I love your sig line! I think it's great!
Well, I very much understand depression.....that's also the story of my life.
I think whoever said it could be caused by a physical ailment is probably onto something.
There was once a time in my life that I thought my depression was caused by....I don't know.....myself being unwilling to do some mysterious thing, I suppose, so I could just be as cheery as everybody else. Well, years have taught me that that was probably the worst thing I could have thought. I now know it has been caused by a combination of things, mostly outside of my control. However, here is a good saying....
What happens to you is not your fault. It is your responsibility.
Those words I have held onto for many years because they are so true. You cannot help or control that you do not have support in your life. It is not because you are a bad person, a loser, someone who will not just find some support. I suspect it is just downright absent.
So, that's not your fault. But I also suspect there are other things that you can do about the depression. Those nagging feelings about it being your fault are probably your mind's way of saying "Do something about this" and you can't change other people so you feel at the end of your rope and so you get more depressed.
But there is good news! There are people who do not have a lot of support who are not depressed. Why? Because they do not have a physical predisposition toward depression.
I found out that I have a spinal misalignment in my neck and, I kid you not, when it goes out, I get instantly depressed. When it is put back in, voila!, instant relief.
Add to that that I have a system that seems to be run down at all times. I have gotten sick a lot since I was a baby. When I look back I see that my mom was a smoker (my Dad too), I had a low birth weight, I was bottle fed, my tonsils were taken out at age 6 because of constant infection etc.
And then there is the system we live in which does NOT allow sickness so you must feel guilty if you feel sick because you are letting those around you down etc. etc. etc.
Look into your life and if you stopped judging yourself you might find you have real, true and valid reasons for your depression. And you might find some real, true and valid ways to help yourself manage it.
I try to eat healthy, see a chiropractor and take supplements. I do everything I can to manage it. And that is exactly what I do......I manage it. It is always there just to lesser or greater degrees. But the great thing is that the tremendous guilt I carried for being depressed is much less. It is still there, nagging and yelling at me for being such a loser for being depressed but sometimes it is far off, in the distance. Sometimes it gets closer and engulfs me and I know logically it is a liar but emotionally I can't see it.
But living this way is much better than living in that pit where I had no clue which end was up.
And changing your environment is sometimes a very good thing.
I am praying for you.