I went through a season of life with these symptoms (I did not see a point in doing anything, no communication was genuine, thoughts with a desperate edge).

I was overwhelmed, operating on “lowest battery mode”, my senses (of direction, both physical and mental) were fuzzy and unreliable.

One of the biggest favors I ever did myself was realizing that sanity can be outsourced. And sometimes, that is what you have to do for a while. There is nothing inherently wrong with needing or wanting this; it is natural for people to need each other and need communities that can hold them steady sometimes.

People submit themselves to a larger community that they trust (such as religious communities, eco village farm communities, communes, the military if they trust their country, etc.) for at least 50% this reason. You have to choose carefully to avoid joining dysfunctioning and predatory sub-societies, but when you have limited energy and bandwidth it is sometimes more feasible to cope with making just 1 big decision (who to trust), then outsource the rest to the community or leadership you’ve chosen for a while.

For a lot of my early 20s, I felt so overwhelmed by the world that I just went into NPC mode and joined a group of people with similar beliefs (in my case it was a small spiritual community of less than 12 people). We weren’t stupid, we were aware of what we had signed up for (1 of us was shepherd, 11 of us were sheep). He regimented our entire day from dawn til dusk (work assignments, bathing times, meal times, worship times, trips into town, etc.) and managed all resources (all money, belongings, room assignments, clothing, food, relationships if any) and the only reason this went well is because he was not a psycho. He made it clear that he was not going to explain why he was telling us to do something unless he deemed it necessary for us to know, so questions like “why bother?” already had a default answer (because he said to do it). These were mostly menial things, not psychotic things. The amount of stress this took off of my mind and body is incalculable.

But its only a relief if you can seek out and find a person or group you’d trust with your most prized possession (yourself) for a while. What the 12 of us were doing was fine because we wanted to live in surrender like that (to someone with a better purpose than we could establish on our own yet), but if any of us had been unwilling it would have been the most depraved thing ever (slavery).

I’m not saying this is the only solution or the best solution in the world, but I am saying that there are people out there who will help you to whatever degree you need, even with your entire life if that’s what you want. So if you actually wanted something less intense than that, you have an even higher likelihood of finding people who will support you. Just find those people. It can be a difficult task but at least it is singular, which can be less overwhelming and give you a sense of direction and purpose until you find them.