I've only met one person IRL who was bipolar...and it wasn't a pleasant experience. I was about 18 and working at a fancy members only club. I met another waitress who seemed very nice at first, she helped train me and I thought she liked me...one day we were talking about her kids and she mentioned that she had a daughter about my age but she was heavily into drugs and otherwise was a major disappointment. The next day, she acted cold, mean, and distant to me and tripped me as I was carrying a pot of hot coffee that I nearly spilled on a table of customers, but I turned at the last minute and just fell face first on the floor, burning my arm. She ended up getting fired because the customers saw her trip me and so did many other people and it was very obvious it wasn't an accident. I try really hard not to judge other people but that incident was pretty scary.