Hi there music23!

Upon reading your posts, what striked me the most was your obvious intelligence.
Seriously, it's so noticeable that you actually are classified in the "Wow!" locker in my brain.

Don't feel alone in your current situation, though. There are a lot of people that suffer from the same condition as yours, and many have sucessfully delt with those particular problems in life which you are now facing. They have proven that life is worth living and more-so, capable of being lived.

A response to your initial question;
Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to check into that place, or any other mental institution or organisation no matter how benevolent their intentions may be brought across.
For one, there's a very high probability that you will be stigmatised by the experience, especially at such a young age and because of the subconcious knowledge that there's parental involvement. You would probably stop asking yourself 'Am I crazy?' in such a place, but only because your surroundings and situation seem to indicate 'yes' irrefuteably. You will feel even less normal, and seeing others around you with the same condition yet in much worse forms will probably scare you into thinking that's what you will become, eventhough it's not true.

Besides all that, which is uncertain to happen, you will lose your current life and it will be hard to get back to it. (but not impossible)

The best way to feel good is quite simply by feeling good. If you do not feel good in your current environment or about the prospect of going into a particular environment, then there's your awnser. Stay away or you'll just feel worse. If you feel good or better where you are right now, then don't change!

Parents have the intention of wanting what's best for you. They may want it so much, that they are easily deluded by someone claiming to have the perfect sollution. Once they get taken in by the dream, they don't let it go easily. So you might have to fight and stick to your guns in order to persuade you mother into letting you make your own decisions.
Because in most cases, it is *you* that actually knows what's best for your mental health, not someone else. Not even your mother.

An anecdote may help you.
When I was 15 I missed a lot of classes in school, and was always tired when I did manage to get there.
The school persuaded me to go see a psychiatrist, just once, for them to get a grip on my condition (The school had a very modern approach to students' wellbeing).
After a 10 minute talk, the psychiatrist suggested to me and my mother that I signed up for a program they had that helped kids like me. What was my problem? I spent all night writing computer programs and thus didn't have much time left for school.
I refused to sign up, and two months later the school got me into a software company. I was quite the genius myself ;)

A second problem came later in life when I developed G.A.D. Again, I was persuaded to enter a psych ward. My mother agreed it was probably best for me (she had being sweet-talked by the doctors, and so had I). However, my mother came along with me when I went to sign in, something they didn't expect. We spent 2 hours in the waitingroom waiting for someone to come and take us up to where my actual room would be. We got pissed and started looking for the staff. We eventually found the actual psych floor where I'd be staying and my mother adressed a nurse there who was talking to a doctor. The nurse turned her face towards us, stared, then turned back again and continued the conversation she was having, in a "what was that sound?" manner.

That's when my mother snapped and said "let's go! We're going home!".
We both realised what happened; They tought we were both mental patients and as such they completely ignored us.

Now, offcourse, suppose you do eventually get sent to that place, then my post will be very depressing. I know that. But it's reality. Just as sure as they *can* help you with your current problems in such a place, they also *will* create problems of their own that may be more troublesome and nest deeper.

In the end, you should ask yourself wether the "mental condition" with which you were born is an actual medical *problem* that must be delt with, or if it is just a personality trait everyone just seems to want to fix, which realy doesn't require any fixing at all. As long as you don't hurt yourself or others due to a personality trait, in my oppinion, people should just accept it as part of you and not perceive it as a devastating medical problem that needs urgent fixing. Some "doctors" still administer lobotomies in the U.S. for psychosis, and Electroshock therapy for major depression in this day and age, without the patient's consent, can you believe that?

Show your mother these lists of famous bipolars and perhaps she might be impressed ;
http://www.mentaljokes.com/famous_manic.html

http://bipolar.about.com/cs/celebs/a/bl_celebrities.htm

Bipolar disorder seems to be a gift as well as a curse. Many people with different yet similliarly persistant personaly traits/disorders even wish for a chance to trade in their conditions so they can be like the famous people they admire ;)

I think we're all interested in how this turns out. Please keep us posted, ok?

- MTS