Depression, sounds like many things..

The thing you hear the first, is the words..
as you listen, you hear pain..
then you feel it.

So we hear it on our primordial levels..
starting with Phase;

1. Spiritualy (results= the deeper feeling, that we are alone and empty, like we have a big gaping hole in our core)

2. Mentally (results = the endless stream of painful memories, thoughts, images, or replays of events, in vivid details. Here is where the perceptions, start to get colored and distored. A breakdown occurs with the person having the inability to maintain cognative reality skills. Where reality and fantasy blurr.)

3. Emotionally (results=the feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, hopelessness, restlessness and finally despair. here is where we feel the pain, of the thoughts and perceptions that are from the mental breakdown)

4. Physically (Last result= the actions, behaviors that are choosen, to faciliatate the continuing cycle).

What most people do, is keep doing the same things, expecting to feel different. Or hoping for different outcomes. The cycle starts to get stuck betweens phases 2, 3 4. Resulting into a deeper spiritual seperation between self and others, reality and fantisy and as the cycle perpetuates, causes the wounds to go deeper and deeper and deeper..

Generally, most folks, don't have the training to look deeper into themselve's to see that what they are treating is a surface symptom of a far deeper issue.
What we see, when a person seeks help, is the last phase of the situation. Physical.

Everyone on this green earth, will feel and go thru depressed times. From my experience and that of others. I have found that there is a unconscious level of pain towards an unresolved issue, that's going on inside the person suffering with depression that is coming to surface. Frustration, anger, un realized expectations,

Generally, if that person can resolve and start healing, with the support of somekind of person (s), who are capable of facilatiting the inner work required, the depression will start to lift, and most people can work thru it. For some, it feels like it's never going to end, or it takes months for swing out, if ever. That's when medical intervention, is called for.

What most people get "stuck" in is the wollowing in self-pity, helplessness, and hoplessness, because they are depresses about being depressed. Ego, and Arrogance start to play in the mix. They think they can handle it, they can fix it, or bandaid it up, with chemicals, Drama, etc.

Hope this helps..