I've been here before and it's a tough place to be!

I've found a useful first step is to try and regain a sense of control over your life. When your focus is trying to influence others (i.e. your parents, potential employers), it's easy to feel like you have no control over anything. That is a recipe for learned helplessness and depression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Is there one thing that you can control? It could be blogging every day, it could be going on a run every day (which does wonders for fighting depression!), it could be anything. Whatever it is, it has to be something that you can control and can successfully accomplish without having to get the buy-in of others.

Good luck!!