Not saying you are wrong. But i thread my depression with occasional drug use (next to other things like travel) which works perfectly well. Instead of taking all the pills that doctors wanted to give me.

A psychedelic experience every year or so really keeps my happy self functioning.

If travelling helps your depression, you probably don't have depression.

well before i went on to my first real longer travel experience i got diagnosed with a burnout, after refusing to proceed with any therapy against whatever they thought i had.

I guess it is different for anyone, but for me it really helped a lot

Care to elaborate how travel helps you combating depression?

Guess i put that to generalised. But instead of having my yearly depression i spent half a year in SEA. But for me it also contains the flexibility and new experiences that I seeked out in life.

Also living between people with all kind of unique problems made me more happy with my general life

It's not like "proper medical diagnosis and treatment" didn't contribute to painkillers dependence problems we are dealing with now. A lot of people self-medicating with cannabis are in quite a good position in comparison.

It's interesting to read about experiences of others and for many people experimentation is a good way to improve their lives.

This presumes proper medical diagnosis and treatment are readily available.

I agree on some level. However, let's be honest, most doctors don't give a shit really.. Something has to be really wrong otherwise they wont give you anything.

Also, many doctors are persuaded (using a nicer word here) into prescribing certain drugs over the others; basically preference created by.... free lunches and golf events. There is an interesting documentary on this, forgot the name; Google might help.