These days I don't feel depressed that often (26m). Depression is not a huge deal and I will not fetishize it, it's nothing special. I used to believe depression was a disease, but it's not, it's just a natural reation of your organism to your life being wasted. It might sound idiotic, but depression is a gift, a wake-up call, for many people, perhaps, an organic part of growing up.

I posted on this r/ a week ago, saying that I fantasize about dying because of mental pressure. I actually feel stupid now for posting it on r/depression, because it has nothing to do with depression, it's just that - mental pressure, because I was doing something I was scared of. It seems that people readily label anything negative in their lives as depression in a futile attempt to fight chaos around them. Why fight it? It's inevitable, might as well come to grips with it.

Yes, your brain will try to kill you if you try do something that it considers to be dangerous, so what? If it considers your whole life dangerous, it will fight you at every step, brain can malfunction, too. So what? It's hardwired to do it, depression doesn't make you special. It's not likely that this conclusion will help many people around here, but surprisingly it helped me.

When I think about my teenage years when I was seriously obsessed with diagnosing myself with mental illnesses, it was quite silly and immature. The real improvement came only when I started to distance myself from "bipolar borderline depressive disorder" or whatever people struggle with these days. You may take it as a personal attack, which is your sacred right, but please consider the following (I'm talking from my personal experience): you have no chance of getting rid of depression if you treat it like it's a part of your personality. 

I have a colleague who cannot stop talking about how depressed she is, how suicidal she was recently and she is on anti-depressants and has been for ten years. And I'm almost sure she will be for the rest of her life, because - it's funny and obvious - she considers it a special part of herself, something that makes her different, original. It's painful for me to watch her, because I was in her shoes and it was extremely foolish of me. I wasted so much time and energy pitying myself and making up excuses. I still occasionally do it, but luckily am able to stop myself before it's too late. 

It's not too late for you either. Just know that depression is quite normal, but not important or necessary.