I’ve always been a nihilist who sees no purpose in life and have no moral compass. I sometimes wonder if I deserve to be miserable, suicidal and severely depressed, the way I am now, because of that. I had a troubling upbringing involving a physically and emotionally abusive dad and a denigrating mum who treated me like ■■■■ if I didn’t meet her expectations in terms of academic results (for example she would starve me if I didn’t get into the top classes, constantly compare me to her friends’ kids who are doing better, etc). I grew up internalizing that I’m worth nothing if I don’t have amazing academic and career achievements, so I hustled hard my whole life and ended up now being miserable with no sense of purpose except to do anything it takes (even unethical ways if necessary) to make money (it didn’t help that I grew up in a low-income family so I was always terrified of one day living on the streets due to poverty). I know what I do sometimes is not right and I do feel guilty but I’ve been living on survival mode for so long that to me, ethics doesn’t matter at all in the face of survival. In other areas of my life, I noticed many toxic behaviors too, like the way I get bitter when I see someone else doing better than me or having the things I could only dream of, the way I’m selfish, the way I would sabotage others just to get an advantage over them (or to prevent them from getting an advantage over me), the way I’m prone to threatening people with my suicide if they don’t fulfill my demands…basically there is nothing I’m not willing to do in order to get my way, as long as I don’t get jailed. I’m not proud of the way I am but I just feel the need to behave like this to survive. I wish I wasn’t like this but my survival mode mindset is so deeply ingrained that it seems impossible to get rid of. I guess karma bit me back cos I have no family members who like me, very little friends and oftentimes on the brink of suicide thanks to having no meaning in life.
I don’t know how to overcome this and I wonder if maybe someone as screwed up as me really doesn’t deserve to be alive.