What is the best source of help you've found in the mental health field?

More often than not, people who seek help find their malady is "treatment resistant." I've had bad luck with meds for about 35 years now.

Things are either too expensive, a hoax, or they treat you like a criminal.

I was just wondering if anyone has any hopeful experiences or suggestions?

CBT and group therapy. Plenty of exercise, avoiding alcohol, caffeine and marijuana, eating a clean diet, having goals and challenges. Revamping my entire attitude. Getting regular sleep pattern going. Breathing exercises.

I'd start with CBT

Don't go to shrinks, unless you really find a medication that works for you. Try Alternative healing. Yoga, Native healing, Eastern spiritual medicine. They do not judge as much. There has always been a stigma to mental illness in North America, and that is much less common in Asia, and Native American circles.

I tried therapy, I tried support groups... The only thing that helped me in the end was becoming more independant. Moving away from the city where my family lives in, so that they don't constantly support me, and I'm forced to do stuff I'd otherwise avoid.
Another thing is working for a circle of friends. Finding out what hobbies I have or I might acquire, that can be done with others, and then finding groups of people who have the same hobbies, and that way finding friends.

The combination of both, becoming more independant and working to build and maintain a circle of friends, made my SA by far less severe. A decade ago, a pub was so scary for me that I couldn't say a single word there. Just today, I went on a barbecue with people who never met before, except two of them in some online game, and I didn't even know what they look like or what their names were.

I do not bother with pills these days.

I did see a therapist for a few years, but I've since realised mostly for a need for social contact.

As Joule said, start with the things you can control. Diet, exercise, attitude towards other people.

My biggest challenge is not to try to hurry too much. As long as I am better of this year than last life is ok. Incremental steps are better than no steps at all.