Getting the All-Important Diagnosis

I was a bipolar child...and...teen...and adult who went untreated until age 42. When I look back, I clearly see in my own childhood the early symptoms of this illness. Had anyone known then that children, yes CHILDREN, can be bipolar too, what heartache might I have been spared? If my parents had known what we know today, and had they not been frightened by the stigma this disorder carries, I might have received the kind of treatment that would have kept me from self-destructive behaviours which ultimately landed me in the hospital more than once. This section is intended to reach out to my little brothers and sisters so they won't EVER know the desperation I once knew.