I feel we have "depression" the same way we get "colds", try to rest hoping it goes away. Most of the time it does, and sometimes it's something else completely, but in contrast to colds, we have no good tool to properly diagnose the exact illnesses, and are probably lumping together myriads of different things under the "depression" umbrella.
That also matches how treatment for depression often involves throwing spaghetti at the wall and see what method and treatment sticks. Even medication usually goes through trying different chemistries a month or two at a time and see what has any effect.
I've had friends who went out of depression by quitting their soul crushing jobs to start solo businesses. I expected they would slack a bit more and be more relaxed as self employed, but from the sidelines they looked way more busy, working way harder and longer than before. Except it seemed to work for them and they're still doing i years later.
Your story kind of resonates the same to me, and
I assume the family building part can be proxied by different goals, stuff that actually matter and bring sense to what someone is doing in life and/pr a different human environment. It might not work for everyone, but I agree there must be a sizeable portion of "depressed" people who's cure are not more medication or less work, but radical changes in other aspects of their life.