> is it unreasonable for me to think there's no good medicinal depression cure

There can be, but only for some people and not others. I've seen esketamine make a night & day difference. Sadly, it has horrible side-effects as well, as in someone nearly died from that and had to discontinue the trial.

There's some hope that a particular metabolite of ketamine that works on AMPA may offer relief without the side-effects, but I haven't seen it actually in a medical trial yet and even if it was, I don't know if our doctor would go for it or not, though it allegedly does avoid the psychosis.