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I agree that irritability can absolutely be a component of hypomania, rage of mania, etc. The differentiation, to an extent, lies in if this is part of a broader/larger grouping of symptoms suggesting hypo/mania. If you're going through a process of a huge change in energy level, for example, and this is part of it, and it becomes pervasive over days and weeks, etc., then, yes, perhaps.
However, if someone out of the blue blows up at someone or at a situation because it has triggered them and then when the trigger is over they go back to baseline, I think that is often something else entirely. That's not a process. It's not an episode. It's blowing up at something, at a given moment, a moment in time, in response to something specific. Trigger over, rage over.
Irritability, anger, rage, occur in both disorders --but I think they manifest themselves in very different ways. Anger does not = BPD and it does not = hypo/mania, it depends on other factors as well.
I think that it's important to keep in mind that, although there is the (unproven) theory that bipolar disorder is some sort of chemical imbalance (and therefore, as the thinking goes, not in people's control) and BPD is a 'personality disorder' (and therefore, as the thinking goes, 'under one's control') does not mean that both people with bipolar just as much as people who suffer from BPD, shouldn't -equally- take responsibility for their behavior and do everything possible to not hurt others. They are different disorders, yes, with different origins (though there's still a good deal of mystery there), but I don't buy the bipolar = not-my-fault vs BPD my-fault dichotomy.
In this sense, suggesting possible BPD is not assigning blame. It's a matter of achieving an accurate diagnosis so that the treatment can actually help, so that proper treatment isn't delayed, as it often is in the case, I think, of both disorders.
My 2 cents, anyway.
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