That all sounds so familiar! We went through similar with my wife. She kept going into community mental health(there are no private therapists in our small town) and they repeatedly(for 2 years) refused to allow her to see a psychiatrist. They kept telling her she was just a drunk and needed to go to rehab before they'd allow her to see a pdoc. The local ER ignored her on too many visits there and also labelled her as just a drunk. Granted she was alcohol dependent at the time and self-medicating, but it was part of the disorder. She was even arrested for DUI(eventhough she wasn't driving...drunk in a parked car) and charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting as she was having a schizo episode and thought they were aliens. The understanding, awareness, and compassion toward mental illness by law enforcement, ER personnel, and community mental health(here anyway) is deplorable and disgusting! We finally found a private pdoc and therapist an hour and a half away after we realized the people locally that were supposed to be helping us were actually doing more harm than good.

I hope you find your way through the quagmire to competent and compassionate help, but I wouldn't count on it coming through community mental health or the ER dept. Best of luck.
Skip