I was always a little freaked out by the idea that taking this sort of thing could turn you into an entirely different person. I'm guessing this is doubly odd for those without some kind of religious basis for the concept of a soul.
Depression and anxiety, even when mild, can be pernicious in their self-preservation. Self-identifying with a symptom, and avoiding a potential cure because "it could turn you into an entirely different person" by removing that symptom, is often the disease talking.
SSRIs don't turn you into a different person. When working properly (i.e., right dose, right med), they simply give you more mental space to deal with and work through problems. Who you become after working through your issues is entirely up to you.
Or is your response the drugs talking? I know at least with my addiction to cigarettes in my teens the dependency had some very persuasive mental arguments that kept me at it.
YMMV of course.
I still have anxiety, it just doesn't take complete control. I'm not a slave to my anxiety anymore, I can push past it if I really want to do something, something that in the past would have had me utterly paralyzed and broken.
It's not even a high dose.
This is a remarkably clever way to dismiss those with whom you disagree - "If you don't, that must be the disease talking." As pointed out by jcoffland, the counterpart could be the drugs talking. There is not necessarily a known psychiatric ground state for a given person, so it's difficult to evaluate what's talking, and you'll probably never get a person free of all possible confounding variables. I'm not saying it's not true in some cases, but there are legitimate concerns and it's not reasonable to toss them out.
> When working properly (i.e., right dose, right med)
This is the no-true-scotsman problem. Theoretically, if you have the _exact_ right dose and the _exact right med_, you'll do better. Problem is that these are very fine-grained meds and it can take years to work through them all and get it exactly right. By that point, you might have changed. Sure, it's possible, but saying, "Oh, if you just had the right dose, it would work better!" isn't a solution. You can't just "get the right dose", even if you move shrinks.
As for dose and med, I was fortunate in that I responded to the first SSRI prescribed (citalopram). Fiddling with the dose is trivial, though. Once you're on top of your condition the doctor will probably take your lead if you suggest going up or down, and in any case your own customised dose is merely a pill cutter away even without your doctor's permission.
[Standard disclaimer that SSRIs are unlikely to solve the underlying problem, but can buy mental scope to address it, etc. etc. They can also be difficult to withdraw from (I'm now on my third go) so it's not like they're a panacea, or in way "happy pills"]
Because the SSRI stops them from being bothered?
Additionally, we make up stories to justify why we feel bad. If you stop feeling bad, the story goes away. Fear about the meaning of self or soul sounds to me like a story justifying the feelings that an SSRI could save someone from.