I've recently been diagnosed Bipolar 1 because of psychotic experiences, but the Pdoc decided I must be manic on the basis of the psychosis. I'm not so sure. I'm actually totally confused right now.
Unlike many, I didn't have an abused childhood. I was given the freedom of the town (the gate was open) at age 2 and a welcome home hiding later.
I never did appreciate institutions - hospitals hurt when I got stitched up, nursery schools lumped me with nasty competitive kids who far outnumbered the toys in the sand pit.
Schools expected me to perform bizarre tasks like endlessly repeat meaningless phrases about numbers, then rote learn them in my after school play time.
Actually, yes, I did have a traumatic childhood, having to comply (against my will) with rules and punishments which I vehemently resented.

It wasn't until I was around 18 and doing military training that I began to question whether what I was seeing and hearing was true. It was initially about whether I was interpreting people correctly.
Were they laughing with me or at me? Were they shouting at me because they were encouraging me, or angry at me?
During Marines training, something snapped. I threw myself into everything we did. If it was combat skills, I was a killing machine. If it was fitness, I was out front every time, all the time. I didn't care if I got killed or hurt anyone in the process. I was angry. I had lost my value in life. Ridiculous things amused me. Then nothing amused me. Bomb blasts that scared the life out of my patrol didn't wake me from sleep.

Fast forward 25 years.
Fairies enter the room and after a while of my watching them, they lead me to a jungle gym and show me a rope. I know what to do. It won't be painful. I feel so at peace, and the fairies are with me. A child walks up to me and gives me a hug. The fairies vanish (faders!)

Orchestras play in the night. I get up and listen to detect which direction it is coming from, but my wife urges me to get back to bed - there are no orchestras.
It's autumn, and I walk past a tree covered in beautiful pink blossoms. Huh? Rewind. Check again - stark, bare tree. Ugh! I was so enjoying that walk.
I have an urge to fly from the top balcony in an auditorium, but the hall is too small for decent aerobatics, so I resist the forces pulling me to stand on the rail.
There are too few instruments in our church band. I add the needed pieces in my head, and compose the score for them. The sound I create is far fuller and richer than the sound coming up from the stage. My music frees people of their masks and clothes, and I see into their souls as they sit there, listening to the sermon. My music continues, and the preacher is drowned out in my head by soul-washing music. God's word subordinate to man made music? Grandiose? He is gracious and the lightening bolt misses me.

Many other strange experiences of unity with other people, music making colours, voices shouting in my left ear (they leave the right alone, cos they know it hurts more in the left one).

You know, except for the deadly hallucinations (sirens), they are all really quite innocuous, and don't worry me. What worries me most is that my brain is scrambled much of the time, and that makes it impossible to plan and organise the tiniest things in life.

I'm looking and hoping that some day I will get functional enough to work again.