I've taken antidepressants for years (20 mg prozac) and have sometimes tapered off them, restarting later. I can barely tell that I'm taking them, I feel 100% like myself on--and off of--them. I know they do something because when talking about difficult traumas with my therapist, if I'm not taking flouoxetine I will get choked up to the point I can't speak. That's the only difference I can perceive. My dose is not a "happy pill", it simply smooths out some extreme lows. Tapering off (a few weeks of 50% exponential declines) I've done because it's recommended, but again, I've never noticed any affect on mood before, during, or after.

after a number of years, a small dose of lithium (300mg) was recommended by a psychiatrist who stood apart (at least in that respect), and it was magic at mood stabilization, I never before even realized that I experienced hypomania (and I took it for anxiety), I just thought I was "bold".

(Lithium is not a drug, it's an element, taken as a metallic salt. It occurs naturally in the water in various parts of the world, and those populations have been studied and suffer lower rates of mental illness. My shrink said his recommendation was based in conjunction with the prozac I was taking, i.e. a known correlation. Bipolar II is a different mental condition than bipolar I, and somewhat slippery/loosely defined)

The extreme anecdotal stories people report online as in this forum strike me, an experienced but likewise only an anecdotal user, as more an artifact of underlying emotional distress rather than a result of the drugs.

I just wanted to contribute a different voice to this topic.

I should add, I do have "extra money" and am able to pay extremely qualified and expensive doctors, an option that is not available to everyone, including those with full public health services.

> bipolar

I think this is more relevant than people give it credit for. While bipolar depression and unipolar (major) depression might generally be functionally indistinguishable from the outside, they seem to have genuinely different origins within the body and brain.

And the drugs seem to be far more powerful for people with bipolar.

That's both good and bad. Good, because between mood stabilizers and very careful use of antidepressants, many people with bipolar can genuinely achieve complete treatment, or close enough to pass as complete. Which is wonderful! Bad because antidepressants and (hypo)mania are a dangerous combination, and the antidepressants can have more kick than one would normally expect. They'll often cause a patient's first manic episode, which can be very bad on its own but might get things on the right treatment course. (Of course, they often still do nothing much at all.

I think the tapering may be related as well. I was eventually diagnosed with bipolar II and I've never really had to taper off anything that didn't have a black-box warning about tapers (either intrinsically or due to blood-pressure effects, which are worth taking seriously). I've stopped some things cold which one really shouldn't stop cold. I didn't really notice much other than the bad side effects causing the stop going away.

> I do have "extra money" and am able to pay extremely qualified and expensive doctors

I don't really have "extra money" but I still do this anyway. My psychiatrist is $500 an hour, out of pocket, no insurance accepted period. He actually listens. It's worth it.