Icky, I wonder if a yoga class might be a good thing for you to try. You can learn meditations that will work for you. It's important that your affirmations are believable for you. Yoga meditations start with following and paying attention to the breath. I could do that without arguing it, and I bet you can too. I hadn't realized a connection until recently (I've been reading a book - Yoga for Depression, by Amy Weintraub), but I started doing yoga about the time that I stopped being so depressed too, and have not gotten so bad since. You might want to try taking a class or getting a video or something.

Rap