Until the mid-1950's there were no effective psychiatric drugs.
What passed for meds back then was mostly barbiturates, for anxiety and behavior agitation, and amphetamines for depression and lethargy.
Half of all hospital beds in the United States in the mid-fifties were occupied by mental patients, most of them going nowhere fast, receiving no treatment to speak of, and living in custodial institutions in rural areas, away from the sensitive eyes of the public, and which came to be known as "funny farms."
Discharged and left to their own devices, they died.
Compare that to today, when many hospitals have only a few, if any, psych beds at all, and lengths of stay are measured usually in days, not years.
Meds used today generally are not addictive and destructive like the barbiturates and amphetamines were. Some have side effects, to be sure--any effective medicine of any sort will have side effects in some percentage of the population.
But for most people, the price is a small one to pay for being able to function reasonably well in the community.
End of message from Reality-- we now return to the previously scheduled rantings and ravings of the juvenile ignorati.