Hi Kenny,
your post surprised me. I was 2 times in my life really depressed and I would probably be depressed right now if there was not my daughter. At the moment I am on my deepest deep ever. And I had a lot of ups and downs in my life, mostly caused by caging, which every time is destroying almost everything.

First time I was depressed I was in a phase where everything went well except I was working 16 hours a day. Suddenly I didn't open the door anymore, didn't open my letters, mostly invoices and the fucking IRS like institution of the country. I was self-employed in IT administration, so I high necessity of communicate with the customers, but mostly I picked not anymore the phone up. Instead after the second call I logged in remote by the customer and investigated on the servers for problems and solved them mostly. Only when there was no other option anymore after a lot of calls from the same number I picked up the phone with the last ring. I was sitting in front of the phone not able to pick it up (or at least I felt like this). I was 3 months hardly depressed, I started even wasting my time with TV series. Suddenly my life changed: while a customer paid in advance for hardware, while I got the hardware finally unexpected postpaid, the IRS like criminals decided to get all money on my bank account including the money belongs to my customer. Long story short, I customer got delivered the hardware and I couldn't pay anymore because I got robbed by the government. To make it even better and the same government (a judge in this case) decided that I'm guilty of fraud because I had already various records and so I can only be guilty. And because I had various records I could not be punished gently, so I had to get other time caged. Here my rage took me out of depression, I sold everything what was left to leave that fucking country, after shutting down the "legal" business and switching to "illegal" business where I sold holy weed to demanding customers. And fallback into my depression till I decided to move to my source into the alps (mountains) in Switzerland to live with this crazy guy, the cows and growing superb weed. Decided to switch my phone only on Friday between 16:00 and 16:15 on. While observing the cows, listen to nature and breath some fresh air, I was better after 2 weeks and my depression faded away.

Second time I escaped from caging, on the way to Spain, without documents I lost my last cash sleeping in a truck while hitchhiking. Was 2 weeks living on the street and find finally somebody who gave me a call center job and an apartment to live in. It was wintertime, on that island it had 15°C (59°F) but it's very humid and feels so very cold. I made 3000€ working in the call center while the average made 800€/month. So I had other time a little money in my pocket. I got depressed, I was thinking about all what overwhelmed me. On day, I was living 200m from the beach away, I went like everyday to the beach sat with my back against a palm watching the ocean thinking. Suddenly I thought: "you fucking stupid asshole, the sun is shining, sitting against a palm, feet in the sand, money in the pocket to start over again while you had still to be in the fucking gray cell for 1 year more, and you are depressive? Really?". And I started to laugh, I smiled and I decided live is to show to be depressive, so I'm not anymore depressive. There was when I started to run again every day between 5-10km (of course along the beach). For me the ocean is one of the biggest power sources.

Today I'm so exhausted, live in a place that I nowadays dislike, 8 years back it was almost anarchists heaven and today it is a nightmare (can not even write more about it while I'm stuck here). I feel how depression is calling me on the other side, but I can't afford it because of my daughter, so I decide to not become depressive.

And here is the point, maybe it's only in my crazy head like that, but I'm convinced that with depression it's the same like with "drugs". If you are depressed or addicted is only a decision, not more not less. I think depression is that the brain wants a big nap, because it feels tired.

Really, I have no idea if this is only in my crazy thoughts like that or it can help maybe somebody else. I think nobody can get somebody out of depression, only the person itself can decide to cancel depression, and I see similarity to "addiction" in it.

Only thin what I can think of what really would help is going to the beach, alone, best where nobody is around disturbing your thoughts or at least they let you alone there and sitting in the sun and let the thoughts flow. After a while think about the worst alternative of your life at that very moment and decide to enjoy life now, because life is short. No time to waste with unpleasant things while there are so nice things like sun, ocean, beach.....

Maybe you overload your mind with optimizing your live too much? And the fucking system sucks also downward with the shit to swallow every day if someone is not blind, death and dump. I wish you the power to get out of it!