I'm glad this tread came up because lately the doctors have been throwing me SSRIs like crazy. But looking back on the whole thing, I think I was pretty damn happy when I was on Suboxone.
Like I was living in a halfway house in the ghetto with 23 other guys, riding the bus to get around and having all the responsibilities/restrictions of being in a halfway house and was perfectly happy with it.
Even when I was bummed out, I took it in stride and moved on. In my experience suboxone was an amazing antidepressant. I've been thinking of contacting my old doctor and just lying about using or having cravings just so I could get scripted suboxone again.
But the odds are slim that you'll get scripted it for depression. A doctor might if you knew them well and have worked with them before. Like in my situation, I could probably be completely honest with my doctor and tell her I just want it because it helped me get through my day, she'd probably write it for me.
i'd take suboxone before i'd take any SSRI
edit: from wiki "A clinical trial conducted at Harvard Medical School in the mid-1990s demonstrated that a majority of unipolar
non-psychotic patients with major depression refractory to conventional thymoleptic antidepressants could be successfully treated
with buprenorphine.[7] See opioids for other (predominantly favorable) experiments with buprenorphine and other opioids for
psychological relief. However, psychological distress is currently not an approved indication for the use of any opioid, and legally it
falls in a "grey zone" that is technically legal but a doctor could still face charges regardless (but not for off-label scripting in itself,
simply being singled out by the DEA, who prosecute doctors often for using controlled substances for approved uses ("too much").
[1][2] The doctor still needs the proper DEA licensing under the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 to prescribe Subutex or
Suboxone for opioid addiction/dependence."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buprenorphine