My experience of antidepressants has been worse than bad, I was wrongfully prescribed
seroxat (paroxetine) which totally changed my personality for the worse, I started feeling invincible and even violent which is totally not me in the very slightest, but the worst thing was I kind of enjoyed my new found power in a harmful way, I actually went out and picked up an aggressive women who I was then attracted to (when I came off the drug she walked all over me in a violent way as I reverted back and was no longer a strong person). I'm normally very placid and am never ever even in the slightest bit violent, in fact my nature contributed towards me becoming an easier target for bullying when I was younger, but on these dangerous drugs I would literally dream about fighting and punching people in my sleep, often waking up punching out very violently for a few seconds until I became fully conscious and I even ended up unconsciously hurting a partner I had for a short while. While on this terrible drug I later ended up taking hard drugs which destroyed my life (been clean for over 12 years and I don't even drink alcohol), I was a totally different person and in fact the drug made me dangerous (I did hold back being physically violent apart from in my sleep, but the want was there). I was wrongfully misdiagnosed and given this "quick fix" when I complained to my doctor about being very tired and not being able to work properly despite sleeping for sometimes 12 hours a night, much later after losing my job it was found that I in fact had an under active thyroid and sleep apnea which both cause severe fatigue when left untreated, I had absolutely no chance what-so-ever. There's been masses of law suits regarding this awful drug, unfortunately mostly in the US which meant I never got compensation in the UK, there was even a man who was acquitted for killing his family while influenced by this prescribed drug and yet many people are still prescribed it around the world (it is now packaged under various different names, but it is the same drug, if I had never been on the drug I wouldn't have believed the man should have been acquitted, but with the feelings I felt while on this drug I understand and can actually relate to him, I honestly don't think it was truly his fault). The pharmaceuticals companies are certainly king and this shows how powerful and corrupt they truly are, yet people still trust them.
Here is another couple of examples:
1) My brother who is a severely low functioning autistic adult and can't for instance count to 5 is hyperactive and has "behaviour problems", this was especially the case when he was younger. The doctors and experts thought it would be a great idea to put him on drugs to calm him down and unfortunately they persuaded my parents. My brother however was put into a semi vegetated state, doped up to the eye balls, he barely did anything and he certainly was no longer my brother. The experts then told my parents what an amazing improvement they saw in my brother and how great the treatment was. It was shocking and thankfully my parents insisted against all medical advise to get my brother off these horrid drugs and I soon got my brother back from the world he was wrongfully forced into.
2) When my brother was a bit older my parents stupidly allowed experts to try him on an alternative drug to calm him down which I didn't know about or I would have strongly protested, but I'd moved out to my own flat. These soon put my brother into hospital with severe jaundice and liver failure that almost killed him, luckily he did start recovering after coming of the drugs. I wanted my parents to take the NHS to court for compensation, but against my advice they just accepted an apology, unfortunately they would always take the "easy" option. I strongly disagreed as the NHS never truly paid for this mistake and it wasn't bought to the public attention, because of them not pursuing this it will now most likely happen to others when they prescribe this potentially deadly drug and next time it could kill someone (if it did you can be sure it would be covered up if that was possible). My brother may have still suffered permanently long term liver damage that could possibly affect him in later life, who knows as the doctors that caused it definitely wouldn't tell us if it had.
My parents are now elderly and are still caring for both my extremely low functioning autistic adult brothers. When they pass away my brothers will unfortunately be cared for my the state and then it severely worries me how they will be treated and worse of all what dangerous drugs they will try and force into them in order to "keep them quiet". I will obviously try to ensure this doesn't happen, but I may have a limited say since I am on the autistic spectrum myself.
Antidepressants and antipsychotics are usually given as a cheap "quick fix" instead of providing an adequate amount of real support, they rarely help in the long term, often have nasty side effects, they commonly change the person into something they're not, they're normally addictive both psychologically and also physically, they might appear to help in the short term, but so do many narcotics which often feel great at first, even heroin, crack and meth, but at an extremely high cost and in fact even some street narcotics used to be prescribed as antidepressants when they were also accepted and trusted by the general public. Most of all these drugs make the very powerful pharmaceutical companies $Billions and that's why they continue to push these dangerous drugs while they cover up the adverse issues with their extremely expensive lawyers and money most certainly talks even over the law. Where there is power there is usually corruption, they clearly know these drugs are harmful, but they're making far too much money and have far too much power to care, all they truly care about is not being bought to justice and being able to continue making $Billions even if it's at other people's expense, especially the vulnerable.
Please don't be deceived by doctors telling you that you have "clinical depression", this is almost always total utter rubbish to help convince people to take these drugs and if there was an issue look at taking non drug related supplements instead in careful moderation, refuse to take these harmful drugs. If someone suddenly had some terrible things happen to them in life, E.g. they lost their job and wife, the chemicals in the brain would also show an "unbalance", but this is NOT clinical depression, instead it's a natural way to make the person feel non physical pain as part of a survival instinct to hopefully make the person improve their situation. If you feel depressed look for genuine support rather than a drug that never deals with the true underlying causes and instead just tries to block the bad feeling in the short term which in fact reduces the chances of the person actually ever dealing with the real cause. People feel bad and/or depressed for a reason, it may not always be obvious, but there is nearly always a reason even if it's from the distant past. Even with people on the autistic spectrum there is nearly always reason for depression, for instance the person isn't doing well in life. I also fully understand the anxiety caused by being on the autistic spectrum, but blocking this with harmful drugs is not the solution, instead there's much better ways to learn to control anxiety with the right support.
If you are already taking these drugs please come off them very gradually, since they're usually very addictive you can't normally stop taking them immediately or the adverse effects will be severe. Even the milder forms of antidepressants and/or antipsychotics aren't the best, you may not really notice you're taking them any more, but this is often because the body has now built up a tolerance and you will also often find you are very addicted at this stage too. It may also be because you are so used to the drug that you now don't remember what it is like to be fully conscious which only happens when you are not taking mind altering drugs.
then it was back to alert 
