Is Adult ADHD a "Mental Illness?"

Why is it that this system which insists that you stay compliant with your meds makes it next to impossible to get a prescription refill when something out of the ordinary happens? No wonder many choose to ditch the meds and ultimately end up worse if not dead or in jail. I have been on the same meds since 2000, that is 14 years,168 months, over 5,110 days. I had a mental breakdown earlier this year. My psychiatrist moved to MT and was unavailable to write refills in CO. My family moved me back home. My original psychiatrist retired in the eight years I was away. I tried (as suggested by psychiatrist who moved to MT) to enter an IOP. In their infinite stupidity, after a month of treatment, they told me this was not the place for me, but not to worry about refills because their psychiatrist whom I had seen three times would bridge the gap while I found a new psychiatrist. Within two weeks, when I needed a refill, the less than lady doc told me she would not refill my meds because "I was not her patient" but that I could drop my Lithium without medical supervision. How much more irresponsible can a doctor be?!
During the past week and a half I have tried to get someone to help me with a refill. I contacted my doctor in MT and my original doctor, neither responded. I called the doctor at the IOP again, she ignored me. I jumped through the hoops at the local Mental Health Office only to be told to call at 8am for a same day appointment. When I did today, they told me they were out of appointments at the office I had visited for my intake and would not give me an appointment at either of their two satellite offices regardless of my situation because their policy is to keep psychiatric and therapy appointments at the same location. What idiotic policy in the age of technology! We email and video conference all the time, yet the Mental Health office is incapable of managing three offices as one?
So I'm out of meds and quite angry. I want to take my meds, I prefer the way I feel on my meds, I don't like going through a manic episode, yet the doctors and the system make it so that it is easier for a patient to give up their meds and get worse than to help them stay compliant with their meds. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath these medical professionals took to do no harm?
Someone please enlighten me because I am at my wits end and may just snap.

Curious - why did you out the term mental illness in quotations, like you did doctor? Is it because you have the same distain for the term as you did the doctor? It seems strange to me that, on a site devoted to discussing mental illness and mental health, you would have that reaction.
By NAMI's definition, seizure disorders are mental illness. So is autism and Down's Syndrome. If a mental illness is some type of organic brain disorder, aren't they truly all mental illnesses? Isn't ADHD one as well? If we classified them all as organic brain disorders, maybe we could reduce the stigma identified with mental illness. And maybe you wouldn't feel compelled to disassociate yourself from that stigma by putting the term in quotations.

My conception of it is that ADHD is a learning disability. The original conception of it was that it was a type of mild brain dysfunction. But ADHD is used so broadly these days, I am actually not sure what it means. If it is a mental illness, it is a good thing from an insurance perspective- as most health insurance policies do not cover diagnosis or treatment of learning disabilities, only illnesses. So to play the game, and get your psychiatrist and medication paid for- call it an illness.

Now that you've clearly established in your article your obvious distaste for the healthcare professional and possibly healthcare professionals in general, who was able to evaluate you for likely a controlled substance, when it was your responsibility to maintain that prescription (and not his responsibility), my question is: did the physician refill your prescription? This is entirely unclear in this writing, although this physician seems to be the main point.
This article is entitled “Is adult ADHD a mental illness?” however this writing initiates with a diatribe against a physician who was willing to evaluate you in a city that is in a different location from your original prescription, and he took on the high liability for your medication; again a likely controlled substance that requires a DEA license; yet you are broadcasting a harshly judging opinion of this professional in an unprofessional manner, and the discussion in this public writing is not related to your actual prescription renewal, yet only focuses on your own discomfort; as opposed to a more appropriate discourse of the actual medical risk and legal accountability that was placed upon him due to your irresponsibility regarding the management of a medication, prescribed by a different doctor.
The photo of a cat has absolutely nothing to do with either the title nor with the diatribe within this article, and is merely present for its shock value, and one case in point.
Please, in the future, guard your public writings, your words and actions with respect to your illness more carefully. Doctor bashing is becoming a bit tiresome, does not further the physician-patient relationship, seems a bit self-serving, and it is still vague as to whether this physician assisted you in the original endeavor for which you sought his aid.
Did he renew your needed medication, for which you were 'running out' due to your own negligence?
Thank you and sincerely.