I respect your taking the time and sharing your circumstance as you have here.
It seems from even your own story, let alone those like this one in the press, that the laws regarding who is institutionalized need changing—or at least tweaking.
Lobbying on behalf of the mentally ill to change laws is one of the things that Nami does. For example in my State, until very recently, only a handful of police officers were trained to deal with mentally ill individuals and learn how to "deescalate" dangerous situations when the person is psychotic. These officers are part of a CIT team (Crisis Intervention Team), but many people didn't know that they could ask for "CIT" when calling 911. Now, a new law requires that ALL new police officers get CIT-type training throughout the State.
In my son's case, he needed to be committed (now that he is stable and properly medicated, even he recognizes it was the right thing to do, even if he didn't think so at the time).