At what age were you or a family member diagnosed with a mental disorder?

My grandfather didn’t seek a diagnosis until he was in his 40s. He got some help but didn’t share the process with anybody, so nobody in the family was aware of it until his daughter (my mother) had a mental crash she didn’t survive when she was in her late 30s. After that, he was pretty on top of monitoring me to make sure I got diagnosed and treatment when the symptoms became apparent. Some disorders have a definite genetic link. Bipolar is one.

I was 14 when I was diagnosed with chronic PTSD. I was 21 when I was diagnosed with BDD, which has since morphed into a more general OCD, which was diagnosed last year at 28. My sister was diagnosed with PTSD and obsessive compulsive personality disorder at 18, and my other sister had trichotillomania around the ages of 7–9, but grew out of it. As far as I know she has never received another diagnosis, and appears to get along fine. I just mention it, because it falls on the OCD spectrum, and OCD is known to have a genetic link, as mentioned by @Blueroses. I think that it made it easier to see the symptoms in my siblings, because we (my family and I) already knew what to look for at that point.
None of my parents or grandparents were ever tested or diagnosed, but with the genetic link, it is highly likely that at least one of them suffered from OCD or an OCD spectrum disorder. (Personally, I believe I know who that is/was, but I don’t say anything.)

I was just a kid when I was diagnosed with ADD, and was then diagnosed with depression as a teenager, although I don’t know enough about “mental disorders” to know if those count.

My grandmother was recently “informally” diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I’m surprised nobody mentioned/caught this before, as she has been “off” for as long as I can remember. She’s 76 now.

Hyper-active around the age of 4. Put on Ritalin for a while, but my mother said it made me sad. So she took me off, and did her best to deal with me. Diagnosed with depression at 24. Yes, I knew I was depressed, and had been for a few years. It got to the point that I required treatment, or I was going to to really bad things.

@GladysMensch Yuck! Ritalin is evil! =0)

I was diagnosed at age 51. That’s unusual, but not unheard of. It pretty much came on over the period of a year and I knew something was happening, but I had no idea until about a week or so before I was diagnosed, what was going on.

My theory was that I had brain cancer and that my brain was racing as fast as it could to get as much thinking in as it possibly could before it could no longer work. By the time I was diagnosed, it was no surprise. I’d researched it and I pretty much knew. But in the six months to a year before that, it was really weird feeling different, yet not knowing it wasn’t unique to me. It wasn’t affecting my life too much—or it didn’t seem like it was—because it happened gradually and because many of the symptoms were things people did all the time, even if they were things people did not approve of. I.e., they didn’t seem abnormal.

In one context, they were just considered immoral. In another, they were considered symptoms of a mental illness. I was erratic. Angry at times. Moody. Wasn’t sure if I was socially appropriate. Fell in love with someone who wasn’t my wife. Then several someones. I got angry with my son. Angry enough to take a swipe at him—something I’d never done before.

But all these things were things you hear people doing all the time. Who knew it was a sign of a disorder. It wasn’t until I got depressed and suicidal and felt worthless that it became clear something was seriously wrong.

We didn’t had it yet in the family. I hope we will never get it but we’ll deal it if it comes.

My mother was diagnosed with severe Borderline Personality Disorder when I was in my teens, but had a history of depression/suicide attempts prior to that diagnosis. She rejected the official diagnosis because “Nothing is wrong with her. Everyone else is wrong” and refuses to seek treatment.

I was diagnosed with anxiety issues, depression and a mild learning disability in my twenties. In my early thirties, I was re-diagnosed with chronic PTSD due to severe emotional/psychological childhood trauma. This was a more appropriate diagnosis and has enabled me to work on those issues that are causing the depression and anxiety that I feel.

ADD at age 31.

As a teenager I was diagnosed manic depressive, but I didn’t start getting treatment until I was 35.

When I was 15 years old I was diagonosed with Bipolar. I was put on medication and have been on it ever since. It was really no suprise though. My moms side of the family is known to have it. I even had a relative commit suicide from it.

My grandmother was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 65; she died 8 years after. My uncle was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 42, but it was found to have likely been caused by brain damage he received when he was only 15.

My grandmother’s diagnosis was warranted because of one of the most common signs of Alzheimer’s: forgetting. All of a sudden she had to write notes and post them all over the house for common things, she forgot dates and people’s ages and birthdays and if we told her we were going to visit, she would be completely surprised when we came because she forgot we told her we were coming. That’s how it started and then it went downhill fast until she couldn’t do anything on her own.

My uncle’s diagnosis was bit odder. After the head injury at age 15 (he was hit by a car while on his bike), he was never the same person. It’s possible schizophrenia had started earlier, but it didn’t get diagnosed until he was 42. I don’t know much about it because my parents don’t talk much about it. :\

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 38.

I was diagnosed as having an eating disorder at the age of 16. There was a slew of labels to come blowing in from the West thereafter

I was diagnosed with PTSD in my mid-twenties. This was after a diagnosis of depression and then erroneously diagnosed as BPD (all because I wasn’t getting better at the rate they thought I should be).

I’m symptom free now after 12 years of some pretty intensive therapy.

As a child they assumed I was mentally ill. When I married, my husband and others decided I was mentally ill. All that time I was in abusive relationships, I got rid of the abusers, and have since then been diagnosed as perfectly sane!

I gave you the short version, but it’s all true

OH MY GOD!! Every jelly is mental! At least, every jelly on this thread, lol.

She was around 24.

I was 18 when I was diagnosed as bipolar the symptoms began to really affect me when I was 15. My mom was diagnosed as bipolar about 3 years after I was but it was painfully obvious to all of us for a very long time because of her frequent meltdowns which usually impacted us.

My brother suffered from schizophrenia for most of his life, and there was evidence of if it from early childhood. However, no one knew of such a thing in the 1940’s so he wasn’t diagnosed until he was a late teen, in the 1960’s.

@WillWorkForChocolate Didn’t you see that on the application when you joined? You have to be mental or they won’t let you in….

@snowberry Yes, or abused…living with childhood trauma…etc. It’s a jelly must-have! ;)

@snowberry Yeah, they sent me the memo, which is the only reason I’m still here!! :P

I think my mother-law and mother and my brother are all still waiting to be diagnosed. LOL
MIL has been looney all her life. My mom has lost her marbles since her 40’s and my brother has slowly started to lose his marbles in the last 20 years. My point is I think there are many people who go undiagnosed for all their lives.
Now excuse me as a slowly back away quietly as not to startle any of you.

^lol.

@Pandora I quite agree. That is part of the reason I asked this. My husband was recently diagnosed he’s 34 with Asperger’s. My son was diagnosed last year at age 5.

My husband’s family tree, we are just now finding out, is apparently riddled with mental illness/disorders. Some of which were treated. Most of which were not. It seems as though for literally generations, both his maternal & paternal sides kept it tightly under wraps.

I’m searching for answers now for my son.

I’ll return to this thread soon…For now I’d like to add my deepest gratitude to those of you kind hearted jellies for answering.

My brother’s 24. He got diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic at a psych ward after having an incident where he acted very oddly and got picked up by the police for jogging around a residential neighborhood in his underwear. He couldn’t remember it the next day. He was having a hard time with unemployment and life in general. (He’s doing much better now, even stopped taking medication). Comparatively

When he was in middle school, school counselors suggested he had Asperger’s, but my parents couldn’t get him to go to a professional. He still, as an adult, gets very angry when confronted about it. I think he displays many symptoms – he can’t make eye contact with people, is obsessed with a very obscure video game that involves pattern repetition, can do complicated math equations in his head, and is very, very sensitive to loud noises, to name a few. He has a hard time with people because he alienates them with his mood swings, and spends the majority of the time in his bedroom. I’m really proud of him for being able to get a job at a grocery store. He stopped going to high school when he was 15.

My relatives are also riddled with disorders – schizophrenia, depression, alcoholism, etc. A few have done time in prison. An uncle is permanently in a hospital cause he lost it after ‘Nam.

I think a lot of people don’t get treated :(. It’s tricky for a doctor to look at someone’s life and come up with a correct diagnosis, and for a person to accept that diagnosis and be receptive to treatment.

I was diagnosed with clinical depression at 15, PTSD at 18/19, general anxiety and panic attacks in my mid to late 30s. Oh, and SAD (though I prefer to say gloomy weather makes me gloomy.) I was never surprised, and sought treatment for all of it. Doing very well these days.

My mother was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in her late 40s. She was shocked, I was not.

I was diagnosed with depression at 20, and general anxiety at about 25 or 26.

@fizzbanger I identify with a lot of those symptoms, particularly the pattern recognition one. I used to play spider solitaire all the time on the computer for several years before I was diagnosed. I would do it deep into the night. I switched to Askville and then fluther, which I think are more sophisticated versions of pattern recognition—particularly with the psychological problems.

I think that places like this are havens for the mentally ill for a number of reasons. One is the pattern recognition. I think that a really important thing it gives us is a way to communicate with people without having to leave our homes. Most of us have great difficulty going out to socialize or even picking up the phone. It is unbelievable how daunting that phone can be. Someone text provides the right distance to not have to see someone’s face if they reject you but it also provides enough immediacy in feedback to keep you interested.

It was known that something wasn’t right with me as early as 6, but I didn’t get a diagnosis (Aspergers) until I was 35.

I was finally diagnosed with chronic depression at about 30, although I’d already been suffering from it for… about 25 years before that.

I was diagnosed with MDD, and PTSD. The docs suspected that I was also schizophrenic or had MPD. They were unable to come up with a diagnosis for either of those two, but I think it is possible that I do have one of the two.