When I was an arrogant asshole teenager I had made up my mind that I was too smart for counseling to help me and I needed antidepressants to fix the issue. I received both and just told the counselor things he wanted to hear me say until I could be on my own. I make no claim that the meds do not have real, meaningful benefits to many people, but in my case I feel like they were marketed to me.

I am still on bupropion, but I strongly suspect the difficulty in stopping it is withdrawal symptoms. I decided many years ago that I'll have a serious discussion with psychiatry about going off it once I have some sort of stability in my life, but thinking that might come anytime soon was pretty naïve.

Counseling was what really helped me, once I matured enough to be open to the idea. In particular, the benefit came from just being forced to articulate my thoughts and argue vehemently against whatever piece of advice I am given and then accept that it actually is good advice a couple days later once it has finally sunk in. This is still how therapy works for me, I have not matured one iota.

To answer your question, what recovery feels like is walking out of a therapy session and realizing that the past few months you've mostly been spending these sessions shooting the shit and unloading random thoughts and emotions that are not explicitly sad. In my opinion it is worth continuing to go (although maybe with reduced frequency) because depression can return just as silently, and having regular sessions helps maintain stability.