I've come to similar conclusions, that statistically they don't know enough for me to entrust them. Which isn't a personal judgment, but just simple math, +experience. If I'd ever had a surgeon tell me there was only a 50/50 chance of a surgery working, but that I also might sustain permanent long-term effects of the surgery whether it worked or not, I would be very carefully weighing my options! And yet I've never had a psychiatrist appropriately brief me about the risks of anti-depressant use, and the sad 50% efficacy rate. To find out now, after years of trusting that their insistence was indicative of a greater relative usefulness, leaves me feeling pretty abused by the industry.

While I respect how individual successes contribute to many concluding that it's merely a matter of finding the right combination, with the numbers being what they are how can that premise possibly be quantified as being anywhere near a universal truth? .. and what seems to keep doctors "believing" it? (Wanting to believe it, I guess. Since having perky drug reps drop by bearing gifts is likely often among very few uplifting moments in their day.)

I certainly would not have kept trying with anti-depressants as much as I did had I known sooner. And I would have known sooner had I been blessed to realize sooner the extent and degree to which conducting my own research turned out to be necessary. I don't mind throwing a dart once in a while. But not for a decade.