Hi Hillary,
I am clinically depressed. I will always have to take medication. But I am fine with that, because that works for me. Major depression sounds more severe to me, but I am not sure. But there is situational depression that improves as your life situation improves. And bipolar is also called manic depression. That is somebody who goes from extreme highs (called mania) to extreme lows. When manic, the person may have tremendous of amounts of energy for period of time, they often talk rapidly and are somewhat delusional. Though that may not always be the case. But then they will fall to an extreme low and severe phase of depression. If you want to learn more about manic depression, check out the bipolar forum. Or you could ask Serafena, she moderates over there. I hear it is a wonderful forum.
What type of depression do you think you have? Is it situational? If so, you can be treated with counseling and learn to improve your situation or environment, and in time it will lift and you will feel better. I don't know that there is any set time for any individual. Things change for people and people are all different. But with counseling, you can over come it. I hope that this has helped some. Feel free to ask more questions, hopefully some of the other members will come on and explain some of their situations to you.
I don't know if I have given you any of these sites before, but I will put them down. You can check them out and hopefully they will help you. I hope that you feel better Hillary.
http://www.teencentral.net/
http://nineline.org/
http://forums.teenhelp.org/
http://www.teenhut.net/
Hopefully some of these sites will also help you.
Hugs, Karen