One question to ask is which antidepressant specifically? Not enough people ask this question on top of deciding to take antidepressants to begin with and the r

One question to ask is which antidepressant specifically? Not enough people ask this question on top of deciding to take antidepressants to begin with and the risk/reward profile isn't the same for all of them. I would personally steer away from the ones that have more severe side-effects or are more difficult to withdraw from until you've exhausted other options. I've personally used SSRIs (citalopram/celexa) to treat depression - I think it was slightly but not especially helpful for me. The side effects weren't too problematic, nor was coming off it. Some people actually do respond very well to antidepressants but any single antidepressant doesn't perform very well as a treatment on average. Scott Alexander has a pretty good write up on things to try before and including antidepressants: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/16/things-that-sometimes-help-if-youre-depressed/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/16/things-that-sometimes-.... And also some background on antidepressants here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/05/chemical-imbalance/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/05/chemical-imbalance/. One very promising development in recent years which is missing from the above is using psychedelics for treating depression. This carries its own risks, including legal, but the risk/reward ratio based on early trials actually looks much better than for mainstream antidepressants. I intend to start microdosing soon for my own case. I'd recommend looking up Robin Carhart-Harris and/or Roland Griffiths research here if you're interested, or Michael Pollan's new book on this which I hear is good but I haven't read myself. I have my own potentially relevant write up of a few different factors, solutions attempted and solutions to try here: http://black-dog-running.herokuapp.com/depression-things http://black-dog-running.herokuapp.com/depression-things although that's more of a stream of consciousness and not very well written (and some of it is just personal and likely not interesting to others).