3 A.M.

Throughout my life I have suffered from what you might call depression. At one point, my suffering was bad enough for me to even think about killing myself. But I don't believe depression is an illness. There isn't a depression virus. And I don't believe there is a depression gene. Though if you told me depression was genetic, I'd be likely to believe that it can be socialised into you as a habit learned from your family members.
Truthfully, what's it made of?
Thought, is the answer,
My approach has been that, if my mind has made the depressive thoughts, my mind can unmake them. Therefore, throwing away the suggested medication, I have taught myself habits of mind - thought processes - to deal with the harmful, depressive thoughts which sometimes come into my mind. I have a whole range of counter thoughts at my disposal, but here's one - one I used recently - last night, in fact.
I awake in the middle of the night. My brain is quite full of depressive thoughts, mainly centering on how useless I am, what a failure, how pathetic, what a waste of space, etcetera. I look at the alarm clock. It is invariably 3 a.m. That seems to be the phase of sleep when these thoughts arrive.
"Oh," I say to myself, "3 a.m. Must be." Then I check the clock. As I say, invariably it is. I then link in my mind the thoughts with that time, knowing they will pass as time passes.
"These are 3 a.m. thoughts." That is comforting. Even though the thoughts may want to persist, the fact of their association with a particular time places them in an impermanent context. The dangerous bit of depression, the one that led me towards suicidal thoughts, is the thought that these torrturing thoughts will never leave. And that, of course, is a fallacy.
What if it isn't 3 a.m.?
Then I simply look at the clock and think "Oh, you're early today," or "oh, you're late today." Last night it was 0440. They were late.
In either case, the important aspect of this way of dealing with unhelpful thoughts is to get outside them and see them for what they are: thoughts which come; thoughts which will go.
Then they stay where they need to be - thoughts - unpleasant certainly, but no more than that.
I write this rather personal post with the sincere aim of helping anyone who reads this and suffers the torture of their own thoughts. I have developed many more ways of dealing with them. If you want to know more, feel free to contact me.