@Guadalion,
Guadalion wrote:
Hello everyone, I am new here. I am a Brazilian young man, almost 30. I have been facing lots of inner trouble lately. Lack of self-steem, identity crisis (I had to shave my beard after 10 years), loneliness, and no goals in life. It is almost impossible for me to read any book (I cannot concentrate for long periods) and I have few friends as well. Feel quite dead inside - suicidal thoughts are common. How can I deal with that? I had had contact with so many charlatan therapists that I have built an inner resistance against it. I am an atheist as well, so you can notice that believing is not my thing,.... Help, please!
Life is its own purpose. You may not believe in religious/theological philosophy currently, but you don't have to in order to see that life occurs for a reason. Organisms reproduce and survive in order to perform their functions within the ecosystems of which we are a part.
If you die, your corpse rots and your highly-organized human body/mind system gets replaced by a bunch of insects that eat it, which then get eaten by a bunch of birds, etc. until some other human retakes your position in the ecosystem by being born into a family much like yours.
Why would you remove yourself from your place in the ecosystem and family that supports you only to have someone else replace you and have to deal with similar life issues/challenges?
Life consists of struggles and challenges to get through. We try our best to do as well as we can under the circumstances we're given and then when death overcomes our resistance to it, we succumb and transition into whatever comes next.
Whatever it is you are struggling with, you will find a path through it and proceed on with new wisdom gained from your experience of dealing with your current struggle. Dealing with identity crises, low self-esteem, social isolation, feeling dead inside, suicidal thoughts, charlatan therapists, etc. are all part of the struggle that leads to new hope by choosing your own path.
All these negative things you mention affect you because you are seeking salvation outside yourself. You have to find your salvation within yourself. Since you are atheist, it will do no good for me to talk about Jesus, but if you want to understand more deeply how to find salvation within yourself despite a world that fails you in every way, the story of Jesus is there for you.
The message of Jesus is not to die at the hands of an evil world, but to overcome the evil of the world and live by being reborn of spirit from it while you remain living. Once you are reborn from the disappointment of the world that has failed you, you will find great opportunities to do good work and thus find purpose. Christians say that we 'become part of the body of Christ' by accepting Jesus, and that makes it possible for you to live and prosper spiritually and do good in an evil world without yourself dying on the cross. Don't bear your own cross when Jesus Christ already did it for you 2000 years ago.
I said it would do no good to mention Jesus since you're an atheist, but I hope you can see how doing so is just an easy way to present a well-known philosophy of overcoming the negativity of the world in order to be reborn with new spiritual life within yourself. Your purpose as a human being is to realize the potential within yourself, not die within because of the negativity all around. Such negativity exists everywhere for everyone, only those of us who see it for what it is must learn to overcome it by finding power within.
I hope this helps and if not, or even if it does, the advice in the previous post about seeking professional help is never bad. If the psychologists are charlatans, try out religious counselors such as priests, or go talk to a teacher or educational counselor about educational opportunities available to you. You could also look for some job to keep busy and feel productive while you are sorting out issues you are confused about. There are lots of ways to keep busy while you wait for the light to appear at the end of the tunnel you feel you trapped in currently (and don't worry, that light always appears sooner or later, just as even the longest and darkest night eventually gives way to the next dawn).