I took citralopram for a couple of years. It took about 3 weeks to kick in.

Immediate. I tried prozac and it was absolutely horrible. After a week of taking it, I was so utterly miserable that being depressed was a step upwards, and I felt great not so bad after coming off it. That kept the depression away for quite a while.

Depression: SSRIs, within a few days Anxiety: Promethazine, within a few days

Wellbutrin, somewhere in the week to a month to really start working.

Does alcohol count?

/s

It never started to work for me and I tried pretty much every antidepressant on the market. They just put me in Zombie mode and I slept 18+ hours a day. It’s 20 years ago I first tried meds and always waited the recommended amount of time for them to kick in, it just never happened and by now I just say fuck it and try to cope without them.

Depression, Prozac. Approximately 2-3 weeks when the initial benefits kick in, which is also how long it roughly took for me to feel depressed again when I once accidentally stopped the medication

Months. It took months of my med schedule before I was like “maybe these are working”. My motivation and functioning was like zero still, but I wasn’t depressed anymore.

Then doc put me back on a stimulant and it was so much more drastic an improvement I was frustrated we didn’t do that first.

Never worked

Venlafaxine (SNRI).
Took a couple weeks to settle into side effects, and about half a year to dial up the dosage (with side effects being a few days to a week after dosage changes).

But it was pretty immediate. I think a big part was the act of treating it, the act of getting help.
Had a lot of ups & downs, took a while to “trust” it, to recognise it working. And building the habit of taking meds helped maintain a schedule.

It just kinda blended in, I don’t have a real timeframe. I am very helpful.

Depression: Faster than immediate - I felt much better the instant I finally decided to treat it as an illness.

As fir the medication itself, ignoring not feeling too good from side effects, I was most surprised how it *immediately* fixed my sleep patterns, like day 1.

That felt like the foundation on which the rest of the improvement was built.

I took prozac for a little over a year. It never did anything for my depression or to help stop smoking, but it did give me ED while on it. So if you want to still be sad but also not ever jerk off or have sex, I’d recommend it.

I took estrogen for depression, it started working within a week :p

Depression. Sertraline/Zoloft. Months.

Initially, it helped a small amount. Possibly placebo. It was well-tolerated, so the dose was doubled. Then months (maybe 3?) of slight improvement.

But when it really took hold it felt sudden.