I take two different SSRIs. They are what keep me from driving over a cliff. Doc says I'm chronic. I have tried just about them all over the past 13 years or so, and I think I have a good combo now. I've tried to wean off, only finding I am back where I started. It's chemical. I could have benefited from help as far back as college.
It isn't less of 'me' it's just less of the destructive depressed side of me. I'm still the silly person, the introspective person, the deep person, the inquisitive person, the thoughtful person...I just don't feel the need to go play on the highway anymore.
Blue moods are normal; real depression is not. To know that you can choose to cope without meds means you are not truly clinically depressed. The truly depressed have absolutely no control over the matter. You can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps. You can't take weeks of work off at a time because you can't get out of bed. SSRIs are quite simple in the way they work, really, and it makes sense.
I'm still me. No question.