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Beauflow, you sure use your head for more than a hat rack. Yes, you are a thinker and a questioner. The best therapist you'll ever meet may, indeed, be yourself. Though I think your tough history and the lingering after-effects, like the dreams, should be discussed with a good and caring professional to get a perspective from outside yourself. Ideally, I am hoping that you can talk with someone who is experienced in therapy with survivors of childhood abuse. I suppose any psychologist should have some training and understanding that would be relevant.
Your right on target to ask just exactly what are the meds supposed to do. (That was my issue when I was 19.) In reality, it's one big on-going experiment. My medication almost completely corrected a terrible sleep pattern, which was not what the doctor was even thinking about, nor was I expecting. Wow, did that improve the quality of my life. Also, I became physically stronger - again, not something that anyone was planning or hoping for - just an unintended side effect. The goal was for me to be less depressed, and that goal was achieved. The doctor hoped it would eliminate my depression, and that never did happen, but "less" kept me from dropping out of school.
As far as "changing brain patterns" goes, that might be an overly optimistic expectation, depending on what you mean. On one level, you could say that these meds do change chemical reactions in the brain. That's only good, though, if it leads to improvement in how you feel. When you have a headache, 2 aspirin, or 2 Tylenol, can make the headache go away and make you feel much better and even happier. If I take 2 Tylenol because I am depressed, that won't cause anything that makes me feel better.
If you were crying for hours every day, or couldn't get out of bed to get to your job, then it would be smart to try and see what an antidepressant medication might do for you. It might take away the psychological "headache" so you would not be in such pain that you couldn't do anything. Or it might not even help. It's always an experiment. Your main problem might not be depression. You might have unresolved anger. Anger calls for medication, if a person who is angry is going around assaulting other people. You haven't mentioned being in a lot of fights, lately.
"Thought patterns" are what really need changing to bring peace of mind or greater satisfaction in life. Fooling with the brain chemicals may do very little about that. Talking about what disturbs you can, possibly, help you to change your own thought patterns. A therapist can sometimes notice a pattern that is unhealthy that you may have and not realize you have. (That was a big part of my treatment.) Once it gets pointed out to you, then you can apply your "counter thinking" and come up with an alternative pattern or thinking. You can try different ones and see what works best. A lot of this is also a matter of experiment.
It sure would be great if we could fix our brothers, but like you've said, they have to want that. That is a very gracious way to look at another person's entrapment, when you can see that person as less "blessed" than you in some way or another.
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