I try really hard to not downplay the environmental effects that played into my depression journey when I give advice for this exact reason. You're right, it's not easy to fundamentally change the way you think to such a degree that your hormones change. It's possible though. But it's probably gonna need a disruption in your environment that you may or may not be able to facilitate. I got lucky, and my disruption happened to me so my journey was helped a lot

There's a major push coming to ban depression meds. I had long, drawn-out conversations with people who genuinely think exercise will fix things.

Yeah, for people without clinical depression, maybe.

"I was lucky and my brain chemistry corrected itself, so all you need to do is stop being unlucky and be lucky like me!"

While we're at it, if you can't reach the top shelf, just grow taller. That's what I did.

Maybe a bit of a stretch, but I try my best to interpret things in the best possible way (sometimes to the point of naivety). In a way, I think of it as "choosing to be happy", in the sense that if someone says or does something that could upset me, I try to look for a way to interpret their actions as something that doesn't upset me.

Of course, this doesn't always apply, but I've experienced that it makes life a lot better. A lot of unpleasant things can be attributed to mistakes or misunderstandings, which are a lot easier to not get upset about than people being intentionally mean.

I loved the thanksimcured subreddit because they just mock this kind of thing.

Depression is a recurring thing, it comes back at anytime and it will level you when it does. What people who ever claim to have "defeated" depression or "overcome it" are simply confusing depression with general sadness. General sadness can easily be overcome because it isn't as much of a weight on you as depression is.

But then you say something like that and some asshole comes right up to you saying shit like "now you're just gatekeeping what a mental illness is!".

Fucking Reddit dumbasses are a piece of work.