I am sorry to hear that you lost your son. I saw that you posted in the addiction forum back in 2015 about him being in jail.
Since addiction is a disease and bipolar is as well it is very normal to confuse behaviors a person might show as being one or the other depending on how you feel and the person's history.
There are ways of telling the difference if you have enough experience or knowledge however.
A manic person might resemble a person who is high on meth. It was hard for me when I got really clean the first time from pills because once substance induced mood disturbance was realized as actual bipolar, I didn't know that my behavior was abnormal. I felt great, mania kicked in, and I was full of energy. I had a short temper, OCD, easily distracted, and talked very fast. People who didn't know that I went to treatment believed I was high when they talked to me and even some of the people who knew I went to treatment believed I was high.
I hope she can find the motivation to get the ball rolling on some of her problems. A good paper trail of treatment speeds up the social security process. If she is pursuing social security it is better to be in active recovery during the process.