Hello Humpty D. You have written an important, thorough account of what can go wrong. Your account is a testament to how dysfuntional the whole mental health care system is. Of course your trust is shattered. I'm a consumer of mental health care services and, also, a nurse who has worked - rather briefly - in psych care venues. A lot of what you narrated was not only a betrayal of your trust but, also, flat out illegal. Based on my experience, I do warn people to be extremely careful in dealing with the system. It seems you just can't be careful enough to guarantee that stuff like what you narrated doesn't happen.

Here's a few offerings gleaned from my experience:

First of all - Never assume that anyone who tells you anything actually knows what they're talking about. That person may even truly believe what they are saying and still be completely wrong. Also, some people will flat out lie to you. You absolutely do have a legal right to not have all your medical information disclosed to your wife. An exception would be if you were telling doctors or therapists that you were planning to kill your wife. Then they would have a legal duty to warn her. Short of that, there's not much that you have any obligation to let them disclose. About the only way around that would be if you were so permanently mentally incompetent that a court appointed your wife as your legal guardian. It takes a hearing and a judge to set that up. Then your wife would have the same access to your medical information that she would have on a small child. (By the way, there are even legal limits on how far medical professionals can go in disregarding a child's requests for privacy.) So that doctor threatening to send you to a state facility may have been over-stepping his authority.

Psych hospitals always have a conference room that is used as a make-shift courtroom, and they do hold legal hearings there, presided over by a judge, all the time. No doctor can just "have the court" commit you to anything. The judge is not a puppet of the doctor. The doctor merely offers his opinion to the judge. The judge gives that opinion due consideration, but does not blindly follow the recommendation of any doctor. The judge would also engage you in conversation and listen carefully to your concerns. We have a tradition in this country of judges being slow to take away the freedom of a citizen, or to declare a person mentally incompetent. I think that doctor was totally bluffing about getting a court to send you to a state facility. Making phoney threats, by the way, is illegal. Even if a judge felt you were not safe to be released, he would most likely have simply extended the number of days that you could be involuntarily held at the place you were in - most likely to a week to 30 days. Then a reassessment would be in order before detaining you longer.

Insurance companies do pretty much have a legal right to thoroughly review the medical record of care they are being asked to pay for. Spouses have absolutely no such right. You don't even have to allow your spouse to visit you in the hospital. You most certainly do not have to allow her to attend your sessions with pdocs and couselors.

Point #2: After signing a release of information form, you have a right to rescind that permission at any time.

Also, standard forms do not always offer options that exactly correspond to what you want to stipulate. You have a right to take a blank sheet of paper and write on it specific stipulations that are not covered by the standard form. Then you write on the standard form that there is an additional handwritten sratement that modifies the standard form and you direct that all relevant parties must refer to it.

Kind of sad, isn't it, that you have to become almost an apprentice lawyer to protect yourself, but you do. I believe you were outright lied to by professionals who knew they were lying. It happens.

Having said all of that, I do not want to discourage you from seeking whatever help and treatment you may actually need. I affirm your conclusion that you can not trust anyone in this system. However, you can educate yourself about your rights and how to assert them. (Hard to do in the midst of an emotional breakdown, I know.)