>> I am slowly learning that medications can only do so much.

I agree. I don't think meds are supposed to fix things, they are only one part of the puzzle.

People drink and take drugs to make them "feel better" often when they are battling depression without realizing it. I don't think our meds are supposed to be "safe equivelants" to drugs and alchohol, i.e. that they are supposed to make us "feel better" in a safer or more controlled way. I think instead they are supposed to address the root of our problem, that being the chemical imbalance in our brains that doesn't allow us to "recover" or "cope" from difficult stressors in our lives once that stress has past, or the depression that often appears even when no stressors exist (our minds feel depressed and then we go out and associate that with sometimes non-existant things, which we speak of as the negativity and lies that depression tells us.)

My take on it is this. Everyone goes through stress and through periods of depression. We find ways to cope with that depression (hopefully healthy ways to cope) and to get past those periods. People with clinical depression have an imbalance of brain chemicals that causes them to react to depression differently: the depression takes on a life of its own, and no amount of coping skills will help it pass.

In therapy we learn a variety of more powerful coping skills, and also learn about ourselves and the things that knowingly or unknowingly trigger depressive states. We can therefore deal with periods of depression more effectively and partially learn to avoid them. (People without clinical depression would benefit from this too). But because of the chemical imbalance, the coping skills can't really work effectively and certainly can't have lasting effects. That's where the meds come in, they help rebalance the brain chemicals, taking down that barrier that prevents the coping skills from working. In some cases meds may not be necessary and in others there may not be any progress at all possible without the help of medication.

Once an effective medication is found for the individual, it helps that barrier come down, but it doesn't cure the depression, it just allows the coping skills and therapy to work and helps the depression to not linger for no reason.

If mental illness is like a fire in our brains, therapy and coping skills are the firemen and the water. Medications are the ladder that the fireman sometimes need to reach the flames. Without a ladder, if the fire is on the roof, no matter how much water they squirt to the first floor it isn't going to help.