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I was a Police Constable and found a lot of pressure in the work we did. I was also bullied by two senior Officers and I let this get to me as well. One day, I was to attend a meeting at our headquarters when a friend of mine said something not very nice about why I was going to a "union" meeting. This was the straw that broke the camel's back and I found that I was unable to drive a marked police vehicle. Those who know me will realize how ill I was because I drove to H.Q. in my own car and never claimed mileage! I just could not face police duties the following day and went to my doctor in tears. He asked if I had thought of doing anything stupid? "No, but I have thought about killing a couple of people at work." The doctor asked if I minded my condition being called Depression. I said that I did not care as long as I need not go to work that day. He signed me off for to weeks and prescribed Prozac.

I was off for a month and tried to go back to work in the Custody Suite. This did not work and I was put off on sick leave again. After some time, the doctor and I decided that the Prozac was not working for me. I was given a different drug. That did not work either and another medication was prescribed. Nope, no drug seemed to help.
While I was on sick leave I started reading books on personal development and how to be successful. Authors like Jim Rohn showed me that there was another way to live. I also recommend you read The Art of Happiness which is a book written about the words of HH Dalai Lama.

Now, how to beat depression. If you are like me and medication does not work, I see only one way forward and it is what I have done. Make a conscious decision to be happy. Sounds simple when written in a trite little phrase like that, but, it is actually quite hard to go from ill with depression to well and happy. After all my reading, that is exactly what I did. When I was ill, everything and everybody, in my mind, controlled my life. I made the decision to take charge of my own life and make myself happy. I started with the things I could be thankful for. Really big ones like my wife supporting me no matter what went wrong. Like having two wonderful daughters. Like having a a place to live and enough money to buy food, clothing and other essentials. When I started looking at life from the viewpoint of finding things that were right with my world, I easily found more and more things to be thankful for. Being rich does not make us happy, although it does allow choices to be made that can lead to more happiness. Human relationships make us happy and ultimately, we make ourselves happy by the way that we think about and react to any challenges thrown our way.

So, if you are depressed, I believe that you are going to have to make some difficult decisions like I did. I decided to stop being a police officer. As I had been doing the job for over twenty two years, this was a tremendous wrench. But, it turns out to have been the medicine I needed. Taking away the cause of my bad feelings allowed me to concentrate on finding things to be grateful for. I decide every day that I am happy, and, I find things to be happy about every day. I have decided that no problem is too big for me to tackle. Since I made this particular decision, no problem has been insurmountable. Don't get me wrong, there are still challenges, but, they are not impossibilities.
If you are depressed and could be bothered to read this far, just try doing as I did. Decide to be happy and actually work at making that choice a reality.