I've suffered from depression on and off all my adult life. I've tried about a dozen medications, and seen many therapists, with negligible results. The first t

I've suffered from depression on and off all my adult life. I've tried about a dozen medications, and seen many therapists, with negligible results. The first thing that ever helped me was meditation. I found that the proximate factor in most of my depression with negative habits of thought about myself, i.e. rumination. I found it is much, much better not to think at all, than to think negatively. Training myself to stop thinking was the first effective tool I ever had to combat depression. The next thing I have since found that helps a lot is to have some kind of ethos or systematic view of what life is for, that works for you. I don't think it matters too much what it is, but find something that isn't either nihilism or the denial of all systems of thought.