Does anyone actually do lobotomies anymore? I really thought that went out decades ago.
Anyway, many of the OP's listed reasons are just results of shitty psychiatrists. Yeah, there are some bad psychiatrists, just as there are bad cardiologists, bad dermatologists, bad gynecologists...the list goes ever on. That doesn't mean the entire field is bullshit.
I understand how people might feel the field lacks validity because the DSM is based on behavior and not hard scientific lab data. I get it. But there have been brain scans that show certain abnormalities in mentally ill patients, and mental illness certainly has a genetic component (twin studies and bipolar disorder--which tends to be highly genetically linked).
Any medication comes with risks. Anything. At the end of medicine commercials, the list of possible, although rare, side effects goes on endlessly. That's just part of medicine and a part of life: risks. I could get hit by a car crossing the street on my way to class. Does that mean I should just stay at home in my bed (however enticing that may be at times)? No, because I need to learn.
Are some mental illnesses overly diagnosed? Possibly. But this does not mean that mental illness diagnoses are altogether fake or made up. These illnesses aren't just invented. If millions of people worldwide are experiencing the same general set of detrimental symptoms, I can hardly believe that some quack doctors just "created" symptoms and illnesses.
I wonder what the OP would have expected me to do when I wanted to end my own life and was too depressed to move, or what they would have done if they'd seen me screaming, raging, pulling my hair out and being a foreigner in my own skin. Do they really think suggesting a self-help book to someone who's too ragingly manic to write a coherent and focused letter would actually work? Any person with common sense would say of course not. Yes, I understand that psychiatric medicine can often be trial and error. I've lived it. But I finally got on medicine that worked for me, and it's been a life-saver.
And lastly, the people who say that mental illnesses are just "different perspectives on life" should fucking talk to someone who lives with the burden of one. Over the course of my life, mental illness has wreaked havoc on my family, my friendships, my academic performance, my self-esteem, and my will to live. It was psychiatry (and therapy) that helped me heal again. I'm not the only one, either.
I'm happy to provide sources for the information I've shared, and I'd like to see the sources for the "claims and statistics" in these bullet points.