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I relate a lot to this friend Rob talks about, unfortunately. I don't really have any friends, and it is hard for me to connect to others. I've went through depressive periods myself - they were the result of family problems, lack of friends, and a general anger and distrust at the world and humanity as a whole.
In one of my most depressive periods, I talked with someone else online that helped me through it. They never pressured me, they just sat there and listened, and told me that I'm not alone. It helped that I knew this person a little online beforehand. I would never talk to any depression services on the phone or text messaging. I am fairly socially anxious, so I never talk on phones for that reason. I also don't talk in person very well, but over text chatting, I am much better.
I think one of the things that helped was that I knew this person online, but they had no connection to anyone else around me. I felt I could trust them in that they wouldn't end up telling my parents or siblings or anyone else I knew around me about my problems. I love my family, but I don't exactly have the closest connections to them.
I would like to say I know how to help others out of depression having gone through it myself, but I don't. For me, my religious beliefs went through a complicated dynamic that both put me in depression and got me back out of it. I was always slightly religious, or at least interested in religion, but around 2018 is when I started to view the world negatively, having gravitated to both the negatives of gnosticism and to hard determinism, and I ended up hating myself and God. In 2019 I was wrestling with being gay, and this had religious dynamics: self-guilt, hatred of God, thinking that my being sexually harassed when I was very young is what caused me to be like this.
2019 was also the year I started taking more Theology classes at University. I learned to look at the world and religion differently. I was learning about Judaism in my free time, and it had a different outlook on humanity than Christianity did. The religions are very much related, but they are also so very different. High asceticism never made sense after this moment in my life. Humans are physical and spiritual, and the physical affects the spiritual, and vice versa. Humans need love and physical touch and communication. You communicate through the physical. You touch through the physical. You convey your love through the physical. The physical and the spiritual cannot be detached. When you detach them, you enter into high asceticism that causes suffering to the body, or high hedonism that causes suffering to the spirit. This is in fact why Buddhism takes the center approach, between the two. Judaism and Christianity also take a center approach, in most cases.
I tend to think more logically. What saved me is what put me in my depression, but what saved me was not logical, it was mystical, it was "faith" and love. My outlook on religion didn't just change to become more logical, it changed to encompass both the logical and the mystical. In religion you have to learn to be ok with not knowing everything. This doesn't mean not challenging things logically, but it means recognizing the limits of logic, and the limits of empiricism. Logic and empiricism have limits. Love is not logical, ideas are not empirical. I am gay. How does that fit with the rest of the world logically? How can I encompass my sexuality *with* my spirituality? The point of mysticism is that you don't know why, but you know. I know that I am gay, I know that if there was a God, he made me like this, and I know that God loves me the way I am. That has to be enough, because if it isn't, then nothing makes sense.
And my logical side wouldn't have a problem with this, because even if none of the above is true, my believing that it is true is what keeps me alive - it has a function. Religious studies has three views on religion: the functional, the materialist, and the "faith" perspective. You can hold many of these together. The "faith" perspective believes that there is something outside the material world that affects the material world - this doesn't have to mean God, but something in general. It could be a wheel of suffering, for example, or Boddhisattvas. The materialist perspective views religion as created by humans. Usually this perspective views religion as a political tool. The functional perspective is that religion may not be accurate, but it offers a functional purpose to humans. The dynamics between these are interesting - many believers might hold both the faith and the functional perspective. Materialists can hold the functional perspective in that they view religion as both serving a functional purpose to humans, *and* as sometimes being used by politics. In fact, you can say that there is something outside the physical realm, *and* the belief in it offers us something functional, *and* that religion is sometimes used for politics. This is a recognition that reality is complicated and it doesn't hold to binaries or the boundaries of the physical world.
Part of what motivates me to keep moving now is a combination of multiple things: helping the world, and my connection to religion. Both the physical and the spiritual are important. Helping the world fulfils both the physical and the spiritual. I am physically doing something, and I have a purpose. My connection to religion is much more important. It gives me someone to connect with, physically and spiritually. I can talk with God and tell God my problems. God, for me, is like the father I never really had, looking out for me. Prayers can offer a physical component to this, particularly in Judaism. Religious and scriptural studies, and Theology, give me a physical and spiritual purpose. Reading, writing, and studying fulfills my logical side, and it works towards my goals.
I am not saying that this works for everyone, but for me, what got me out of my depression was religion. It gave me purpose, it gave me connection, it gave me a physical and spiritual fulfillment, and it challenged my views on the world, and it still does.