You might also benefit from a support group for yourself - there are support groups for friends and family of people with mental illness, definitely check NAMI and DBSA as missbelle suggests.

I'd also recommend going out to your local bookstore or Amazon and looking for books for family members of bipolars. There are a couple of really good highly-rated titles that should pop right up. I have really liked Julie Fast's books, since they have real insider's insight (Julie has BP). This might help you to better help her, maybe not as immediately as the questions you pose here, but for the longer term. Knowledge is power and all that, right? One of the things that Julie Fast points out in her book on managing bipolar disorder is that it can take awhile to recover after a hospital visit - up to a year. It's a very traumatic experience on multiple levels, and bipolar is a serious illness that requires daily management, so it's a lot to adjust to and that's going to take some time. That book might be really helpful to you as it actually goes into some detail on how to have a conversation with someone who is manic, depressed, psychotic, etc.

After you find out if you're on the HIPAA release form, you'll have a better idea of where you can look for help. Unfortunately if you're not on that form, the medical professionals can't talk to you about your daughter's medical records. If they can, then you can start to get more information that will help you find answers from them. Otherwise, you will have to get your daughter to open up to you - no easy task, perhaps, but a good option to pursue to the best of your abilities. It can be really hard to deal with bipolars when we're sick, so it's impossible to advise "do this" or "don't do that."

Why do you think your daughter won't comply with meds? Is this the first time she's had serious symptoms or meds? Have they not really kicked in yet, or maybe need adjustment to have the desired effect? Do you think she's in denial? It's not an easy diagnosis to accept, even if you're feeling relatively "normal," much less recently checked out of the psych ward!