Is it you or is it the world?

[Cosmophobic]

In my case it's always been me. I've always been the problem. Many of you on here have been hurt by others or beaten down by the world. Some of your stories have made me cry. I have no such excuses. Nothing to point to, nothing to blame. It's like I was born this way. Terrified. From my earliest days in school through to the end I despised going there. Waking up at 5am with anxiety for nearly 15 years. No wonder I became a do-nothing hermit as soon as it was over. I wasn't even bullied as such. Not any more than the next guy. I could never pinpoint what I'm so afraid of, then or now.

At some point I accepted that I'd always be this way. Anxious, neurotic and depressed. So I unconsciously (perhaps consciously) gave up. I started recieving a disability payment for persistant depression and that was that, I settled in to an isolated life. I picked up a few maladaptive coping strategies and together with a max dose of anti-depressants that keeps me ticking along. It's still just enough to get me out of bed and tending to the few responsibilites I do have. I am 38 fucking years old now! I feel smaller and more incapable than I've ever felt. I'm the exact same scared child in an adult's body and I have no excuses to my name.

Granted, the world isn't up to scratch. It never has been. But shit, neither am I. I do wonder about trauma. There are things that happened that could explain it, maybe. But nothing compared to what others have had to deal with growing up. Especially some of you. I just don't know.

Rant about self over. Back to the original question. Do you think it's you - as in do you feel like you've always been this way to some degree? Or did the cruel nature of circumstance force you to where you are now?

 

[lost_one]

Both.

 

[Michelstaedter]

At some point I thought I could be the problem, for example, my attitude wasn't the best and I tended toward pessimism, which led me to rethink whether I was really doing things wrong... Yes, I made a lot of mistakes, yes, I'm not perfect, yes, I have a tendency toward anxiety, depression, I'm neurotic like you, since as a child I used to be afraid of things that a "common" or "average" child doesn't normally think about, however, that made me realize that the environment and the world that feeds on it is not adequate, so in the end, and I don't know if I'm following Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, it is that in the end existence is shit, the world and many of its people are shit.
I was thinking about it today, I mean, it's not that I'm the subject who most deserves to leave this world without pain, others suffer worse or at least live my last years as happily as possible before leaving, however, it's not only about that but about existence itself. The world and the predators, the prey, all are part of a horrible circle, you can't feel compassion for some without forgetting that without the others there will also be suffering. Who the hell would program something as horrible as that?
Consequently, I find the world repugnant: the people and their mentality, the rulers, society, everything. At some point, I'd think there's a certain balance, and we tend to see everything negatively, but society takes one step forward and another back, a certain status quo is maintained, and things only change in their forms. In the past, there were slaves and they were paid; today, slaves are called employees and are paid a salary. Perhaps there's no rhyme or reason to believe that a slave was something "non-human" and an employee has rights and needs, can be protected by certain laws, etc., but the essence remains the same, do you follow me? In short, I may have a tendency toward melancholy, but this fucking world, the people, and existence definitely don't help it to be better. An animal doesn't think, but if it realized this shit that is life, we'd see corpses with ropes upon realizing how horrible it is to have done what they do only out of "instinct."

 

[INYGTRMTFMO]

I would say 90% me, 10% the world.

I started having suicidal thoughts when I was 12 and was living a very privileged, comfortable existence. I'm autistic and therefore wired in such a way that makes living in and of itself overwhelming.

But also, were the world overall safer and kinder, I would have avoided certain childhood traumas that likely worsened my emotional dysregulation and my ability to cope with existence. And it is of course difficult to achieve regulation when the world actually is falling apart around us.

 

[Dejected 55]

It's both. The world is awful, and unlike some others I can't navigate it. If I could navigate the awful I might be able to exist... but I can't.

 

[cowplantabduction]

Granted, the world isn't up to scratch. It never has been. But shit, neither am I. I do wonder about trauma. There are things that happened that could explain it, maybe. But nothing compared to what others have had to deal with growing up. Especially some of you. I just don't know.

I don't think you should compare what you've been through to others. I think if you have any trauma, no matter how "small" you feel it is, you're equally as deserving of compassion and empathy as someone who went through more. Everyone experiences the world differently and what could be traumatizing to me could be a minor annoyance to someone else. Someone could end up with mild anxiety from many traumatic incidents over several years but be mostly fine and someone else could have severe, disabling anxiety from a singular traumatic incident that occurred in early childhood.

Everyone goes through bad things, but not everyone experiences those things the same way and not everyone is affected the same way. It doesn't mean anyone is weaker or worse than anyone else. We're all just different.

 

[Cosmophobic]

At some point I thought I could be the problem, for example, my attitude wasn't the best and I tended toward pessimism, which led me to rethink whether I was really doing things wrong... Yes, I made a lot of mistakes, yes, I'm not perfect, yes, I have a tendency toward anxiety, depression, I'm neurotic like you, since as a child I used to be afraid of things that a "common" or "average" child doesn't normally think about, however, that made me realize that the environment and the world that feeds on it is not adequate, so in the end, and I don't know if I'm following Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, it is that in the end existence is shit, the world and many of its people are shit.
I was thinking about it today, I mean, it's not that I'm the subject who most deserves to leave this world without pain, others suffer worse or at least live my last years as happily as possible before leaving, however, it's not only about that but about existence itself. The world and the predators, the prey, all are part of a horrible circle, you can't feel compassion for some without forgetting that without the others there will also be suffering. Who the hell would program something as horrible as that?
Consequently, I find the world repugnant: the people and their mentality, the rulers, society, everything. At some point, I'd think there's a certain balance, and we tend to see everything negatively, but society takes one step forward and another back, a certain status quo is maintained, and things only change in their forms. In the past, there were slaves and they were paid; today, slaves are called employees and are paid a salary. Perhaps there's no rhyme or reason to believe that a slave was something "non-human" and an employee has rights and needs, can be protected by certain laws, etc., but the essence remains the same, do you follow me? In short, I may have a tendency toward melancholy, but this fucking world, the people, and existence definitely don't help it to be better. An animal doesn't think, but if it realized this shit that is life, we'd see corpses with ropes upon realizing how horrible it is to have done what they do only out of "instinct."

I understand completely. If I hadn't found pessmistic philosophy a few years back at a real low point I don't think I'd be around now. For those of us that have always felt existing to be a terrible burden it functions as self-help. An antidote to the blind affirmation of life that keeps the whole sorry story going without end.

I don't think you should compare what you've been through to others. I think if you have any trauma, no matter how "small" you feel it is, you're equally as deserving of compassion and empathy as someone who went through more. Everyone experiences the world differently and what could be traumatizing to me could be a minor annoyance to someone else. Someone could end up with mild anxiety from many traumatic incidents over several years but be mostly fine and someone else could have severe, disabling anxiety from a singular traumatic incident that occurred in early childhood.

Everyone goes through bad things, but not everyone experiences those things the same way and not everyone is affected the same way. It doesn't mean anyone is weaker or worse than anyone else. We're all just different.

Thanks for the sober reminder of this. I know it deep down but I can't help feeling like my level of shitfuckery needs a better origin story than what I can give it. But what you say makes sense. It's something I have to keep in mind.