I personally have tried everything that they've tried to give me. I've tried more than 10 antidepressants, a few antipsychotics, lithium....all of it. Quit a few too soon and had severe suicide issues and suffered from severe mental problems (couldn't tell a microwave from a fork kind of thing). Now, my doctor has it listed that I can't tolerate any of these. Instead, when things are extremely stressful, I take nadolol daily, I take propanolol for the huge panic attacks, and I take an extremely small dose of sleep meds when I'm having nightmares or ruminating ideas and cant sleep. I also take adhd meds when my concentration and mood plummets, again, an insanely small dose (I get children's dose and cut them) and I have to circulate through them because the side effects are different each time. Meds are hard but necessary when breathing and all of the other things aren't enough. I've done all of the modalities that everyone discusses. They all play a part, but I just have to have the meds as part of the toolkit too.

I think for meds in general, as a small woman, most of the doses are just too much and the side effects are worse than the problem itself. I've read evidence of this for women, but don't have articles handy to link here.