What Can be Done for Those Who've Lost Faith in Life?
I recently had a discussion with my therapist that essentially boiled down to her saying "I can't be responsible for improving your condition." I do actually agree with her on this; I've found myself in the bind of trying to improve another person's life and was entirely ineffective no matter how hard I tried. It just seems to be true that no combination of external forces/circumstances can cause a person to come to what must be an internal 'realization,' but what happens when a person finds that, despite all their effort they're unable to change the foundational conditions of their suffering?
It feels like the essential precondition to healing is having a belief in the value of life, one that I don't have yet hoped to have been able to acquire in interfacing with the mental health care system. But this is a spiritual belief, a faith one must have in life, and arguments have no authority in the realm of spirituality. But if what I'm missing is this vague yet fundamental belief that life is inherently good and worth living, then no amount of therapy/psychiatry seems like it will ever genuinely move the needle. One of the most foundational premises of mental health care is that no one is beyond help, but does this premise depend on an understanding that all people possess this belief somewhere inside them? Because I don't believe I do, and if I don't then I'm sure there are many others like me who don't either.
To personalize these questions, I've been in therapy for around six years, seen multiple therapists on a weekly/bi-weekly basis, have tried a confluence of various psychiatric medications, attended a psychedelic-assisted-psychotherapy program, all the while making many changes in my life including my own gender & hormone profile, and yet I find my both my depression and levels of cognitive distress largely unaffected compared to when I began. My reason for starting & continuing to pursue this process has been that if I want to end my suffering my only alternative is to end my own life, something that I lack reasonable means to pursue and so found to be quite unsatisfactory. But I feel like now I've come to the realization that the mental health system can't help me, and I find myself at a loss for how to move forward without simply accepting the fact that my life will be one of continual suffering.
Any advice here is appreciated, as well as if anyone has any input on the questions I posed regarding the mental health system I would be happy to hear them.