When you hear that someone’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, you may have some questions and concerns.

After all, thanks to misrepresentations of the disorder in the media—as well as the flippant use of the word bipolar to describe everything from the weather to someone who just changed their mind—there are plenty of myths about this mental health condition that are perpetuated.

Kaity Cash, a 29-year-old publicist in Sommerville, New Jersey, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in college, can relate.

Melanie Carlson, a 39-year-old who was also diagnosed with bipolar in college agrees.

“Even when I started my master’s degree in my early 30s, a nurse looked at my chart and said, ‘Wow, most people with bipolar don’t get it together until they’re 40,’” says Carlson.

“I’m allowed to be angry and not be in the middle of an episode.” Rather than assume someone with bipolar disorder is being irrational or not thinking clearly when they’re having big emotions, let that person vent just like you’d encourage any friend to do, says Cash.

When Cash was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a major depressive episode that prompted a life-threatening drug overdose, her boyfriend at the time broke up with her shortly after—and he told her she’d never graduate from college.

While everyone is different, many people who have the disease, appreciate it when others talk to them about their assumptions and ask questions about the mental health disorder, Cash and Carlson say