I'm curious to see what kind of coping strategies some of you are using for when depressive episodes surge or persist.  Much of the time I find that having some sort of philosophical, or religous for some people, guiding understanding of reality can anchor people through tough times.  Alternatively, there are various forms of therapy, exercise and meditation, getting enough sleep (but not too much), and other ways that I've read about and seen or heard of people using to feel as good as possible under the conditions of depression.  For me personally I'm a Buddhist, so I try to remind myself of impermanence and attempt to encourage myself to be mindful of feelings, or lack thereof, that I at times experience.  When I remember to do that I always find that the heaviness or hollow quality I described in another post is not as constant as it can feel when it's at its most intense.  Meditating helps me to ground myself when thoughts are chaotic or of a particularly negative character, just watching them come and go is oddly pacifying, and eventually with time they calm down or sometimes disappear at least for the duration of the meditation.  I guess it helps me to remember that thoughts are just something that happens in the mind, a lot of times they can stir feelings, but they'll always be either positive, negative, or neutral, and they never last.  One thought/feeling is replaced by another, and another, on and on.  Once I saw that thoughts are kind of random and impersonal, it made it easier not to identify with them (don't get me wrong it still took years to come to that understanding) and just acknowledge them as mental phenomena that come and go.  Coming to that conclusion over and over enough times little by little weakens the power of thoughts to f up our mood or decrease quality of life.  That's just what's helped me, if it ends up helping someone else even better.