The last thing I did, which I should have did from the beginning, was to stop laying all the blame at my own door for every single thing that was going wrong and to realize that ASD leads to misunderstanding and miscommunication between me and others, so that was a large part of it, and not something "wrong" with me, for which I need to take all the blame completely. Also, I had to stop feeling ashamed about who I am. Once these shifts in mindset occurred, the depression began fading. But, I also have to admit, The Lord had a major role in healing me. I told Him I don't want medication, and He must have agreed, because it started healing without meds. The major thing for me was letting go of a traumatic experience, which was impossible for me to do on my own because I was trapped inside of it. So for me, He was the one who "handled" it. Different people will have different external sources of help for problems you cannot deal with on your own. Usually this is why depression will stay, it can morph to a thing outside your control, or is triggered by something over which you have little control.

What I mean by all of this is, there is something at the core of it all that needs external help to solve. Then there are small things combining daily to keep the depression going, in the same way any bad habit/addiction keeps going. Those things you have to break down one by one, most common being negative thoughts about yourself, guilt about something, etc. They are like the cigarettes that keeps a nicotine addiction going, or the coffee that keeps the caffeine addiction going. The core thing is the actual thing that started the addiction, the little daily things are keeping it going. These will need different degrees of self and external help, and is different for each person. Each of us needs to find what works for us.