so much pain and anger and sadness in this thread. irl, I am pessimistic and nihilistic and have lost all hope for my life. But unlike a lot of you, I don't perceive all of life, all of humanity to be shitty. I simply believe that I made some really bad choices in life and now my mental and physical health has gotten bad enough to CTB. What I have been struggling with a lot is how much control did I really have over my decisions. When I used to read a lot of self-help therapy and positive philosophy, I would repeat that all of my choices were in my control. This was meant as an act of self-empowerment and accountability. Now that I look at an adulthood of terrible decisions following a childhood filled with great pain, I don't know. I mean, just how much of our decisions are our own? For those of us who grew up with abuse at a very young age, we didn't control that.
I have been thinking a lot about prison inmates. Even the worst of the worst — how many had terrible childhoods? I would imagine most if not all. This doesn't condone their acts by any stretch but we should reflect on this.
As a society we expect all people to simply be good moral upstanding people regardless of upbringing? And movies and TV and the media in general portrays all criminals as inherently bad people. Same in many ways with the homeless and so called mentally ill. But if we get into the origins of the people, we see they were abused as kids, tormented and tortured, abanonded and forgotten and it's this reason they ended up as they are. What blows my mind are the ones who grew up with a ton of pain but grew up to be healthy and happy. Why could they do this but so many of us cannot?
I feel better when I see someone who wants to ctb say they had a good childhood, they love their parents, they weren't bullied as kids. I feel better believing some of us just weren't meant to live happy lives. But I am also surprised to see this. I mean, in my mind, all of us who want to ctb for depression/anxiety had shitty childhoods that ruined our adulthoods. Simple as that. No matter what we did, no matter how much effort, time, money, energy we put into fixing ourselves, we ended up in this place.
Of course, one would say that we can always try one more med, one more therapy, and on and on. But that's the problem — nobody knows if it will work or if it will hurt.
Back to the OP, I don't believe all of life sucks. I have suffered from depression my entire life but I have had many, many experiences that filled my heart with joy. I can see these joys in the eyes of my loved ones even as I have lost my desire to keep going. I want to CTB because I don't see a positive future for myself and I see my problems only getting worse and worse. I don't see this as a problem with humanity itself and in fact I want my loved ones to be safe, happy after I pass.
