I'll offer an opposing view. There are people in this world who for whatever reason get the shit end of the genetic stick. Genetics that aren't visible either. Somewhere in their brain, something gets flipped off. And suddenly a chemical isn't being produced or a synapse being fired or whatever.
See the brain is very, very complex. Any tiny thing can really make shit out of whack.
Some people's brains perpetually leave them in the worst mental mood you could ever imagine. They hate themselves. They rarely if ever feel pleasure. They never experience happiness or joy. Comfort or love. They're just alone.
And for some of these people they weren't always like this. Like my friend I grew up with. For the most part he was a normal kid. If slightly hyper sometimes. But all kids get hyper at times.
As he reached his 20s he graduated college and...something changed. A lot of mental issues don't show until your later 20s. And that's the cruel part. Right as you're really starting life. Bam. Shit end of the stick. And people look at you and don't even know anything is wrong.
In my friends case. He withdrew. Stayed at home with his parents. Never got a job. First it was alcohol. Because that was something he new and it brought short term happiness. But whatever darkness in his brain eventually grew as he got older. Mental problems usually do. Again, late 20s.
And then his mom died. I didn't know it at the time but his mom was probably the only thing holding him and his family together. Losing your mother is hard enough when you have a supportive family and a regular brain.
When his mom died. His dad basically disappeared. I can't be sure. But I'm fairly certain the dads girlfriend was around before the mom died. My friends sisters had all graduated and left. His dad was now always at his girlfriends. He lived in his parents basement because that was his room growing up. And now he was alone, and drinking. A lot.
Eventually this led to a lot of DUIs. Which led to more problems. I'm not sure when he turned to drugs. But I sure as fuck understand why he turned to heroin. It's the only thing that loved him. It really was.
Part of his DUI plea deal was court mandated therapy. He lost his license. So he couldn't drive. Therapy was one suburb over about a half hour drive away. But his dad didn't care one shit about him. So he was left alone to figure out how to get there. What did he do? He walked to the local train station. We were the very last station on the line in the suburbs outside the city. The walk to the train station was 39 minutes. The train ride to the city was an hour and a half. The train ride out of the city to his therapy was another hour and a half. Followed by an unknown length of walk. So at least 3.5 hours for what should be 30 minutes had anyone cared about him.
One day I was home for my birthday at my parents house and saw a loose doc running around the neighborhood. It would run near me. Wag its tail. And when I walked up to it, run away a little bit. A game of "follow me" if you will. I tried to catch the dog. I felt bad for whoever owned it. I can't imagine losing my husky. So I tried to grab the dog. But it kept walking away. I kind of knew what it was doing but no clue why or who it belonged to.
Eventually after a block or two I lost it in a back yard somewhere. So I kept looking. Until I saw it poke it's head out of an open patio door at said friends house. It was weird. I didn't know he had a dog. I hadn't talked to the guy in YEARS. I stopped talking to him sometime in high school because he was really a piece of shit to me. But now I understand why. He did it to nearly everyone. It was the first signs of his mental problems.
So I walk up to the open door, and the dog wants me to keep following him in the house. I peek my head in. All the blinds are shut. House looks untouched. Basement door is open and the dog is standing in the doorway. Wagging his tail. He wanted me to go down to the basement.
At this point I called the cops. Because I knew there was a 90% chance that if I went down there I was going to find my friend from growing up dead in the room we used to stay up playing Nintendo in. That's why the dog wanted me to follow him. Something was wrong.
The cops got there and checked, said it took them awhile to wake him up but he was fine. But that dog knew. I know it. I have no doubt in my mind that my friend let the dog out with the door open because he was going back down into that empty basement to die. And didn't want the dog to starve to death in the house. Because after all, the dad never came home, and mom died of cancer awhile back.
A few months later, it happened. No one was there to catch him in time. His piece of shit dad at his girlfriends house while his only son overdosed on the only drug that ever brought him any happiness anymore. That's the shitty thing about mental illness. You can look great on the outside, but on the inside everything can be rotten to the core. The only (temporary) normalcy being drugs. The only thing that cared about him was that dog. And I can just see that dog right now standing over his body in his room. Nudging him in an attempt to get him to wake up.
So I get it, if you overdose on drugs well what do you expect? You deserved it right?! But some people don't deserve it. For some people it's the few moments of existence that aren't unbearable.