Five things you should know about depression that might make a difference for you.

1.  Depression is treatable.  Counseling helps.  Medications help clinical depression.  There are lots of things you can do to improve your depression on your own, like exercise and improving your diet.
2.  The sooner you get treatment for depression the faster and more fully you will recover.  If your sadness lasts for over two weeks make that call to a counselor.
3. Antidepressants aren’t always the answer.  If you have clinical depression this is the road to go. Unfortunately there is no test to tell if your depression is clinical or situational. It has been known to help people through some rough times.  But the truth is if your depression is caused by a situation that you are dealing with it isn’t going to do much long term.  Meditations don’t get you a new job, or get you out of a bad relationship.
4. The sadness you are experiencing may not be depression.  Grief and adjusting to situations in your life can cause sadness.  Most mental health professional can help you sort this out.
5. Everyone who struggles with depression has trouble motivating themselves to do what needs to be done to help themselves.  This is a major part of the problem and beating yourself up about it doesn’t help.