Venting I don't really want my life to get better anymore. I just want it to be over

[oneirataxia]

Not condoning this mindset or saying it's the "superior" philosophy to have, I'm just saying I think this way in application to my own life. Does anyone else think this way? The older I get, the more I feel disdain for the idea of trying to get married and have kids so I don't die alone, working for 30+ years, having even more devastating falling outs with friends because of my socially intolerable mental health issues, et cetera.

I'm starting to find that I just don't see life worth putting in all the effort to live and sustain. Nothing really retains my interest aside from "harmful" escapism and indulgence in nostalgia, which will always be a byproduct of negative attitudes I hold for the present and future anyways. It also doesn't really help that I find all therapists to be extremely retarded, every single therapist I've ever been with has just been giving "Omg guys I just got a haul of Stranger Things Funko Pops and Nintendo Switch games from my wife's boyfriend after getting my tubes tied!", like super Redditcore, all-around insufferable people. How am I supposed to work out my deepest and most personal traumas with people who make my teeth hurt to just be around? As I meet and lose more people I'm also starting to realize I resent probably upwards of 95% of people and I don't even think that's an exaggeration. Online or offline, the vast majority of them are either annoying or completely uninteresting to me in any way.

If I keep living, I worry I'm just going to be discovered dead in a shitty worn-down apartment unit (because haha zoomers can't afford to buy a house) with like 10 cats, because I have nothing in common with the people around me and will probably always be too many crayons short of a box to hold down any meaningful relationships or friendships with people who don't want to hurt me or otherwise use me for their own personal gain. All this improving and working and reflecting and soying out about inner work and talking about life while looking up at the night sky and sitting on the rooftop for what? Just to go back to nonexistence in 50 or so years, without even so much as the memory of my own life to look back upon and feel whichever way about? I feel like an awkward middle schooler, as if life is one long, awkward stage of puberty between death and more death. Just a pointless, frustrating, agonizing hiccup to come in between a perfectly straight line of stillness, that would've continued just fine without any problem if it had stayed the way it was. All to satiate that same selfish fear of dying alone held by two incredibly volatile and irresponsible people who should've never met each other and who never took any meaningful action to help their child live a happy life. We value life only because it's all we know, and when we're dead, we'll forget the value we ascribed to it, and we'll forget the concept of value to begin with.

I don't want things to get better or worse. No more self improvement or sabotage. I just want things to stop being things at all. I tried to kill myself last year by shooting myself in the head and only survived because of sheer physical survival instinct causing my fingers to soften against the trigger. I didn't feel afraid to die in any capacity and completely wanted to die with every fiber of my being. And somehow I didn't. There was no epiphany to be had about the beauty of life, no changed perspective, just arbitrarily prolonged life. I have no regrets attempting, only that I couldn't go through with it, and I still wish I died. I feel like ever since that day, something within me genuinely died even if I physically didn't, and that something is never being brought back to life.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I feel very similarly to this. I imagine I'm a fair bit older than you- at 46- so- I've already lived some elements of the life you are dreading.

For me, it's more my practical experience and knowledge that makes me feel like future endeavors won't be worth the effort. Because- they haven't felt enough so far. Why would that change?

That's not to say I'm not relieved I put in effort to get this far. I'm happier in my situation- work/ life than I have been previously. But, I don't have the drive to move much further forward now. I'm not very content with where I am either. Just trying to get through it. Like someone would a prison sentence.

I also agree that distraction only gets you so far. Plus- it comes with its own cost. It's not like it comes for free.

I also agree with you with regards to people. Experience has lead me to distrust friendships and relationships.

It just feels like it's slogging through life left. Who would want to live like that?

 

[Bikishii]

From time to time I feel this way for sure, like life is a book and I just want to close it already (forgive the cheesy metaphor). Even when things are better, there's still struggle, strife, pain, and hardship. I think of the future from time to time and my place in it, like how my life will look if I make it to 40, but part of me is so kind of blasé about it that I just want to be done with this whole life business altogether.

 

[Jadeith]

In my case it's not a matter of "i don't want it better", rather "can't see the possibility for it to get better so why bother". I keep myself here for others - duties i'm supposed to perform, people i should take care of/protect.
Anhedonia slowly but constantly creeps in, encroaching more and more aspects of life that once were considered joy bringers. Favorite food not so favorite anymore, sweets - got shitton of them for Easter, touched almost none. Sex - more and more underwhelming, Hobbies turned into chores i'd rather not perform anymore with no new ones in sight.

I'm also starting to realize I resent probably upwards of 95% of people and I don't even think that's an exaggeration.

Story of my life..... I should wear a badge with "Can i hate you?". Thing is - i don't need permission. Will probably do it anyway.

I feel like ever since that day, something within me genuinely died even if I physically didn't, and that something is never being brought back to life.

They say a person can die up to 3 times. 1st time, when everything that was constituting this person dies inside. Just an empty shell that forgot to stop breathing. 2nd when you actually die and are put to the grave. 3rd and final death - when your name is said for the last time and memory of you fades.
Seems to me we got first one already ticked off, desperately longing for the second one.

 

[niki wonoto]

I can deeply relate with this post/thread. Thank you so much actually, always glad somehow to read 'deeper' posts/threads like this in this website/forum.

I've had existential depression for a (very) long time until now, mostly because of this whole 'reality .vs. imagination' dilemma. ie.: we human beings can imagine, dream, wish, expect, visualize, fantasize things to be so much more better, interesting, exciting, wondrous, fantastical, unlimited, etc2, but then just only to crushed & destroyed, & severely limited by this 'reality' / real life / real world. Human's consciousness is generally just a tragedy, or even a curse (at least for some of us).

Life is mostly just shitty. We basically just do (or 'forced' to do) repetitive routines (especially work/jobs/careers/business, whatever) everyday, and then the only time left is just simply filled with just only mere 'distractions', entertainment, & even relationships, family etc2 it's all just the same thing basically, & can even (usually) become just another source of shitty problems. Life is just a series of tacking problems after problems.

It's just so unfair that people who are 'lucky' enough to be able to truly 'enjoy life' & 'be happy' is just NOT for everyone. Maybe only for those who are rich, lucky, privileged, etc2. And even, as quite a 'privileged' person myself (from Indonesia), it's still NOT a 100% guarantee that privilege = perfect, happy life. There are still many things that could go wrong in life (& that's what happened to me/my life).

And, even among those 'lucky/fortunate' people, they can still feel bored, dissatisfied too.

But, my original point is: even with all the 'good things' in life, it all still PALES in comparison to the wildest human's IMAGINATIONS (or dreams/fantasy/stories / fictions etc2)!

If life were 'designed', then this 'design' is just so bad & shitty, IMHO.

 

[sadsillygoose]

Thank you for writing this, made me reflect on my hatred for people in my life.

Hatred and detached from people is a resultant of prolonged suicidality, because when you don't want to live, existing and doing simple tasks start to feel like a chore. Maintaining relationships also starts feeling like chores, and you constantly have to keep yourself in check so as to not spill out suicidal thoughts when you actually start trusting someone. I also find it frustrating that people around me feel so stuck in their own reality they dont even try to look past it, constantly talking about some insignificant bullshit that makes them happy, sad, scared, angry.

It feels like living on an edge, people just brings more problems, decision making, putting in effort, in return you get uncertainty because future is unpredictable and a temporary companion, because thankfully none of us are immortal. None of it matters to anyone else, and in a long strech of time it wont matter at all. So its understandable that you decided to not hold on to people.

Also insane that normies paint attempts as a moment of realization, when the only things we realise are the happiness in the possibility of dying and the exhaustion that comes with surviving everyday. I feel like a living corpse and the only thing that even makes me less anxious about life after avoiding reality by either doomscrolling or daydreaming is "It's all going to end soon, so no need to worry".

 

[telekon]

Amen

 

[TransientEternal]

I resonate with this. I think I'd still feel the same way even if I were the king of the world. Nothing matters, but people keep making excuses. When we're dead nothing matters. Your money, status, power, family, fond memories, knowledge, etc will all return to dust. As Epicurus once said: "Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not."

 

[TAW122]

I can relate to this, I've more or less resigned myself to giving up on life in general. I just cope and kill time until the inevitable (time and circumstance) where I actually attempt CTB and hopefully successfully. You made an interesting point about how you attempted to pull the trigger, but survival/self-preservation instinct caused your finger to go soft and did not squeeze the trigger. While I have never actually made a real attempt, I too, am aware that it is possible that this 'instinct' may get in my way whenever my time and circumstance comes, though I hope I am strong enough to overcome it. With all methods, no matter how reliable, how well planned, and how determined we are with our decision, the most surreal moment would be the time of attempt and I don't think we can truly overcome billions of years of primal evolution that has kept the human species alive, but just enough to override it in the most critical moments to succeed at it.

I hope you find peace in whatever you choose to do and that current sentience doesn't get any worse for you.

 

[BrokenByTheSystem]

I think most people here don't want to get better either, but given the lack of courage to kill itself, what else can we really do?

There's nothing else to be done, either you kill yourself or keep living. It's 0 or 1.

We're like living dead humans, waiting a good opportunity or a good trigger that suppress our survival instinct so we get a good motivation to take some harder action.

 

[13eyond 13irthday]

I understand, I think, and feel that, but in a different way. In that, I would personally love to for my life to get better. I would have no problem with that. But, similar to you, I no longer find that putting in the effort to fix things is worth it. I can work out until I'm ripped, I can work hard, do everything right... and none of it has helped me to a point where I thought it was worth it. Oh, it did something all right, but the juice is not worth the squeeze.

I do think most people value life for more than it simply being all they know, however. It feels alien, but other people are just... actually happy. They value things, they have a utility function, and it is rarely pessimized, rarely negative. Whereas people like myself, and likely yourself, we value different things, or simply got the short end of the stick.

I don't know what things you value. Some of what you said seems to indicate valuing relationships that aren't shallow, with people who share similar values. Which makes sense, most people do.

I sympathize quite a lot, with your desire for "things to stop being things at all". I often suspect that my existence has made the world a worse place, and that most possible versions of myself probably would rather have never existed. That the happiness level of the hypothetical "other selves" was higher in those who deleted their existence earlier, than those who have made it this far.

I have a slight suggestion, based on what you've said. This is a technique I tried, that didn't work for me, but perhaps you will have better luck.

Learn and practice Vipassana meditation. I recommend using Sam Harris' guide for it. Once you are capable of emptying your mind, and focusing attention solely on the breath, focus on doing so at all times. Simply erase everything there is about being "you". Mental suicide, of a sort, but one that sadly isn't permanent. And I could find no way to brainwash ourselves out of existence, as far as I was able to tell during my attempts.

I tried essentially erasing everything about myself this way for a period of about 3 months, in order to stop feeling such strong suicidal urges while I finished grad school. The reason I stopped was because it began to get exhausting, constantly grabbing hold of my attention that way. I wish you luck in whatever you wish for, oneirataxia.

 

[Moodz]

After reading your post I have to admit that I really like your style! It's beautifully written and a perfect summary of my feelings. I'm in my 40s and I've seen a lot in life - and a lot of it I don't like. Escapism has dominated me throughout my existence and brought me where I am today, which is pretty much nowhere. Until a few years ago, my life didn't feel too bad, but now I can comfortably say that it wasn't really me living it. I guess I desperately tried to adjust to society and their weird little norms and pretty much lost myself in the process. Escapism works wonders, but once you start focusing on yourself and reflecting on your life, shit can hit really hard. Life could be good, but there's no guarantee it ever will be, and the work I have to put in has just become too exhausting. I am also not getting younger, so even things get more and more complicated. I'd like to travel back in time and be a teenager again, just with the knowledge and "wisdom" I have today. If I had access to a gun, I'd probably say good-bye with a smile on my face. But well, easier said than done I guess.

 

[itsgone2]

They say a person can die up to 3 times. 1st time, when everything that was constituting this person dies inside. Just an empty shell that forgot to stop breathing. 2nd when you actually die and are put to the grave. 3rd and final death - when your name is said for the last time and memory of you fades.

I've never heard this before. Yes like op and others my first death came in September last year. It's odd being past that and still here. An unexpected death when I was still alive would have been far preferable. Infinitely so.