So when I was at College, I went to my University's counseling service (which you should never do), and I told a bunch of people I was thinking about killing myself and I wanted to talk to someone about these feelings. I never said that I immanently was about to do it or anything and I needed someone to stop me, I just said I was having suicidal ideation. Now, at that point in time I was very mentally ill, I'd recently gone through a nasty breakup and I was thinking all sorts of terrible things. But the response from the university was severe.

Little did I know, my school had its own psychiatric hospital, which I found myself in: the door locked behind me, I was never told that entering that building might lead to me being committed, I was only interested in outpatient programs. But I didn't get much choice in the matter: after telling my story, I was told that either I "voluntarily" committed, or they would go and get a court order and have me forced to come back within 72 hours. Now if I was at all intelligent, I would've told them to let me go, and I would've gtfo of the state for about a week and gotten a lawyer. But as a young college student I didn't know any better--and I also didn't realize how much money they made off of voluntary patients like myself (my insurance never paid for the say, by the way). Well a week later, after taking medication that didn't work but gave me terrible side-effects and me telling more than enough lies about how I was feeling better, they got me out of there (since its not there job to keep people there forever anyway), and I was on my way. It wasn't so terrible except for the forced medication, the constant threat of being moved essentially to jail in the form of involuntary commitment, and the basic dehumanization you experience.

Though it wasn't so simple: my university decided that I needed to go into an outpatient program or else they wouldn't "approve" me going back to class. That is why I say you should never go to your schools counselors: they will always use it against you. I was forced into an outpatient program, which my insurance also wouldn't pay for (or else I wouldn't be able to go back to school), but thankfully I was able to convince someone in there to move me to a less intensive program. I'd also, by then, stopped taking my medication (and haven't taken a single psychiatric drug since).

Well, long story short at this new program I was getting bullied by one of the members of the staff, but instead of taking my complaint seriously the head of the program (which was quite small) simply ejected me before I could talk to anyone higher up. And from the university's perspective, I was done with my treatment. You think that this would be the end of the story, but the school kept their eye on me for years after; the amount of run-ins I had with the police over supposed alarms about my "mental health" was both horrifying and shocking. Thankfully, I eventually learned just to tell them I wouldn't talk without a lawyer, and they stopped bothering me after. But its very scary feeling like you're being constantly surveilled all the time, and fearing that if you ever talk to the police they'll try to take you in to a psychiatric facility.

Years later and I'm very happy: but not on account of any help from contemporary psychiatric institutions, modern psychology, therapy, or anything (though I did get a therapist who wasn't affiliated with my university), but from my readings. God you couldn't know how much Nietzsche and Freud can help someone like me, but they certainly put me through, and I'd have to guess that as their influence waned in American psychology, so did the quality of treatment--but what can you do when all their readers say that the system is the problem, and it just so happens the functionaries of power control the purses of psych programs! Everything radical, actually life-affirming and helpful was shunted from mental health and the whole thing was turned into some sort of pseudo-scientifical escapade for extracting as much money as possible from a socially dissatisfied population: they made a whole business out of ennui--what else is "positive psychology?"

Anyway I'm on the other side of things and all I can say is this: stay the fuck away from mentally ill people, they will ruin your life and only make you feel worse. Also, get exercise, eat decently, and stay hydrated, that usually helps. And never, ever, trust your run of the mill, CBT practicing psych: they either didn't do very well in med-school and became a psychiatrist; or, they studied psychology because they didn't know what else to do and they ended up practicing. There are people out there that can help, who aren't scam artist or just mindless NPCs; but there aren't a whole lot of them, and its almost impossible to differentiate the good from the bad until you get to the other side of things. I would recommend just doing some reading on your own: read Nietzsche, read Camus, read Kierkegaard (I haven't read him but I hear he is good): there is freedom, joy, and affirmation of life to be discovered here--which is nothing that our current mode of organizing society wants for you!