Why can't I find a reason to keep going for myself?

For me, part of getting older was just realizing I'm not mainly living for myself anymore. I had to find joy in helping those I care about find joy, usually in just ordinary and mundane events or gestures. It's not exciting but it works. Similarly, I can't bring myself to leave this world since it'll cause so much pain to others. Just try to find those moments that make it worth it, even when it's been a while, just know those times will come.

This is a very difficult conversation to have with an imperfect and impersonal platform like Lemmy, because helping you find something so personal requires a lot of back and forth.

Is it that you no longer wish to be alive or that you feel your available options aren't enough? In a perfect world where you were able to go anywhere, do anything, and/or be anyone is there something you would do rather than ending things?

This is going to sound dopey as hell, but it's true and it helps. Our brains work by creating unique pathways for thoughts and activities. The more frequent a thought or activity the stronger the link becomes and the more automatic it becomes as well. If your thoughts are frequently dark it becomes difficult to think in other ways. It's difficult at first, but if you acknowledge the good things in your life more often you can create new pathways in your brain that will weaken the darker side.

Taking a few minutes each day to acknowledge and sit with the good things, even if they're small, will over time make your lived experience a little easier to cope.

I have struggled with suicidal ideation all my life. I think there are three things keeping me acting on it.

One is empathy. I once felt that I should avoid killing myself to avoid upsetting the people who love me. It has since become clear that they did not actually love me. However, I still do not want to leave a body for someone to discover. It's not fair to them.

The second is waste. I am a human being with some amount of agency. What can I do with that? Less than I want, but more than nothing. If I can help anyone with what remains of my life, I want to try. I suppose this is also empathetic.

Third... I'm just too scared. Even if it was as simple as pushing a button, I would still have to push it. I don't want to experience dying, even if I don't want to be alive. I feel like a coward hiding in the cracks between life and death, too afraid to face either head on.

For what it's worth, I think things are worse than most people realize. I think your reaction to our oppressive society is very natural. Cries for help are often ignored, silenced, or punished. Everything is a scam, no one is free. I think humans need to work together instead of competing, but the rich use their vast resources to keep us down and divided.

I struggle with alcohol dependency. I am seeking help from a local community health center. My previous therapist was not a good fit, so I'll try a different one in a week. I don't have much hope, but it seems worth a try. I would love to see things get better. I just can't see how. But I don't know the future. I could make the choice to end my life, but there is no opting back in. So for now, at least in my case, things are not bad enough to exit, I expect to stick around at least another year. I'm sorry if this doesn't help. I don't know what to do besides sharing my own experiences.

You're probably taking on too much at once.

Finding a reason is hard, and implausibly so when you're already struggling with keeping alive.

It doesn't matter much how or what you've been, nor what you could or should be. You are currently struggling, and with a perception altering condition to boot. And as with most things we find struggling, we offer help, understanding, comfort and support, as well as recruit others to help. See if you can't offer yourself that, or find someone to help you get there (SSRIs are a crutch, not the healing).

Build up strength, support and resilience, and you'll have better control of the perception altering parts at least, and probably more energy to try, fail, learn and try again at what is a worthy reason for you.

Also, passion is overrated, most people develop passion for things that they manage to do over time. Figure out what is interesting and rewarding to do first, figure out how to do it sustainably as part of your life, including how you remind yourself to get back to it when you inevitably get distracted (my favorite way is to tie it to something I find important, like justice or caring for my environment). In a couple years, people will describe you as passionate, and after a while you might even feel it yourself.

Because you'll never get the time back you've lost.

I get this somewhat. No where near as bad a situation as you but things in my life and the world get worse and worse and now as im getting old the only thing that keeps me going is my wife. without her im not sure what I would do. I only recently got prescribed ssri's but im going to talk with the doc about not taking them. my wife does not like the idea and I look into the possible physical dependency combined with iffiness on healthcare availability. I mean if it does not work then you are off them but if it does you will need higher dosages over time and then if you ever stop its worse the higher it got. ugh. I think im pretty set on just relaxing into the slow fall. Oh felt the same with suicide. The real problem is death is easy but living more horribly is aweful.

(I am not a doctor and none of this comment should be seen as medical advice) (all questions should be asked of yourself, with no expectation of response to this comment)

Why can't I find a reason to keep going for myself?

Based on the entirety of your post, it seems to me that you've never lived for yourself and still don't know how. I can relate. I need purpose, I crave it. And I'd imagine that's what you need too. Purpose. A reason for being. A thing which answers to the question "why are you?" in a way that satisfies you.

It fucking annoys me that I'm having to stay alive out of guilt for other people.

I've lived so many years in this empty state. It does no good. Guilt like this is a shackle that serves no purpose. It just traps us in a constant state of dread. For me, psychedelics like LSD and psilocyban (found in magic mushrooms) have been helpful to sort of "reset" my brain and mindset for a while. It's not a permanent fix but has been beneficial for me nonetheless. My refreshed mindsets tend to last for a few months and then fade out slowly. But this has been enough to help me make some small changes which can hopefully act as building blocks for further changes toward a life lived for myself. I'm still a work-in-progress (aren't we all though?).

There's nothing I find externally that fuels me with a passion for living

Forget "externally" for a moment. Is there anything which can fuel a passion in you? Ignore other people and their opinions; those are entirely irrelevant. No one else matters. What do you want for yourself?

my last attempt

Did you feel that "powerful" feeling? That "high" feeling? Like you can do just about anything? That feeling when you're like "I'm finally gonna do it. I don't care about anything else anymore. I'm gonna do it...I don't care about anything else anymore." When you feel that nothing else matters, that you're signing out for good, and that all of those concerns are nothing now. I'm not sure how best to word this and am hoping it makes sense to you.

I feel that life can probably be best lived on the edge of this world and that one. Like, if we're able to balance ourselves, mentally, on that edge, between caring about everything and caring about nothing. The ability to let it all go is a powerful thing, and so is the ability to care as much as we do about as many things as we do. There has to be a way for that balance to be possible. I feel as though my own attempts have allowed me to catch glimpses of such a thing, and my LSD and psilocyban trips have also helped, but it's still difficult to truly stay there.

If you can find it for yourself, I'd think it's a much better mindset than where you currently find yourself. And from there, you might see who and what and why you are. I think that's what truly matters.

I find a calm in me when typing things like this, and you might want to try typing your thoughts and feelings for yourself sometimes too. Poetry, stories of your life, stream-of-consciousness ramblings, whatever feels right to you. Maybe that can help you open doors within yourself that can bring you some sense of internal calm and direction.

I hope that something here can be useful to you, or others like us.

🩷

How about spite? Anything you hate more than dying that you could have an impact on by not dying? I'm not saying going full Luigi on some rich bastard but there's maybe some more easily/locally achievable things you care about?

What about high risk sports? Or is that in the category of "method that wouldn't leave you with a lifelong condition"?