I battled with a short bout of depression as a teenager. I'm not saying I'm a doctor, or what I did was right, but this is what I did to help.
- I was never alone. If I was by myself, or not talking to people, interacting.. anything really. My 'alone' time was the worst. I just sat there, and thought about --nothing really. I did nothing, said nothing, thought nothing. I was a blank slate or just.. sad, raw apathy. So, I filled my day. I talked to people--not even about myself or my depression, I didn't really make anything about me. But focusing on other people, helping them, talking to them, I ended up discovering things about myself in the process. I didn't want anyone to know I was depressed, so I didn't really act like it on the outside, but I found that being alone wasn't really a good thing for me.
- When I was alone, I did productive things. Depression tended to make me not really..care. About myself. Or anything, really. Showers? Meh... Later. Laundry? .. eh.. My favorite food?.. ..Hmm... meh. I made sure, everyday like clockwork, that I didn't over sleep, that I got up, and got dressed in fresh clothes everyday, and that I conducted personal hygiene and ate three meals a day. Really, this was the part I struggled with the most. I didn't WANT to.. I didn't care about it. I was doing things I didn't care about at all. Who cares if my clothes smell? I only wore them once before. Those things had to become my priorities though.. petty, stupid priorities to others maybe, but at the time they were my biggest obstacle. Oversleeping was probably the most difficult. The next: brushing my hair.
Getting active probably helped a ton, looking back on it. My decision to join the army made me have to work out--I started to actually try during physical education classes, and forced myself to sign up for it the next year even though I didn't need it. I had to do something I was forced to go to otherwise I would never have had the motivation for it. I could hardly dress myself, motivating myself to work out wasn't going to happen. PE really did the trick. Something about getting stronger physically, and showing signs of improvement, and doing things you didn't know you could do before (at the time I couldn't even think of running 2 miles.. when I did it finally, I could hardly believe it. I actually yelled out in joy--a moment I remember to this day because it struck me how long it had been since I had been overwhelm with any sort of emotion.) just really puts the ball in the right court.
I don't really know and I cannot pinpoint the moment I shook depression off of my shoulders. Looking back on it, I'd say when I turned 18, graduated high school, and started to really get moving as an adult.. but it didn't go away one day, the way you wake up one day and notice that you're thinner from your diet efforts over the past few weeks. It was a very slow, methodical process of just baby stepping things one day at a time.