Many psychotherapists I have met have a wrong attitude towards medication. Most of the time a therapist is not a medical doctor, so you can simply ignore a therapists personal thought about medication. Taking medication or not is up to you at this point; as long as you are voluntary/out-patient.

If a therapist cannot help you out of the situation you are in within a couple of sessions, they are "supposed to" refer you to a psychiatrist. You seeing the same therapist for several years and they telling you to not see a psychiatrist sounds fishy to me.

Of course there are no meds that can "cure" a certain condition but given for that medical condition. That is when the medication eases the burden of "symptoms" to give some "breathing space".

Before prescribing a medication a medical doctor is supposed to weigh the benefits vs side-effects. Sure some medicine do have side effects. But in my case, I wouldn't even complain about those because they are much more bearable than the symptoms I originally had. You can always do some research before actually taking the medication. A doctor can only prescribe and you should have the liberty to decide weather to take or not after researching yourself.

Some medication such as Cymbalta for an extreme example have quite terrible withdrawal symptoms for a couple of months, not weeks or days. But other than Benzos that give an immediate relief, most psychotropic medication are actually not addictive. If a psychiatrist recommends, it is not that a bad thing to take a medication that makes life more livable.

One thing to remember when starting psychotropic medication is that you have to give up on self medication of any sort and be clear with your PDoc about whatever substance you use. They cannot take you to DEA or police for substance abuse, other than offering help.