Funny (not ha-ha funny, just your timing is impeccable) you should say that. My son came across something (and I love it) what is now late yesterday, that I love and 100% agree with. I've more than been the Big Pharma route, and the only thing it's helped so far is my ADHD, with Wellbutrin, that doesn't have any side effects on me. I've refused all hard-core anti-depressants and mood stabilizers, excepting one that I was on for two months (Lyrica) that made me gain weight to way too fat of a weight (206 lbs), took me five years of very hard work to get it off. They thought it would be a good mood stabilizer and help my back at the same time. Um, nope, if I gain even five pounds, just that little bit makes my back worse.
I also think that when we talk depression exclusively, a lot of times it's a natural reaction to bad circumstances in life, and not some chemical balance in the brain. They just need someone to talk to through those times. The problem is that so many people, even within families, can't be trusted to talk to, so what happens? Yep, you got it, the person turns to suicide. Although I am a major depressive with many attempts on my own life, for me it has always been situational. Bad life circumstances. I am no longer a suicidal, because I have proven to myself that I can get through anything with the homelessness (it took a lot of years but I worked hard on it). I no longer turn to suicide, no longer panic about literally anything like I used to, and my PTSD is at the lowest rate it's ever been (and really, I've had no one to talk to about it). I've been through the worst hell and worked my ass off to come up from it. This is what most depressives who are suicidal do not see, is that when they are in bad circumstances, it can always get worse than where they are currently at, and whatever the circumstances are, they will have to work themselves that much harder out of it because of the depression on top of the circumstances, and if they do, the rewards are that much better. No meds really are needed but the ones that don't make things worse. I wish Cornell and the others like Kurt Cobain (I still think Courtney Love drove him to it) had seen this, that all they really needed was someone real to talk to who would give them feedback, and to work that much harder would help them. Not drugs, not some money-grubbing shrink, but making great music, and using it to vent as well.
Anyway... I'm sorry for the tangent here. It all boils down to wonderful musicians like Cornell anyway, and I don't mind being open about these things here or anywhere.
Here is what my son had:
