Why is medication not an option as far as you are concerned? I ask this because of course I was very much like you, suffering through depression and trying my hardest to pull myself out of it on my own. But after a few years of painful suffering I’ve come to realize that it’s simply something I can’t do at this time without medication, and this doesn’t mean I’m weak or anything, it’s simply that we cannot influence our brain chemistry as much as the contents of a pill can. So I urge you to not discredit all medication out of the box, because from my personal experience pulling yourself out of depression without any type of help is pretty much very hard if not impossible to do. And I don’t intend on being on medication for a long time at all, just long enough for me to solve these core issues of why I am depressed and take steps to remedy them. If you won’t try medicine, you need to talk to a therapist. Talking to no one will get you nowhere, I promise you, and you don’t want to burden your friends so it’s time to get some serious help here. In only one session with my therapist we had identified many new things that I had not thought about beforehand. It was a complete eye opening experience.