Refine Mask now and than

I've read through the entire thread. (It's 2018 now, and I'm using Ph CC.) I am so frustrated. It seems like the best answer is still go back to the 2015 version. I have watched all the tutorial videos and tried and tried to make this work with real world photos, to no avail. I have used Photoshop since 1.0 fer chrissakes (1991!). I used to think I was pretty good at it. Now I am hot mess about to dissolve in tears because I cannot make a mask. No matter what I do I simply cannot MANUALLY fix a mask. Instead Photoshop wants to take over and do its thing which is frankly ruining the mask! To make matters worse, I have made a mask in one layer and allowed photoshop to try its own Select and Refine business. Comparing the mask it makes to the image without the mask shows all kinds of gunk on the image that wasn't there before. What the heck?

This image shows the contamination added outside the image after an attempt to "refine" the mask using the new tools. I can only manually fix a mask the old fashioned way by machinations outside the masking tools all together. This is adding HOURS to my work. Not cool at all. When the answer to fix things is to downgrade the program, that's a real problem.

Photoshop is broken for me. I used to loved it. Now I rage quit.

The interface for this was completely revamped. Now Photoshop takes you to a new interface with a set of tools on the left and a Properties panel on the right.

When you choose the new CC Select and Mask, the default is that the first icon in the upper left is selected. If you already have a selection, select the second tool and it will work more like you expect.

The default View was changed to Onion Skin, which is a new choice, but you can still select any of the views you are used to from the View drop down list.