Oliphant nobody on this thread is saying ADs are the panacea for everything: most posters are saying you should try other things first. However, there are some of us on this thread who have had experience of trying everything else first and nothing else working until the patient had been stabilised by AD's. People who have sat in that ambulance, not just once but repeatedly...
As for the "something wrong in your life"- what is wrong in my daughter's life is that she has a genetic incurable condition that is co-morbid with anxiety/depression. The same symptoms have been experienced by members of my family for at least 4 generations, going back to the early 1900s, regardless of the outward circumstances of their lives. It's not something I can take from dd or make different. It is after she started taking medication that she has been able to function, access therapy, carry on with her education, hold down a job.
My mother, who had the same symptoms but absolutely refused to see a doctor, was not able to function for long periods of her life, despite a secure life, lots of interests and a happy marriage. Looking back, I now realise I became her carer around the age of 7. I don't think that was right for either of us. It frightened me. Having that responsibility frightened me.
My grandfather survived because my grandmother basically carried him during his regular bouts of black depression: he admits this freely in his memoirs. He had grown up in a poor farming community, had made a better life for himself through hard work and created a happy family. But he still couldn't cope with the black times.
In our case, it wasn't a crisis caused by Big Pharma: it was a crisis inherent in our family, which is far less of a crisis in the present generation, thanks to proper support. When I look at my daughter, I feel sad that my mother couldn't have that.
Of course this may not be the same for the OPs daughter. But it can happen. Don't assume everybody is the same.
CBT is crap for her problems That, too, depends, Rachel For my dd, CBT under CAHMS worked as longterm counselling, teaching her to identify when she was spiralling down and working on ways to stay on top. I think the reason it worked was, there wasn't actually any underlying problem that she didn't know about herself; her real need was to find a way of managing her reactions.