Sometimes the emotional turmoil from bipolar symtoms is enough to have anxiety and other issues outide of the episode itself. Anxiety is a common and natural response, it is a warning signal that can run ammuck to the point of disorder or dysfunction, so it would seem natural to me that you suffer emotional turmoil and other issues (many people do just because life is messy) that things like anxiety could become unregulated, or to put it another way... become reprogramed as a first response to any sort of stress.

That's just how I see it anyway, or how I saw it in myself.

I think it's unhelpful to have many labels especially if they have overlap. An example I can think of is when people say they are dx'd with Major Depression AND Bipolar. Or Bipolar and S.A.D., ect. Anxiety is another good good example in my opinion as well as OCD. Sometimes maybe it is warrented and often perhaps it's not. Often our issues are interwoven and there is a cause and effect, domino effect, or symptoms secondary to the root cause or other symptoms.

I have an autoimmune disease that causes many many symptoms, I don't need a seperate dx for each one even tho each symptom does have a name. The symptoms do not always come in the same flare, it can come in any order, some linger through remission others don't. Some symptoms lead to other symptoms. Residual symptoms and I guess I see a lot of mental illnesses the same way, as well as issues we face outside of mental illness.