Never. Turns out my issue was undiagnosed ADHD and trauma. Therapy and adderall have done wonders for me. I was trying to treat depression by itself, not as a side effect of another issue.

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.

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

Define 'working' becsuse a lot of strife can come from the differences between what you're expecting it to do and what will actually happen. For me, it just made it easier for me to lift myself out of bed in the morning and that's about where the progress ends. And that's the one I found after years of trying ones that were worse. They're not happy pills, they just let you deal with the horrible shit instead of becoming immobilized by it.

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

Escitalopram took only one day for me. For both anxiety and depression.

Bupropion took 3-4 weeks. For depression.

Trintellix took about 2 weeks. For anxiety.

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.

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

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.

They never worked. For some unlucky people, anti-depressants just straight up don't work. If you're new at it, keep at it, but if it's been a few months it might be time to switch medication. if you've already switched a bunch of times, they might not work for you and your only option is probably therapy

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.

Fluoxetin: ~7 Weeks, 12 full effect.

Seratrelin: pretty much instant (side effects) main effect like never idk

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.

Does alcohol count?

/s

To fully work? About a year. To some improvement, 3 months.

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

Depends on the meds, and they can have a drastically different effect on people.

Duloxetin: days, full effect after about a month (side effects after a year or so)
Sertraline: never worked, in fact made stuff worse
Prefaxine: about three weeks to feel noticeable effect.

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

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

I’ve taken a bunch of anxiety meds. The only one that worked somewhat was Ativan, but I stopped after a few weeks because I was too anxious about taking it regularly and developing a benzo addiction.

Zoloft, it took three days to start working. It had been an absolute gamechanger for my anxiety and I love it. 10/10

About a month for me. I'm taking both. It needs to build up in the system if I understood what the doctor said right.

(Edit: and booze completely kills it, just saying)

Anxiety meds typically a few days to start to notice. Depression meds either had severe negative side effects almost immediately, or positive effects would start showing up after 2 or 3 weeks.

Never worked

I have now been on anti-depressants for almost five decades. In that time, I've used just about everything out there, and transitioned from one to the next. Unfortunately, the honest answer is that how long they take to kick in varies widely based on the specific medication. I'm sure the patient's condition can also change it by quite bit. My average has been around a month to get a useful effect, but my minimum is probably around a week and my maximum more like three months.

A lot of those FDA approved drugs have been proven to do nothing, or far less than therapies.