Hi Tim
According to the internet:
Bipolar disorder, formerly called manic depression, is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).
When you become depressed, you may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest or pleasure in most activities. When your mood shifts to mania or hypomania (less extreme than mania), you may feel euphoric, full of energy or unusually irritable. These mood swings can affect sleep, energy, activity, judgment, behavior and the ability to think clearly.
In my humble opinion, there is a reason for this condition. Your brain consist of multiple beings. One exists on the right side of your brain and the other on your left. They are two different people. As you transition from childhood to adulthood, most people make this transition around age 11 or 12. But some do not. I suspect that most Aspies do not transition. Therefore our whole manner of thinking is different. It is like we are living on the Wrong Planet.
I do not experience this condition. I am 75 years old and have not had a breakdown. Why is this? Well I live as a child, but a very, very smart child. I live as my inner self and do not hide behind false blankets. I do not pretend to be anyone I am not. I may not have a lot of friends but all you need is one or two good friends in life.
If you want to explore this deeper, I would suggest a very strange book. It was written by a woman who died. She suffered a brain bleed in the middle of her brain when she was around 35. She was able to recover and came back but as an entirely different person. She describes human composition as four beings living inside each of us. It is worth a read. The book is called "Whole Brain Living" by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD.
Anyways the bottom line is that the condition called Bipolar Disorder is because you are restricting or binding yourself to be someone you are not. You must find out who you are. You must take charge of your body and mind. If you have Asperger's Syndrome you are probably one of the most intelligent people on the planet.