I am nearly 55, and have been on ADs off and on since my early 30s, and I have come to the conclusion that I am always going to need them.
I have had group therapy and individual cognitive behavioural therapy, and whilst these have helped, I have never managed to come off the ADs successfully. I manage for a while, and then my mental health deteriorates again, and I have to go back on them.
At the moment, I am on a combination of two ADs, and that seems to work pretty well to keep my mood stable (or it did until Covid and lockdown, which has affected my mental health) - but in my health authority, a combination like this can only be prescribed by a psychiatrist, so if I came off the ADs, and my mental health deteriorated again, and I needed to go back onto the combination, I would have to wait for a psychiatric appointment before I could get the medication I needed.
I believe that there are some of us who are lacking in the brain chemicals needed to prevent depression/low mood, and that, whilst alternative therapies/talking therapies can help us cope, the bottom line is that we need the chemicals artificially topped up, if we are to stay mentally healthy - and just as it is entirely reasonable for someone with an underactive thyroid to take thyroxine, or someone with type 1 diabetes to take insulin, it is reasonable for us to take ADs.
Sadly, taking ADs seems to be seen as a moral failing, not a physical and psychological necessity, and too many doctors want taking them to be temporary. But they don't have to cope with the awful feeling of descending into the black pit of despair when you have stopped taking the medication that kept you out of it!