The most scary part about sleep paralysis is for me is when it happened, and I had no idea what was happening. That was terrifying! After I learned about it and I am not the only one to have it, I was able to cope with them by saying to myself, this is sleep paralysis, let it pass. And it did with practice.

The National Health Service has an informative page (Sleep paralysis
- NHS) and doesn't link it to bipolar. Wikipedia also gives useful information (Sleep paralysis - Wikipedia).

I had the same terrifying response to panic attacks when I first started having them, and I didn't know what they were. My terror made them more terrifying! After learning more about them, neither was as terrifying when I was having one after I recognized I was having one. Though this sometimes took some seconds to recognize. After recognizing one, I tried to relax and let it pass. This took some practice and made my experience of sleep paralysis or a panic attack annoying, but not terrifying. I see that the NHS site indicates that panic disorders can be one of many causes of sleep paralysis.