Telling myself: "There will be better days ahead". Repeating that motto in the darkest moments helped a bit. Reading the stories of people who experienced depression but pulled through. And lastly, keeping busy. It's not ideal, but doing anything that requires focus kept me from introspecting. And that ended badly generally.

I'm not sure if I was clinically depressed or not. But I definitely went through a couple months where I wasn't feeling myself. My GF moved in with me this year and I thought it was just me adjusting with a new "roommate".

I eventually realized it was the house. It was a mess and that was what making me feel depressed because it was hard to talk to someone about being a slob if you loved them.

So I guess maybe think hard about things that have changed and when you were happy and see what you can do to change them?

I know it's probably not great advice but it's free and it worked for me

sing. doesn't matter what you sing or how well.

Walks, lots and lots of long walks. Sometimes 3 or more per day. I take my dog with me and he loves it. Seeing his smile while walking brings me a lot of joy.

Does it cute my depression? No

Does it help? Absolutely

Other than that, as many projects/ crafts as i can do. I make myself start painting even when I don't want to. Before I know it 30 minutes has passed and im balls deep in painting. Again, does it help yes, cure ? No

Prescription drugs. Schedule an appointment with the doctor and they will have you fill out a couple questionnaires and discuss options. Medication is free with most insurance

Running shirtless at -3 ℃
“On curing sadness with cold showers, excess with Cynicism, and madness with veganism. And if you can't go vegan, eat the rich.” —https://arscyni.cc/file/cynic.html

I hear you. Not just in money but in time as well. Its very different when your situation is the cause of depression as loosing what little freetime and money you have to try and treat it is just adding fuel to the fire. Meditation. Buddhism as a philosophy, trying to get away from modern corp bs. Its easy to say and harder to do but there is a mindset. You want cheap and easy food treats and media so its easy to say hey its worth getting pick up food or paying for a streaming service. If you can realize how much nicer a clean environment is and how enjoyable it can be to make a nice meal from simple ingredients. Walks, preferably in nature, are great. If you get to a certain point you will despise the smartphone, the fast food, the monthly non necessities. OMG take a hot long bath if you have a tub. Embrace what you can.

Reading internal family systems by Richard Schwartz, watching videos by sadhguru, taking time to try to follow the threads of “intrusive thoughts,” by trying to sit in them while focusing on my breath and trying really hard not to think in words, trying to listen to myself rather than talk to myself in my head.

I do also see a therapist, and he helps talk through things that paralyze me from making decisions.

• Go on a run a couple times a week. I honestly hate running, but I always feel loads better after going on a run. Just start with 6 stints of 30 seconds with a 2 minute break in between and build up from there. It might not be a long term solution, but will definitely help get you through some tough days.

• Online there are also lots of free resources available. There are a lot of chatrooms and phone numbers available for people that are struggling. Even if your particular country doesn’t offer any, you can always just chat/call with foreign resources.

• Try mindfulness. At first it might take a couple tries to find what works for you, but there are many apps and videos online that all have a different approach. I personally use the Balance app for the free year they offer and found that 3 or 4 of their mindfulness exercises really help me out every time I feel depressed or anxious etc.

Drugs. Lots of drugs

• LLMs make decent therapists. Try CharacterAI or even just assign a therapist persona to ChatGPT (makes it more accurate - e.g. "You are an experienced psychologist with experience in the following therapies..."). This is both solo and affordable.
• Look into books you can read about managing your mental health.
• There are loads of apps out there that can help you with your depression, e.g. supplement your flagging executive function, remind you to practice rejection of useless self-castigation, help you check in with how you're feeling, etc.
• Go outside at least once a day.
• Exercise at least once a day for half an hour.
• Set small and manageable goals, and make sure you speak to yourself positively when you achieve the goal, no matter how small.

These are all admittedly easier said than done when you're depressed, but they are better than nothing, especially if you weren't doing anything in these areas earlier.

It's hard but doable.

There are couple of things that can synergize with each other, so you don't need to do one thing perfectly, you can make some progress in one and move one to the next one.

step zero: (eat sleep exercise)

eating well will help you sleep and exercising sleeping will help you exercising and eating at regular interwals exercising will help you sleep and burning the food

step one: (become hobbist psychologist)

Read some books: "What happened to you by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey" - you can download ebooks from piracy sites

Youtube lectures: "heathy gamer gg" was particulary helpful for me but it has some (IMO) minor controversies and innacuracies. Still VERY helpful to get started.

Seek profesional doctors as the likes of Andrew Tate are also targeting depressed men (all people on the internet are men until proven otherwise)

step two: (emotional awerness)

Develop emotional inteligence. There are couple of techniques there that you will discover in step one That will help you train your inteligence.

Journaling, meditation, etc. are some of them

step three: (discover life and who you are)

this will come naturally after step two. You will need to seek new experiences.

step four: (build life worth living and build your purpose)

[I am at this stage so I can't really help you much, but everything that I have learned is helping me immensely]

i like to read philosophy. buddhist, islamic, hindu, european. doesnt matter. you can find stories of people going through the worst shit imaginable and finding peace. gives me hope

Oh.

Slowly and inefficiently, I should say.

I've basically missed the last 20 years of my life.

(And I have "professional help.")

Maybe see if there are help groups like the ones for alcoholics. I'm sure they also exist for depressed people, or people who procrastinate. Generally they're lead by volunteers and people who suffered through it themselves and not professionals who need to be paid...

Some of the things that helped me:

• Regularity. I also have ADHD so actually getting me to catalog daily/weekly things that I need to do was hard enough. But now that I have like 5 todo lists things are looking up.
• Cataloging things. I love photography and writing down interesting ideas. Someone looking through my photo collection might wonder why I take photos of random shit. Simple reason: Something managed to brighten my day and I just had to put it in on the record. I feel happier when I know that those moments won't ever disappear if I can at all manage it. Similarly, if I have cool ideas that made me happy for some reason, I write them down.
• Crap social media is the worst. Be on the social media to fearlessly shout your cool ideas to the void if you have to. Don't be there to passively and silently afraid to speak up and stick around with people you barely know and watch them slowly turn nazi yes-men. (Yes. It has happened. Before Elon bought Twitter. Can't even imagine how shit things are nowdays over there.)

I don't have depression. Journaling help, saying stuff out loud helps. Seems that antidepressants work. There might be other factors that contribute to the depression and can be minimised to help take the weight off.

Ultimately, you don't battle it alone. You are here. You read this. This is you not being alone. And just like this little exchange, there are other possibilities out there. You just have to try and reach out. Even if it seems hopeless to you. I read a lot of useful stuff in here. Sometimes that alone helps. Sometimes the tiniest steps are valuable. Just keep on. We can overcome.

Thats a great question, I should know considering ive been depressed for years. I mostly focus on the near future so I can make it through the constant traumatic events in my life.

Read "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. Helped me through a hard time in my life.