Depression is very common in USA society, the proof is that Wall-Street has turned it into a multi-billion-dollar industry peddling drugs to millions of people. So you don't have to feel alone. I have had debilitating health problems over the last 60 years that made things very unattractive, but what goes down always goes back up. I have never resorted to seeing a shrink or taking any pharmacology, I always toughed it out, and I think that helped me grow up a little bit. One of the biggest things I discovered was that spending time trying to help others takes your mind off yourself. Every minute you are depressed about yourself, you are thinking about yourself, your losses, your health, your etc.. So if every minute you are thinking of someone else and their well-being, you are not thinking of yourself and it is impossible to be depressed. You can revel in the happiness of others. I just saved a working family $3000 of furnace repairs by discovering their furnace was in the last year of a 20-year warranty, I fixed another person's garage door so it worked much better than before, I got a 91 year-old friends lawnmower running by cleaning the spark-plug then mowed their lawn for them, and today I am going to help some very elderly relatives do some yard work, clean up some large branches that fell off a tree in their yard.

Also life is very short, the older you are the more you realize it. I and everyone I know will be dead very, very quickly, I probably know more dead people than living at this point if I count all my old school-friends and relatives that did not make this far. Life is short and beautiful, even the rainy days, the suffering, the cuts and bruises and tragedies, you will be able to experience none of that very quickly, so enjoy every second of the tragedy. Sometimes I make fun of it. Once I quit eating because of a period of depression and lost a LOT of weight, I got over it but it took a few years. I talked to another person who was going through the same thing and told them "don't worry, in a few years you will begin to feel a little better !" They got a laugh out of that and so did I.

I still get depressed when I think of all the things on my shoulders, but I don't worry about it so much any more because I know it will pass eventually, and it passes more quickly now because I remember to force myself to go help someone else with anything they possibly could need help with. It really helps to just remember to get up and start moving and get lost in what you are doing, anything besides yourself.

Of course I am not a doctor so anything I say only applies to my personal experience, but I know for sure I will never touch any of those things I call "brain drugs" that doctors have asked me to try before, and the reason for that is I have known LOTS of people who have been on anti-depressants and pills for anxiety, and not one of them has ever gotten anything out of it, in fact most of them ended up worse off in some way or dead. The people who did the best were the ones who quit the drugs and just figured out some change to make in their life and thinking, who grew up a bit, and found a way to enjoy life and stick around for it.

Good luck..........