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Julie, I know from personal experience how you feel.

(1) Have you just recently decided to accept God's offer of a new life in following Jesus? If so, this might be significant.

My worst period of depression ever was about four months after I made that life-saving commitment. My Scripture-prompted spiritual conviction of having an unsatisfactory lifestyle and having done a lot of things unacceptable to my new Friend, Jesus, put me in a bad position. I knew I had to leave those things. I had no idea of what else to do, going forward. It was easy to say "born again" but a little harder to deal with this wrench in habits and old lusts of all kinds of things. That flattened me. Some friends took me out of my harrowing life and residence, and harbored me for about a month, giving me a rest, feeding me, and gave me relief from where I was living, After a month, close moments with my Heavenly Father through His Word strengthened me enough to go back and fight for myself

(2) See your doctor for a physical checkup and explain your disappointments and depression, but my suggestion is that you not accept antidepressant prescriptions from a general practitioner nor an internist: accept them only in the gravest extreme, but from a qualified practical psychiatrist known principally for dealing with behaviors and who knows what he is doing. (You are not likely to find a therapist who is both a psychiatrist and a Biblical Christian, so don't ask for spiritual advice.) I wouldn't take them more than about 6 weeks, because after that you will need more to bring the same relief, then more and more until you are so hooked on them you will feel that your depression, before you took these drugs, was your happiest time in life. Your depression--doctored with rest, regular diet, exercise, and memorizing/meditating on Scripture--will greatly diminish in a few weeks. Give that a chance, first. Be sure to face and recognize that if you are entering a new life with Christ, you must experience a withdrawal from your customary mindset, habits, and urges that will take you down, giving your Enemy, Satan, a chance to attack you strongly at your weakest point in the new life. Don't go that way! No no no heroin or other avoid/escape ploys -- except:

(3) Chocolate! Much of your happiness comes when things become enjoyable (and possibly even euphoric) when your deeply believed thoughts and expectations begin to cause your body to manufacture phenylethanolamine that acts in your brain, that burst of superior joy in your mind and heart when you "fall in love" with someone. When/if that love object fails to meet your projected but unrealistic expectations, depression sets in.

Some have discovered that eating chocolates will start to buoy oneself up enough to face the next day. This is true, and it truly works because when you expectations failed, your brain causes your body to cut back the phenylethanolamine sharply, with bitter sadness the outcome! Chocolate then is helpful in that it contains PEA to raise your depression (though not raising your previous foolish expectations), and you begin to realize that you can survive. Moreover, the darker the chocolate (and the more bitter it is without so many additives) the higher the concentration of PEA it has; thus the sooner and the more your brain will begin to convince you that you feel better.

Try it! gobble about half a bar of Hershey's Dark Chocolate, set your alarm for about two hours later, and then go about dusting furniture, or focusing on weeding the flowerbed, or listening to some spiritual songs, getting your mind off your depression. Later on, when the alarm reminds you, take a brief inventory to see how you feel. Didn't that work to raise the gloom enough to sense it? BTW, once I worked out that one ounce of Baker's baking cocoa (very bitter, no sugar)(28.3 grams) contains about 1,000 milligrams (1 gram, about 3.5%) of phenylethanolamine. (My approach is a recommendation of a friend, not a medical doctor, but this suggestion that worked fro me is only to engage in an enjoyable chocolate binge perhaps, not a prescription for happiness.) The idea, though, is to help prime the internal happy pump until it can take over for itself. No withdrawal symptoms. But I do have a large button picturing a sad-looking elephant, with the words, "If wearer is found depressed, administer chocolate." Nice, hunh?

(4) You have no charter to get love, only to give it. Find a pet, or better yet another person who really could use your care and comforting, and give yourself permission to leave your tasks once in a while to help them--especially if you are feeling down. That will please you, and the Lord, and make it seem that living through that day was a plus!

This is enough for a while, Julie. There are some other really good strategies here also--give them a chance, too. But there are a couple that are not so good. Think over carefully not to embrace things that eventually will displease you and the Lord, eh?

Please, please look over Psalm 128, esp. verses 1 and 2, and count them as an absolute promise. Ciao!