The key to managing depression yourself is actually full will power, I've found.

Also I've found that hitting a bottome really does motivate you to not go back to that point. My bottom was not being able to buy diapers for my middle son. He was a baby and we were on food stamps. I was in school and no job. No one would buy even one small package of diapers for us. I walked to every homeless shelter near my house on Labor Day of 2007, carrying him in his carseat which was very heavy (I didn't have a stroller, and he was 1 year old.) Not a single one had diapers. I sat down on the curb and I cried. Later that day my dad called me to tell me what a wonderful Labor Day BBQ him and my step-mother shared at my step-brother's house, it was infuriating. I said never again will I let my family suffer like this. A few weeks later I got the job that pulled us out of extreme poverty and I haven't given up since.