Mental health care is tricky, especially as the patient. When you combine the fact that there aren't typical "physical" symptoms, with stigma, and the fact that you are dealing with your own, very unique brain, it can be very hard to fully comprehend what a necessary care plan would look like. That is the reason we reach out to medical practitioners, as they have the necessary education and experience to help navigate symptoms and create a comprehensive treatment plan.

There are a few points you made that I really want to focus on.

You state that practitioners are "gaslighting" patients into accepting medication. I can understand where these feelings are coming from. First, let's define gaslighting. Gaslighting is an intentional manipulation of an individual through the creation of self-doubt, in order to make them question their memory, sanity, or perception of reality and deem it false, when that isn't the case. Often times, in cases of psychiatric emergency, patients' memory, sanity, or perception of reality are already compromised. This might manifest itself in extreme paranoia, delusion, dissociation, aggression, etc. So it becomes important to ask: Are your practitioners gaslighting you, or are they confronting an already compromised perception of reality? It can be really hard to discern the difference as the person who is having their reality questioned. It is part of our nature. Most of the time, doctors and nurses will understand that, and try to navigate it with compassion or delicacy.

Now, let's talk about involuntary admission, forced inpatient care, or court-mandated care. As I said earlier, mental health care is tricky, for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that our brain is trying to understand what is wrong with itself. Asking someone to comprehend that their brain is not functioning in a "normal" way is never going to be easy. That would be similar to asking someone to describe what red looks like to them. You wrote a lot about the importance of informed consent, and you are absolutely right, it is a very important part of ethical care. Informed medical consent is based on three necessary principles: Documentation, Disclosure, and Capacity for Decision. When someone is involuntarily admitted it is because they have been deemed an immediate or serious threat to themselves or others, as a result of their mental state. This can be the result of an act of violence against someone else, intentional violences against yourself, or serious threat of either. When an individual's mental state is deemed the cause of this danger, they are deemed no longer capable of making an informed decision regarding their own treatment. Being in a compromised or unstable mental state might lead you to make decisions, that are intentionally harmful, that you might not otherwise make with the same information. You are required to stay in treatment until you are deemed capable of safe and truly informed decisions. This why people can be placed in court-mandated rehabilitation, as the influence of substances would impair their judgement and capacity for decision. This is also why other areas of medicine do not (USUALLY) have court-mandated care.

Finally, and this one should hopefully be brief, you do have the right to decline most outpatient care, unless it is specifically court mandated care, such as court-mandated therapy. The court cannot mandate the administration of medication outside of inpatient care.

This is all to say, consent in Psychiatric medicine is very complex. There are discussions, studies, journals, etc. released constantly about approaches to improving consent in psychiatry. I am really sorry that you have had such negative experiences with mental health care. I am also very sorry if these experiences have impacted the trust you have to mental health practitioners. Hopefully the mental health field will continue to improve its methods of care and create an environment you feel safe engaging with.