My mother is bipolar too. I also watched the ups and downs growing up. Thought it was normal as well. My mother is much more out there with her ups though. She will do things like meet someone on the internet and up and move to Georgia and live there with them for three months while shes married to someone else and then bring this strange man home to her husband and totally believe there is nothing wrong with this scenario. Or she took off to Florida one day because she met a man on the internet who was about to lose custidy of his daughter because he could only provide a one bedroom appartment for her. My mother goes there and puts this strange man and his daughter up in an appartment for 3months and buys the little girl a new wardrobe and she was home by the end of the weekend. Oh my mother, I love her dearly but she worries me so.