In the fog: Dealing with Depression as an Artist

I've dealt with depression for most of my life, but it's only been in recent years that I've begun to recognize how many other people are struggling with it too. Depression is silent by its very nature, isolating and stifling, alienating us from those who would help us and those outlets that usually give us happiness. I've found that it seems creative individuals tend to suffer most acutely; the more I poll my friends, writers, actors, painters, costumers and the like, the more I find they have struggled with this insidious illness too.

So, how, as an artist, do you push past the depression and soldier on? Are there ways that you use it as an expression in what you create? Is your art more vivid during bouts of depression, or is your work effected in negative ways? Do you find that one feeds into or off of the other, or are they elements of yourself that you try to keep apart?