I am reading more in the thread.

In which state does she live where she has a "psychologist" who "prescribes medication"? I have not fact checked but briefly looked at Google AI output which listed only 6 states in the whole of US where psychologists are authorized to prescribe medications. Arizona is not amongst them, but I know she lives far from you so it is possible that she is in one of those states but the likelihood is slim.

And since you said that you had read a lot about bipolar, you would most definitely know that as a rule, psychologists do not prescribe medications. And if you knew it, why didn't you preface this post with "She lives in one of those few states where psychologists prescribe medications, so she does not have a psychiatrist"?

Had you been going to write something so odd, so unusual, while addressing a group of people who, for the most part, are being seen by psychiatrists, and many are separately seen by psychotherapists, you would have somehow qualified what you said, somehow explained that yes, this is unusual, but it is so because of where she lives. But you did not do that. So strange. Gets stranger and stranger. I am beginning to think, as others have said before...

Plus, what you are describing is not mixed episodes but separate episodes of either mania, too much energy and not enough sleep, or depression, no energy at all. Makes me doubt that you actually read those books on bipolar you claimed to have read. And, if, as the story has changed, she works full time, how does she manage to work during the periods of depression so deep that she cannot move at all? You did not cover that.