I taught music independently (self employed with about 25 students a week) for most of my career, and I agree that bipolar made me instinctive with my students. Somehow, I "just knew" what type of music and what pieces every student would want to play. I was right on, most of the time, and we were like "one mind" when we were working on something in the lesson. We totally synced. Unfortunately, I sense that these days are not a time when one-on-one music lessons are a wise thing for a person to do. Things were getting kind of creepy near the end of my work. I was threatened more than once by a parent would charge me with possible child abuse. I also had one six-year old boy who told me he was being pinched hard on the face by his mother's boyfriend. No marks to be seen, so the children's services office would not do anything. He mother terrified me -- she was mean to the boy, and I could see she might be dangerous to just about anybody, including me. I finally came to the conclusion to talk to the boy's school counselor. She was just wonderful, said she personally had lunch one-to-one with every child in the school at least once a year. I told her what was going on with the child, and she promised to keep on eye on him. That was all I felt I could do under the circumstances.