Bipolar personality?

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I met someone who is diagnosed bipolar. At first my husband and I saw her in a loud, busy place and she stared at him the entire time and her face never moved. We thought she was AS possibly. Fast forward a few months and she comes to our house and is very chatty and open and expressive. She wasn't manic, just strong personality and not at all shy.

She reminds us strongly of someone I used to be friends with years ago who was bipolar.

Is there a "bipolar personality"? I have seen others write on here about mistaking bipolar features for ASD features, like thinking at first that someone is on the spectrum but that they are actually bipolar. My husband and I both agreed after this second meeting that she doesn't really have the features of ASD. We are pretty good at identifying spectrumites (confirmed by the person or their parents) and they compare notes about me. It's weird.

Anyway, has anyone else experienced this? Is this "oddness" an expression of mild mania? Or is it a common "personality trait" of bipolar people?

Well I adamantly refuse to associate with anybody who's not at least a bit odd but I have a few friends with BPD diagnosed and they're all pretty out there even from my standpoint. Couldn't say if it's a mania thing as my parents erringly decided to accept some random doctor's diagnosing me bipolar as canon & proceeded to try framing everything I did or said in those terms... Holy hell I'm glad that's over with!

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

You know I actually do have several diagnosed bipolar friends. I don't know why I was pairing these two things that are probably unrelated. I guess I was guilty of framing things too.

None of my other bipolar friends have this particular personality but it is eerie how similar she is to this other person I knew. It's bizarre how alike they are.

I should justifiably add that those three are some of the best friends anybody on the planet could ask for...

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
-Georges Lemaitre
"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

Been meaning to get myself tested for bp, I show some of the signs and I think there's a chance I may have it.
I know I'm dysphraxic though, I still can't tie my shoelaces, my handwriting is terrible (seriously 5 year olds have neater handwriting than me) and I trip over stuff all the f*cking time.

Where's the fun in being normal, I like being different

I'm both bipolar, type II AND autism spectrum disorder. I don't know that I see the overlap, exactly, although I suppose sensory processing issues could trigger a bipolar episode.

I see the bipolar as having more to do with my emotional state: how I feel about things, how I react to things, and how realistic my attitudes are.

I see autism having more to do with my cognitive state--how my senses process things, how I understand what people say to me, and how I think about things. One can interact with the other, for instance, if my senses are overwhelmed, I can have hypomania, which is a milder form of mania that BP II people get, mostly very irritable and belligerent. When my autism makes me feel socially isolated or awkward, that can trigger a bipolar depression, which can last for months.

To the OP, I am not sure if the staring and expressionless face are BP unless she might have been in a depressive state. I can get really listless and unresponsive if I'm depressed. Chattiness and expressiveness might be the very beginnings of a manic episode or might not, unless she starts really going overboard: can't stop talking, wants to do 10 things at once, risky behavior like overspending or casual sex, can't sleep, delusions of grandeur or paranoia.