I relate to this heavily, especially what seems like your guilt about it which I relate to the most.

In my case I was raised in an emotionally neglectful environment which suppresses the generation of the self during childhood. As a result, I learned (unconsciously) that I personally have no inherent value, so my value to the human race was tied exactly to my “objective” provable contribution to it. If I could demonstrate my value by helping others, then perhaps one day I would earn the love from somewhere that I didn’t receive from my thoroughly traumatized parents.

There are a few problems with this trauma logic. First, it doesn’t work. People appreciate good deeds, but love and appreciation come from compatibility and trust which I learned that I don’t actually have to work toward to earn. I found that people whose relationship was based on my service to them (like I was raised to seek) aren’t actually connected to me in any way. Second, it is disturbing to live this way because it feels as dishonest as it is. It felt like I was tricking people because I actually was presenting to everyone an image which was cultivated for personal safety as a child rather than for actual connection. I could sense (due to my heightened awareness of other’s emotional states, again, for childhood safety) that others knew I wasn’t being completely genuine and could never truly connect with me. Finally, this approach generates self hatred. Why would I have to hide my true self from the world if my true self wasn’t awful and horrendous? I can tell you I have had thoughts so disturbing I would never commit them to the written word. I thought that was my true self that I had to constantly work against with my paragon persona. As I’ve been getting away from co-dependent and people pleasing behaviors and expressing myself more genuinely, those thoughts that came from me feeling isolated and cornered have lessened. Those thoughts were and are nothing more than the consequence of trauma, not my true self.

I have no idea whether you would relate to any of the above. But I can say that people don’t get to the point where you are and where I have been multiple times in my life without trauma being involved. Trauma fucks you up, makes you feel guilty, and makes you want to isolate. This makes it tricky to find others who are as fucked up by trauma as you are. I have by some fortune found a few of them. It can be incredibly cathartic to talk to other traumatized people and joke about things that the rest of the world would never willingly even think about. It also gave me some perspective. I always assumed my childhood experiences weren’t that bad because my parents always compared what they did to me to what their parents did to them which was even to a child an obviously far worse. By sharing with others what I experienced, I’ve learned that it was actually very bad, I’m not over-reacting, and it makes complete sense that I would come out the other end traumatized with the feeling that living life is a constant struggle which I would be relieved to be absolved of.

As far as systemic issues, what we’re living through now is more typical of the human experience than what our parents experienced. The world is a vastly intricate web of beauty and horrors. We have the advantage and disadvantage of not flinching at the horrors and taking them completely on. This gives us a better perspective of the world’s problems, many of which are frustratingly fixable, but also gives us the consequence which everyone else intuitively avoids. I would never suggest to anyone to bury their head in the sand, only to suggest that there is a greater reality intermixed with and beyond the horrors.

I watched a video of dozens of Palestinians joyfully dancing and celebrating with their friends and family during the height of the genocide. I can’t forget about it because even through they were living through one of the worst things which can be inflicted on a group of people, they understood that joy and community was what they were preserving and could help them all through. I’ve personally never had that, hence my solution to the problems of the world being similar to your solution. Escape them since there’s not much to lose anyway. That’s pretty sick that you and I would ever think that way and the circumstances which caused that are beyond unfair.

I’m far from out of the woods myself, but exposing the parts of myself which I’ve always been ashamed of to people who understand what we went through has hinted to me that some kind of reclamation of my right as a human being is possible. If no one has ever told you, Pete Hahnloser, you deserve to experience some measure of joy and comfort in this life and you deserve to believe that you deserve it and can have it. I’ve never had faith of been very hopeful in my life, and those things have always felt foolish to me, but I’m starting to understand why those things are important for most people. I hope you can find some comfort, whatever you decide.