I've struggled with depression in many shapes and levels during my whole life. During the past year, going to the gym and exercising daily has done wonders to help with it, can't stress that enough. But on particular periods the illness kicks in and it's really hard. Luckily, it never last for long. Still, I'm considering getting help for power through and minimize them as much as possible.

The thing is, I've never taken antidepressants and I'm really hesitant to go into that path. Please don't interpret this as some kind of judgement of people who take them. My main worry is to start with the meds and get stuck depending on them.

What I'm asking is, for the people who were like me and ended up taking meds, has it been a permanent measure? If so, that was the initial plan or were you "I'm gonna have them just for a while to get out of this rut and that's it"? Or to the contrary, you took them for a limited period and now don't anymore?