Drugs work and are not necessarily permanent. I had a bad patch a few years ago. I didn't like the idea of taking drugs but at some point I realized that I wasn't getting over it and that I had nothing to lose. Exercise etc. was not doing it. The drugs I took we're SSRI's, (all this is googleable,) started on Prozac than Zoloft then Paxil. Took Paxil for a year and a half than tapered off. There were some side effects, (a slight increase in my natural susceptibility to motion sickness, some sleepiness, a certain thing related to time and sex which most men would see as positive,) but the primary effects were immensely helpful. I was able to get things done. I stopped ruminating, (look it up if you don't know what that is,) and generally I was able to be much more outgoing and confident.
One thing I would say is that the drug companies and health insurance companies would be happy to have you believe that drugs will cure everything. People are different, some people are best served by taking an antidepressant as you would a high blood pressure medicine, others only need it for a time. I personally think that the best thing to do to treat depression is have a combination of so called talk therapy and drugs as appropriate. The drugs can really snap the back of what Winston Churchill called his Black Dog, but something like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help a person to be more resistant to the beast and also get more out of the relief the drugs can afford.
You might run across the occasional ignorant person that doesn't believe that depression is anything but a failure of will or a lack of exercise, they are entitled to their beliefs but you don't have to listen to them. You have the right if not the duty to be your own advocate. You don't have to stand for this depression crap.
