Hi again MyRed, For me distraction was the key, looking outwards, doing new things, anything to stop me thinking about myself and how i was feeling. But when you're paranoid, hiding under a hat and becoming agoraphobic it's no mean feat to walk out the house. And it is a full on method i.e. pretty exhausting when you probably already much energy. But exercise really does help. It doesn't mean you will suddenly stop feeling shit though. But distraction and exercise worked for me eventually.
I was only on citalopram for 4 months as i felt suicidal while on it. My physical symptoms from the depression were pretty distracting and unrelieved by citalopram. When i came off I just ignored them & eventually they went away. I was just relieved to get off the drugs so i didn't really care about withdrawal symptoms so it's not quite the same.
It wasn't an endorsed method, I found the medical establishment hopeless at dealing with depression. I spent a year feeling like a fish in a goldfish bowl until i walked away from them all & decided to try and deal with it myself. It still comes back but i think I've got better at shaking it off before it gets unbearable.
I think another thing is to say I'll just do this and then i'll let myself have a . Kind of babysteps then a reward. I found that quite incentivizing. If you manage to do things, you don't feel so useless, guilty etc...
Also, I found if i started crying about something ridiculous (have you seen that brilliant poem "I am unpicked by every wandering thing"), I would try to step outside yourself and say, this is silly, it isn't worth crying about, it isn't me, i'm not seeing things the way they really are, it's just how things are temporarily so i'm going to make a cup of tea and [do something distracting]. Again, it doesn't work 100% of the time, but you get better with practice. Also, stay well away from people who tell you to snap out of it. Hope some of this helps.
Good luck...