Criteria for BP is a whole heap of technical things like must have had depression of at least 2 weeks and hypomania of 4 days (mania of 5 days for BPI) and theres a bunch of technicalities about if the episodes occurred while on meds or drugs and if it could be described better by another condition (eg schitzophrenia, schitzo affective disorder....) so the main point to get a diagnosis is the mania: have you had a period of elevated mood that lasted for 4 days and occured while you were not on drugs...