Your story point to that, but also to Patient compliance, which is a serious issue, not just with CNS disorder, but with everything. There is a stigma associated with needing to take medication, and building a habit is typically tough. It’s less of a problem with pediatric cases, which is why we see more long term compliance and more long term benefits when kids with depression are referred quickly to psychiatrist and therapist.
The scientific literature on SSRI support that they are more efficient and have less side effects.
CNS disorders are a real thing, not just something you can snap out of it. It’s a chemical imbalance that can have profound and lasting effects to the brain.
Saying that scientists know most of the causes, is pure bs. I am one of those and I can assure you that we know next to nothing.
A few years ago I caught a reference to a book originally published in 1956 and updated in the 1970's. My local state university's science library has a copy. It talked about the biochemistry of the organisms' response to stress, and the stress response's role in many "mental" conditions. Selye was the author iirc.
A few years ago some researchers figured out that psychotic patients don't make enough cortisol in the morning [0], as Selye's book might've indicated decades earlier.
20 years ago some scientists figured out the SSRIs help some people by influencing the neurosteroids [1].
The tragedy of our approach to mental health is that many/most patients deteriorate due to the FDA-approved palliative drug cocktails their doctors think are appropriate, instead of getting physiologic interventions. The widespread use of anti-dopamine drugs ("anti-psychotics") is a crime against science.
[0] https://psychcentral.com/news/2016/06/04/low-morning-cortiso...
[1] https://www.ucsf.edu/news/1999/11/5059/scientists-identify-n...
Stress/cortisol adversely affects young people's thinking ability: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ldquo-stress-horm...
study on the HPA and psychiatric conditions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3707958/