Yeah you're hitting home with me for sure. I can't offer much advice as to how other people should deal with their depression, but I can say that I think I've really figured out how to deal with my own. Apparently, I just have to start making art or music. Something happens when I sit around for an hour or so and express these inner feelings of decay and isolation and put them on paper. It's like I'm able to isolate these things on a canvas and analyze the mechanics of my thoughts. By doing this I feel I'm understanding some of my emotional states better and by dissecting them I'm able to conquer them. I noticed this after about a year of my favorite meals tasting like shit that spending a good solid hour working on some sort of expressive media would trickle out into other facets of my life for a few hours afterwards.

The sky looked bluer, the grass smelled grassier, and feeling good started to feel better. Eventually my favorite meal started to taste better than I ever remember it. For me personally, it seems, it's not a matter of having social success or living up to society's standards in order to be happy, but living up to my own. It was just a matter of me needing to express myself, to myself, through myself, that allowed me to realize what I was missing. Now my negative obsessions have become positive. Instead of putting all of my eggs in one basket - using quick instant gratification to escape my depression through food, drugs, sex, video games - I have created the foundation for more sustainable Dopamine connections by diving into this realm of expression.

Now a days just listening to my Ipod while going on a walk in the woods can feel like winning the lottery as compared to my more dark states. I know the feelings can and will come back. It's just a matter of you realizing how to deal with them. I know what my weaknesses are now a bit better and I know a few tricks to make me feel strong. At this point, it's just a matter of me forgetting or remembering these truths that will determine whether I sink or swim in the future. That's how real I felt this solution has been. Best of luck to you all of you.