Unless you have dealt with depression I really don't think you can really grasp the effects it has on the person experiencing it. I've been dealing with depression related symptoms for almost my entire life and I wrote about my experiences with depression in this article. I know that when I was really young the reason I was depressed and had thoughts of suicide for the first time at age 9 was because my father was a very abusive alcoholic. So I attribute most of my depression back then to the situation I was in but as years went on the depression just got worst until I found out in my 20's that I had Hypothyroidism and that can also cause depression. Read my article about The Thyroid and Depression for more information on that subject.
Although getting treatment for my Hypothyroidism has really helped with the depression symptoms, I also have clinical depression and a personality disorder called Schizotypal Personality Disorder. The personality disorder combined with the clinical depression makes it really hard to find an anti-depressant that will work because the personality disorder isn't something that medication can really eliminate.
But since I have tried so many different medicines and know first hand of some of the side effects I had thought of writing an article explaining which ones have the least amount of side effects.
Recently I wrote an article about two of the different medications I have tried, Effexor and Lexapro. It can take years like it did for me to find the right medications or combinations of medications to alleviate the symptoms of depression without having to deal with some of the awful side effects that come with these medications. So I thought I would give people trying to find a good anti-depressant with little to no side effects a heads up.