I was personally lucky with medications (fluoxetine and bupropion). They helped me with low energy and improved my mood a bit, like I can access positive emotions at least sometimes. Still they are not enough, but it's definitely better than without them. I got no major unpleasant side effects - after fluoxetine I started having very vivid dreams, but it doesn't bother me personally. Bupropion made me a bit more restless, but again, for me it's not a big issue - but it could be for someone else.
Reactions to meds are very individual, but generally it's good to research the "statistical" outcomes for each medication you plan to start. It's good to know the basic mechanism, what a specific substance can help with, what can it worsen etc.
I probably saved myself some unpleasant experiences by researching what my first psychiatrist prescribed me, I was given a mood stabilizer (lamotrigine) for classic non-bipolar depression. As the first-line medication so like, what the fuck. It would probably either not help me at all or make me worse, because I have the apathetic/no emotions kind of depression, no extreme emotions really.
Also, anecdotal evidence but: my friend took olanzapine for 2 months and it gave them terrible brain fog, basically they started loosing the ability to think and learn things. It went away after stopping olanzapine, though. It also caused them to gain weight very rapidly. Seems like many people have some not great experiences with it.
