This could easily become a long rambling but i'll keep it very much to the point.

Yes, the process is overflowing with (to use your words Motown) pain, disgrace, humiliation, dehumanization, and degradation.

But i know this, if I hadn't started getting help 11 years ago, right now I'd either be in prison, constantly in and out of hospital or probably even dead.
Even in the first couple of years I was often dangerously close to all 3 of those situations.
But then I finally got the right med mix, must have tried at least 20 combinations to find something that works.

Right now I'm med free, and very wobbly, but I'm definitely good slightly more often than not. And even when i'm not so good I'm nowhere near as bad as I was all those years ago.

So, in answer to the title question - most of the time i don't regret it. I often dislike it but I do not regret it