First off, I'm sorry you are in pain OP. I hope you can find some help by asking this question.

Back pain is fascinating. Rarely, there is an immediate and obvious cause and obvious treatment that will work, wham bam, lickety split. Far more often, there isn't.

Intense pain starts in your spine. So you go see a doctor. Doctor says, "Here is some Vicodin, take this and rest up." Fixed!

Nope. It helps for a while, but you still have pain. This happens to the vast majority of people with back pain. It's the normal doctor first step.

So you go see a back surgeon. How do surgeons fix things? With surgery. So the surgeon does an MRI, finds a herniation (which is, after all, a source of pain!), and performs surgery and cleans out the herniation. Fixed!

(Mostly) wrong. A small — something like 30% — percentage of people find relief. The remaining people continue to have pain. They also now have a lengthy recovery, ~$10,000 less dollars, and a growing hopelessness. (These aren't fake examples, feel free to look them up or ask a doctor friend.)

These options seems to be attractive because they fit the standard Western model of disease, and also of care. Our (Western) minds tend to like this model and expect that it works. Diagnose obvious thing, do seemingly normal surgery or just take this pill, problem solved. Except not.

Had the back pain person asked an orthopedist, the orthopedist might have prescribed conservative care. Chiropractic, physical therapy, Pilates, yoga, strength training, massage, ice, heat, anti-inflammatories, etc. A surprisingly larger number of people find relief from that.

However, this approach is more annoying. It takes time and effort. It admits that maybe we don't know the exact cause, but maybe here are some things that work for a lot of people. With enough effort and time, they might work, slowly.

Had they seen a somatic or functional practitioner, the practitioner might have started looking at what else is going on with the person. What kind of psychological trauma might they have in their past? What is their desk setup? How stressful is their job? What is their diet like? What is the connection between the patient's mind and their body, and how does that relate to pain? They would then prescribe a course of treatment that might be modifications to lifestyle, healing trauma, etc.

Depression is very similar to back pain. It is complex, and is a mind-body problem. You may have an immediately obvious cause and thus an immediately obvious solution. And even then, that first solution has a fairly good chance of not working.

Moreover, you can predict with a fairly high degree of accuracy the solution you are going to be prescribed based on who you ask. Ask a general doctor or a psychiatrist, either get a pill or a referral to a talk therapist. Ask a talk therapist, get a lot of talk sessions. Ask an Eastern medicine practitioner, get some herbs, a change in diet, and acupuncture. Ask a shaman, get ayahuasca. Etc.

Depression happens for a whole bunch of reasons. What works for one person almost certainly won't work for the immediate next one, at least entirely. It often has to be addressed by looking at the individual as a whole and unique person, and using a multi-pronged mind-body approach.

If you have tried most of the normal stuff, then it's time for some not normal stuff. You have to be your own advocate in this, and keep track of what has worked and what hasn't, and move on when you have exhausted your options. I know that can be hard in the midst of severe depression, but at the end of the day it is really the only option. If what you are doing isn't working, don't just keep doing it. Find another competent professional, do your research, have your conversations, take a leap of faith if necessary, and try something new.

Again, I really hope you find healing, OP. Whatever it is that atheists do instead of praying, I'm doing that for you.