As a parent let me offer you a bit of insight you about what your mother did by not having you hospitalized as a teen. She saved you from ending up in the mental health system at a young age, and be labeled as mentally ill. Now obviously I have no idea what your issues were as you don't mention them, but I can assure you that being in the mental health system isn't a good thing any more than having the police know you by name. If that offends you, I'm sorry. I'm speaking as a parent who wouldn't want my child needlessly hospitalized for behavior that might be questionable. And again, since you don't tell us what happened, this is just a general opinion based on vague statements.

As far as the difference between a bad mood and bipolar goes, it's hard to say, but being upset at old family issues don't prove anything other than that you're hurt by things that happened to you. Do you have anyone to talk to this about who can give you some insight or anything?

Don't go on meds just because you're in a bad mood. There are so many nasty side-effects associated with all psych meds that you'd be much, much wiser to try to work this out by taking to someone about it and the like.

If you feel you need to take something for your mood, do yourself a favor and look into alternative treatment for depression such as amino acids that are used by the body to produce neurotransmitters in the brain keeping your mood stable. I've been using them for over 9 years with great success. The only side-effect is that one I take raises my blood pressure about 10 points which isn't much of an issue as I have good blood pressure. They don't cause weight gain like so many meds do.

Here's a couple of links for you to research:

This is a brain function questionnaire:

http://drjolee.com/Brain-Function-Questionnaire.pdf

This is a good article about treating depression naturally:

Treating Depression Naturally Is Possible ? Clean's The New Black