I don't talk to people about it. I haven't had any bad experiences with telling people myself, but I do see how people talk about other people with bipolar:

• People assume those with bipolar are crazy, destructive and extremely emotionally unstable all the time in general.
• People start blaming every mood swing and irresponsible action of the bipolar person on the disorder even when it has nothing to do with being bipolar.
• People don't believe the diagnosis and think the bipolar person is just applying it to get attention.
• People don't believe the condition exists at all and want to get into a debate about pharmaceutical conspiracies and how mania is caused by too much caffeine.
• People see the condition as a positive, but they expect a creative genius (too much pressure!)

Sometimes I do feel like I'm being deceptive when symptoms come up and I act like I don't know what's going on ("Yeah, I stayed up all night working on this. No, I'm not tired at all. Guess I just don't need much sleep sometimes!"). Most people don't understand it though, and I don't see much good coming out of telling them.