Well I asked for a referral from my primary care doctor to Psychiatry/Behavioral Health and I need to call them back but am hesitating. I hate lying when they ask if I am suicidal even when I think it would help the diagnosis or which medications to prescribe... all for the risk of being locked up. Have been hospitalized many times before. I had so many bad scary/embarrassing past experiences on medications but part of me is willing to see if there is that one medicine or combo that really works with my body like people say they find.
As far as mentioning suicide to these people goes, the view I take these days is that I'm just not interested in letting them know that. I think if a practitioner is dealing with a patient who has previous attempts / previous hospitalisations then the practitioner should have the presence of mind to know that the patient has probably not forgotten that the option of suicide exists. So I, as a patient that fits that description, just tell them "no" when asked if I have suicidal thoughts or plans because I don't feel any good can come of it. It leads to hospitalisation but that, in my experience, hasn't come with access to "better" treatment; just being babysat on a locked ward then turfed out and this is of no use to me.
I could never commit to past therapy, and I believe I wouldn't benefit from talking through my problems and digging up old past. But I think I'm stubborn with that. Sadly I know its hard to get government assistance without sticking with a therapist and I think that was my fault in the past as I tried twice to get it.
Most of me doesn't want to get better though... as I've just gained a negative outlook on humanity and society itself as a whole. I'm mainly doing it so I can live in independence to get out of the people's hair that I'm relying on financially. I hate faking happiness and trying to fit into societies standards. But is this mostly my depression talking and preventing me? I ask myself so many times.
Strongly relate to everything you're saying here. Like you I'm not sure I really believe in the utility of therapy (at least for me). I'm in a similar spot to yourself where I've recently had a referral picked up after having been on a waiting list for quite some time and after the first appointment with both a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist in the room the overwhelming feeling I was left with was that it was a load of garbage and nothing significant was happening. I can talk to them, listen to them, bring up emotions in the session but the moment I leave that room there is absolutely no change, no dent in my personality, no material difference for having been there for ~50 minutes.
I think fundamentally I don't really believe there is anything that these people can say that will undo my worldviews and convince me to stick out the next ~45 years in misery rather than skipping to the last page right now. However, despite all that, I have not cancelled next week's appointment and will attend once again. At this point I think continuing to go is part intellectual curiosity and part spite. Like secretly I want these people to admit they have no clue what they're doing or what they're talking about. So I'll jump through every meaningless hoop they put in front of me: exercising and eating clean? CBT? Antidepressants? Regular grooming and getting myself out of bed? OK; done 'em all. Yet I'm still sat in front of them in these appointments, still not functional. Now what have they got for me? Now the low-hanging fruit is gone, what other crap can they conjure up? I will probably draw the line at ECT or a frontal lobotomy.
But more seriously I guess I am, on some level, willing to hear them out for now at least. If you withhold the suicidal thoughts info from them, there's not really a lot they can do to take away your agency. So you're in a position where you can go to the appointments, hear what they have to say, and see whether it makes a difference or not. The nuclear option is always going to be there but if you're in a position where you can survive a few days, weeks or months yet then it might be worth trying it at least out of curiosity. Worst case, your beliefs are confirmed, best case perhaps something different happens.
