told my counselor and she didn't think so. So I was going to therapy about a year at this point (2013-2014), waiting to see the psychiatrist. I got really depressed and this is when I had my breakdown. I had constant suicidal thoughts, quit my job, I felt like I was going crazy, and I "attempted" suicide. I told my counselor and she sent me to the hospital. I was inpatient for only 5 days and they did 2 evaluations and diagnosed me as bipolar ii.

In 2015 I had already been on a few meds (latuda, wellbutrin, depakote, seroquel, and abilify) and my depression didn't lift, so my NP put me on prozac. I had an awful manic episode (more of a mixed episode) and that got me in the hospital. There I had another evaluation and they told me I had bipolar i. I didn't really believe this, and was kind of upset about it. About a year later I asked my NP if it was i or ii and she said "definitely i". So.. that's it.

I still deny my diagnosis though. I want another evaluation, but I know I'll get the same result because I'll answer the same way. It's probably though because I have been "stable" for a year. It's just funny that the meds that are making me stable is the first one they put me on- latuda. If they would have added lamictal at that time I could have avoided my 60 lb weight gain and 4 more hospitalizations. Oh well..

Sorry if this was a little long.

I suspect I'm bipolar since a few months ago, although I haven't been formally diagnosed with anything (in my country, from what I understand, doctors just prescribe the drugs more appropriate and don't tell us "you are this or that"). I've been mostly depressed since 2013, with the worst lows having taken place in the past 10 months (in May I had possibly the worst week of my life) - not surprising as I had been without meds most of this time. But now I realize that before this phase, I might have been hypomanic for a few months in early 2016, as I was highly productive and motivated, and needed to sleep less. But in January 2017, right in the middle of my depressive phase, my mood skyrocketed during a week into a completely high and euphoric state, triggered by 2 weeks on antidepressants. Then, by the nth time, I decided to stop medication in March, with catastrophic consequences, having had terrible depressive (almost psychotic) episodes, until I had to go to the doctor, who prescribed me a different set of drugs that helped stabilize me a bit. Even this drugs weren't enough so I had to give up from the exams I should be taking in June at university. Now and 2 months after the terrible episode I'm finally stable.
Going through these extreme ups and downs, and also the drugs they are prescribng me (mostly antipsychotics/mood stabilizers) makes me think that I may be bipolar.

In 1994, I got really depressed and went to my primary who gave me one of the first line anti-depressants. It seemed to work, but instead of being depressed I was agitated, irritable and not sleeping well, so I stopped taking it and before long I was severely depressed again. I went back in and he referred me to a pdoc. The pdoc talked to me and asked a bunch of questions, asked permission to speak to my wife and interviewed her and then told me he thought it was bipolar but the real confirmation would be how I reacted to meds. I don't remember what he gave me but I was no longer severely depressed.

I rejected that diagnosis a long time and kept getting treated for depression and just put up with hypomania.

Recently my new primary picked up on something I said about the old diagnosis and decided to try lamictal when I was in complaining about my anti-depressant not working as well as I would like. It was a miracle drug; it leaves me slightly hypo and I have been very expansive. I went to a new pdoc and was completely open and honest and got the same old diagnosis again.

I also have hyperacusis, which is not necessarily a symptom, but bipolar disorder is known to be one of the causes of hyperacusis.

I started to notice some mood problems pretty early in life, at around 10 years old (which, for me, was around puberty). I'm now 31. At that point, I used to feel low a lot of the time, cry alone in my room for 'no reason', but also, I became obsessed with being an overachiever at school and with my weight. I pushed myself extremely hard with both things, forcing myself to stay as near to the top of the class as possible, and I made myself lose about 28lbs and to become underweight, through restricting and over exercising. I was previously a chubby child but this tipped me into the realms of what I'd say was probably an eating disorder, though it was never diagnosed.

I should mention that I'd had an extremely dysfunctional childhood, and witnessed a lot of abuse between my parents. At the age my mood problems began, about 10, my mum had just begun what would turn out to be a long and involved affair, so I initially thought me feeling down was just a result of my home life.

Into my teens, I carried on being an academic overachiever, and was unusually driven, to the point that other people noticed it, but when I was 14, I had my first 'breakdown' (what I now know to be a mixed episode). My dad was a physician and instead of taking me to the doctor to be referred on to a pdoc- which is what I asked for at the time- my dad just put me on an antidepressant.

I recovered enough to do the next year at school well but then just before my final year of secondary school, when I was 15, I had my major 'breakdown' (mania/psychosis). My mum and dad still tried to treat me at home until it became blatantly obvious that external help was unavoidable, and a pdoc was brought out to my home as part of the crisis team.

They wanted to hospitalise me (by now I was about 16 and had missed most of my school that year) but my mum and dad promised there would be someone around the clock to look after me, so I narrowly escaped hospitalisation that time. At that time I was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder.

I had a wonderful pdoc who miraculously treated my severe mania/psychosis within just a few months, and I managed to do my final year exams and pass them, with good, but lower grades than I'd been predicted as I was basically forced to miss the last year of school. I think it's only because I was an overachiever previously that I managed to do that, though.

I've felt angry and bitter that my parents tried to keep my illness under wraps, and didn't allow me to see a pdoc when I was practically begging them to do so, as I felt so much distress and turmoil for the whole family could have been avoided (I also have a sister who went through a lot because of my episodes). However, those feelings have lessened over time and I've learned to forgive, if not to forget.

I've had many episodes of every type over the years (depressed, 'pure' manic, and mixed) but I functioned well for many years and, after some difficult years, am now trying to get back to that place.

I'll stop there as this is already way too long!

I found out I was bipolar at 17. I'd graduated high school and after putting up with my depression for like 7 years, I decided to see someone about it. She put me on Effexor and my mom declared that I had to stop taking it about a month in because I was mean. It took a couple of sessions with my shrink for her to catch me manic and she adjusted me to Lamictal, which started a long, exhaustive search for meds that worked... I'm 28 now and still don't have anything that works. I try to mostly live without meds, until a mood is too pervasive to escape or push down.

In middle and high school I was moody and impulsive. I could turn into a nightmare in a second. It gave my mom a lot of emotional whiplash, and since she's got Major Depression, she always felt like I was personally attacking her, as well. My mom didn't grow up with the idea that mental illness was a thing, so it never actually DAWNED on her that my behavior was at all abnormal; she just thought I was being a moody teenager. So many times when I was in trouble she'd ask me why I did this or that, and all I could ever say was that I didn't know. In retrospect she wishes I'd seen someone sooner, because maybe on a mood stabilizer I'd have behaved differently, gotten a scholarship, and done something epic with my life. As it is, I didn't like to sit in class, because I'd get bored. I was smart and I could pass the tests, but I had no patience to sit in a class and listen to a lecture I didn't need to hear. I still don't really see why I'd need to sit in a classroom for a lecture I don't need to hear... I'd just be a distraction to the other students, since I've been a fidgeter since I was in Kindergarten.