I have a degree in psychology, a master's degree in a psychology related field and spent a good chunk of my career working with psychiatric patients. I know a lot about mental illness because of these things. A few years ago after a very close call with suicide my therapist pushed me into taking NAMI's peer to peer class. He told me I wasn't going to learn a lot and I could teach most of it but that I had to go to make connections. So I went and it was a really good thing. It was good to see that I wasn't alone with my illness and that others had big issues too and that none of my experiences with having to stop working which was killing me (nearly literally) at the time weren't shared with someone. The class is free and they even provided free snacks for us. I'd really recommend checking into it. It's better than the hospital.