Speak-volumes said:
I'm totally with both of these comments. I believe overcoming depression alone with pure willpower is simply impossible. I mean who wants to be depressed? If it was about willpower, there wouldn't be depressed people.
Unfortunately that's usually what people who are not depressed tell you to do. To just pull yourself together and decide to get better. Get yourself a hobby and find stuff that make you happy without realizing that when you're depressed pretty much nothing truly makes you happy. I know that from my own experience. So I definitely recommend you to try to find a professional to talk to, if it's in any way possible.
Maybe there are different 'kinds' of depression.
I most certainly have some sort of depression and it's certainly difficult (or impossible) to just "pull myself out" of it, but finding hobbies and stuff that 'makes me happy' does help. Doing the things themselves doesn't actually make me happy, but that's not the point. If it doesn't make me feel better at that time it does seem to shorten the period of time that I feel depressed, or at least alleviate some of the symptoms. Often that doesn't even seem to happen until the next day or so, or maybe it takes a whole week of doing that to see any effect, but I can certainly connect the cause and effect together with certainty. It does help. It's just not a magical pill that helps in 10 minutes, though, like most people want these days. You've got to give it time.
The real problem is that when you're deep into depression you just don't feel like doing anything like that. You don't want to do anything at all. Everything is hopeless. Nothing has value.
But I do know that if you TRY to think clearly for a moment and PUSH yourself to do things anyway, then it does seem to help. I don't really know how to explain how to do that, but I think part of it is recognizing when you're depressed and realizing that you don't have to feel trapped and that you can still control your body, if nothing else. And, from my experience, it can even become a 'good habit' where you face depression and you don't have to push yourself so hard to do those things, you just naturally do them because you feel so tired, lonely, frustrated, etc. It eventually becomes a natural response to those feelings.
So don't dismiss it entirely. Some people might say that not truly understanding depression, but I think the advice is still good either way. Even fools are sometimes right, after all.
Maybe it doesn't work for everyone, but don't tell that to someone who's depressed or they'll probably take it the wrong way.
I know I would.