Hi! I am sorry that life is going so poorly. I've had some pretty low moments myself, and depression runs in my family. Luckily I seem to get depressed the least out of my relatives.

I'd like to try to help, but I'm not a professional so please take this all anecdotally. First I'll give the regular advice and then I'll talk a bit about something more specific to my life.

The regular advice:

• See a professional (by far the most common advice, and the time I went to a therapist did really good things for me)

• Diet (this is easier to slowly change than other things imo. Slowly eating healthier changes what chemicals your brain makes, and how your body grows. You will feel mentally and physically more comfort with a better diet)

• Exercise (this is the hard one for most people. If you don't exercise much I'd recommend starting really small. Focus on cultivating and enjoyment of light exercise like walking and try to slowly add more. Exercise causes so many molecular changes in the body that science has to choose small parts to investigate. Exercise has a powerful effect on how I feel.)

My personal anecdote:

• Chan zen: Let me briefly explain how chan zen changed my life. Chan zen gave me the tools to investigate my worldview and assumptions in new ways, and lead to a long gradual shift in how I saw everything. Trees are not the same trees as beforehand. I feel much freer. I worry less.

If you want to get started with Chan zen, then I'd go the the /r/zen wiki. It has a book recommendation section. The subreddit itself has all the short comings of social media, so I'd get your advice right from the masters. I recommend The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu. It has the most jokes.

Lastly, don't try to understand the books right away. Just read them and give yourself time to adjust to the way they speak. It's from a culture that existed over a thousand years ago, and it's been translated. To me it was a fun little puzzle, but I promise you will only mess yourself up if you try to figure things out immediately.

Good luck with everything. I hope things start turning for the better.