When I am depressed it is usually then when I become at my highest, incredibly self-aware of myself, how I fit in a situation, how my environment is affecting me and a lot of other indicaters. Being depressed for me is just my body's way of saying something is going on, my barometer is peaking, analyze the events going on right now. Reflect over your relationships, reflect, reflect, reflect.
Depression always ends with a revelatory upswing and it is usually because I have found the key and I in a sense die to old habits once I lift out of depression. Depression needs to be understood at the root, then you will find the flower and it's fruit.
Remember to eat good and sleep. Meditation has helped me and being conscious of my habits as I do them. These are very important if not the most important to your happiness as they help you diagnose yourself. Which is completely contrary to what I actually carry out. ( I smoke cigarettes for example ) It's so easy for me not to sleep ( always reading something or some other thing online ) and also very easy for me not to take care of my bodily needs. I just forget about myself.
Take time to dwell on yourself. I always get out of my depression when I self-reflect and then project that understanding outwards in some material, physical, or conversational way. What I am doing now is very, very therapeutic for me. You need to share your life and insights, otherwise you become like a sponge unable to draw in more life and you become your own poison and very much mired. Writing is a very useful tool, even if you write to yourself. You are your own shrink, any other I have had only seems like a consolation prize. There's not much weight as much as I can convey and impart to me, myself, just by listening to my own body and mind instinctively.
As my friend Niko told me, an NT I am sure of it. Being emotional can be a good thing. And let me add in, 'If you know how to use it.' And honestly it gets even the best of us who know how to respond to it assertively. It's very subtle sometimes your not even aware until it hits you like a sack of bricks. Uncanny yeah. I've debated and abated the mere fact that my existence seems trivial and small in the scope of the world but somehow that makes me sane. Yes this life is fleeting, yes it is downright cynical and at times discouraging, depressing, all the suffering you feel intrinsically in your being and I see no use in preserving it or want to completely lock down. Do I fear the end of the world, no. I fear not having connected emotionally with enough people. And in this world I have found the memories I make with these connections are always my highest joy.
All my achievements, my schooling, my artwork, pondering a life 'career' I have made at first I thought they were mere prestige, illusions, entanglements to keep me busy and indifferent, pretentious, safe and secure, dying. But I have come to realize they are in fact links and chains, a myriad of ribbons I wrap around myself so that I can connect with and relate with as many people and opportunities to help more and more people and to connect with them ever more emotionally to find the root of for myself, what truly is it about humanity that drives me to such ends. What is it all really?
Depression is your personal life tutor if you know how to listen. And listening is the highest generosity at times you can give, as I am sure you know. However you forget to give generously most of all to yourself.