20m. Asperger's and ocd(sexual ocd too). Heavy drug user including methamphetamine at age 17. Possible bipolar as well. I don't find joy in anything in life. I dwell constantly on the past and feel as if I'm missing out on my youth. Regretting decisions I've made in the past and feeling like there is no reason to live after making such decisions. I tend to get stuck in black and white thinking, which I think may be due to my autism. I like to view things through an objective lens on whether or not I should commit suicide. So I've come out with a list of the positives and negatives of my life
Positives:
1: my father is still in my life supporting me fully financially.
2: I'm young and have time and financial resources to get help for my mental health. He doesn't seem to ever be willing to cut me off financially. Trust me I know him and he would not. He makes sometimes up to 400k a year.
3: I have the resources to do things like go to college, or things of that nature.
4: I've been told I'm attractive, but I'm not able to date due to how mentally unwell I am.
Negatives:
1. Severe mental health issues I don't see getting better anytime soon. I ruminate on what I could've done differently and it haunts me.
2. I'm falling further and further astray from what a normal person lives their life like. I'm not able to fit in so much anymore.
3. Crippling isolation and loneliness I don't see improving anytime in the near future. I'm extremely socially awkward and don't fit in anywhere very well.
4. Nothing interests me. I don't believe anything in this life can bring me long term happiness and help me get over the past. I ruminate quite often due to my obesssive thoughts on what could've been different and it keeps me awake at night.
I know that suicide and the reason to live has to be a personal one. That no one can make the decision for you. However I do think that certain people may be making impulsive decisions due to mental health or things of that nature. But then again mental health issues are as real as physical health issues. What's to say any of these issues will ever get better?
I am not some pro-lifer who thinks suicide is never the answer. I think suicide can be a reasonable thing to choose under the right circumstances. In my opinion, you should not do it right now.
The positives you list are very positive. The financial resources especially are very, very encouraging. These financially resources mean you could have access to all sorts of psychological and psychiatric help. It also means you have the time to work on your issues without an immediate clock being on them. And you have the time to find the things that make you interested and give you meaning.
At 20 you are still very young. You may feel you've lost out on your youth, and I get that because I have felt that many times as well, but believe me where you are there is a LOT of youth yet to live. You absolutely still have a chance to recuperate that. Especially because you say you're attractive. That is absolutely going to open doors for you to enjoying your youth, even if you're slightly older than the people around you (say at college).
The worst thing, and I know this from experience, is to feel you've wasted your life before you've actually even left your youth. It's a form of captivity. A prison. But it's a prison you're putting yourself in. And putting yourself into it right now is just making things worse because you're mourning your youth when it hasn't been spent yet. Because right now you have the capability and resources to change things. You can still do it, you have what you need. You just need to make that choice.
You won't know what will happen once you make that choice and I can't tell you. Psychology is a numbers game. Psychological experiments are run on GROUPS of people, generally. But plenty of people do get better given they find the right help. Even from really dark times.
I'm probably not the best example ever, otherwise I wouldn't be here. But that's mostly because I ended up running into some repeated strokes of bad luck, including a global pandemic which struck at the worst possible time for me. Something I think you're not likely to encounter.
At 21 I was unable to go to college. My social anxiety was so bad that I didn't dare to leave the house. I didn't even dare to get groceries or get on the bus. I had gone to 2 other therapists before and I was on my third therapist. She wasn't helping at all. But then I decided to change therapists. My third therapist was the "What is bother you today and let's talk about it" variety. And that just wasn't a good approach for me. So I sought out my fourth therapist. She was a cognitive behavioural therapist and she had a very concrete approach. We would lay out what the problems were. And we would work on them concretely and practically every session.
In a less than 6 months I was taking the bus and going back to classes. In less than 1 year I was doing exams again. In 1,5 years I found a girlfriend. In 2 years I was able to do stuff like take trains on my own, attend large gatherings, etc.
I first started college at 17. It took me 5 years to actually take my first exam. 5 years of basically sitting at home, frozen, scared out of my mind of going outside. Nothing would help. And yet in less than 2 years with the right psychologist I managed to go to school, take exams and get a girlfriend. It wasn't easy. In fact it was damn hard. But I did it and at 20 I never would've thought that I could've.
It's also worth noting that there is an upside to autism. Chances are you have a special interest. You describe that nothing interests you. Maybe you just haven't found what your special interest is yet. If you do, you may find you can draw significant meaning from that. And that might keep you engaged quite a bit.
You are not a lost cause yet.
Let's look at this practically though:
1. If you haven't managed to kick the drugs yet, that would probably be your first stop. Getting some sort of rehab. I'm not an expert on these matters, but people do kick drugs. And with the financial resources you have and a father who cares enough to share them, your odds seem good with enough effort.
2. The next step would be to give yourself some time. Your problems aren't gonna be solved instantly but you're still young and there's no financial clock. If you don't give yourself time and try to rush, you're paradoxically going to make it all last longer. Just focus on getting better FIRST before anything else. Poor all your attention into that and you'll have better odds. Don't try to run before you can walk.
3. Find a psychologist who's good and who fits you. In my case I had to go through 3 psychologists that basically didn't help me before I found a good one that fit me. This is going to probably be a trial and error thing. Try one out and try them long enough to give it a fair chance. Therapy, even good therapy, takes time. But if you realize it's really not helping, don't be afraid to try someone new. I tried my third psychologist for 2 years without making even small progress and it was too long, imo. But only trying one or two sessions will be too short to do anything, probably. So find a middle ground. There are often websites which have lists of psychologists and their speciality is usually in that info. Find someone who fits your issues, and try people with different approaches. As I said, for me things like system therapy and traditional therapy didn't really help but issue focused, practical cognitive behavioural therapy worked great. You're going to have to find out through trial and error though. But finding the right person could well be very worth it. I know it was in my case.
4. You may want to get a psychiatrist too. But I'd recommend you get one separate from your psychologist. In my opinion psychiatrists often have a different approach. Use this person mainly to discuss things like medicine. There may be medicine which can help you control your issues, especially the bipolar thing if you have it. I'd recommend the psychologist at least once a week, but the psychiatrist maybe only once a month. These are just ballpark numbers, you'll have to find what fits best for you.
I think these would be my main pieces of advice.
You want to look at it objectively, so look at it objectively. Note that the upsides you listed are mostly concrete things. The downsides you listed are mostly mental and you are currently feeling (but cannot be sure) that they aren't changeable. I'd say the concrete logically should hold more weight than the speculative. The science also says that people do recover. Again, it's a numbers game, but people are helped by things like therapy. And from my personal anecdotal experience (which obviously isn't as objective or valuable as the numbers, but relevant as an example) it is absolutely possible to be in a really deep pit and get out of it. Even when you're basically completely isolated and nothing seems to be working because that's where I was at 21 before I found my fourth psychologist, and in 2 years everything was very different.
So, basically, I can't tell the future. You can't either. But I do think suicide is best as a last resort option and I think you still have a lot of things you can try and the time and resources to try them. So don't skip that opportunity and invite future regret, try to do them. If they fail suicide isn't going anywhere and it'll still be an option. But for right now you still have the ability to change things, grab it.
Edit: Also, really weird thing to add, but there's this song called "Believe" by "The Bravery." And I remember this time when I was 21. I fully believed there was nothing I could do and I'd end it at that time. But I remember I was walking to the video game store and listening to this song. And when they talked about "What am I waiting for? It's already done." That's exactly what I needed to hear. The past is done. I also obsess over it. But it's done. You can only decide what to do going forward. And in that moment hearing that song, I decided to take action going forward. I didn't know what would happen and you cannot know. But I knew that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. So what was I risking by trying? More time suffering? I was used to that and if I died I'd forget about that extra time anyway. Might as well try. Seems to me that's true for you too.
