At the age of 11 or so, I realised that the package deal I had been given was booby-trapped and decided I wanted to die. I speculated as to the reasons and concluded I was not built for this world, that the problem arose 'before sunrise' (an idea I got from the author Zoshchenko, who I read at that time). In one sense, I was right, and am still right. I don't think any of us (the spirit) is built for this world. It needs a spiritual way to operate, not the materialistic, hedonistic, and individualistic mishmash of the ego, which is the standard kit in the society I am familiar with.
Between then and 21, I was suicidal, consistently so, and, between 21 and around 36, there were occasional flare-ups of those feelings or certainly of the mindset and insights from which the suicidal ideation originated. Getting sober at 21 did fundamentally help, but did not pull the plug out of the world's socket. I was still powered by its poisonous current. NB I'm in my 50s now and haven't felt that way in a long time.
I saw lots of people who tried to help over this period. Why did the help not help?
Because everyone who tried to help was part of the system that was killing me. It was killing them, too, apparently, but they'd learned a number of coping skills, anaesthetic techniques, and fool's gold (e.g. domesticity, career ambitions, romance) to successfully suppress the uneasy feeling that there was something amiss with the whole set-up.
The only help they were able to offer was to go back to the centre of the universe I was trying to escape and find ways to work around the side effects, to dissociate and shut down, and to construct blueprints that would allow me to suspend the unhappiness until plans were achieved that would solve the problem. Of course, they don't, or everyone with a home, a job, and a family would be quite happy.
People can't take you further than they are themselves. Even the lugubrious priest I saw, who had saggy bags under his eyes, had no solution. He didn't mention God or touch upon the subject of spirituality. Instead, he offered 'pastoral' care, which did not help.
Here's what I would say to my 11-year-old self:
"You're absolutely right. You've seen through the system, and you want out. Suicide is a perfectly logical solution and reflects your keen insights.
You're full of cognitive distortions instilled systematically by the world; these cause you constant pain; no one has taught you how to look after your body or what it's even for; every problem is solvable because someone has solved it, but the world has no system for disseminating that information in an effective, efficient way; your social interactions are shot through with codependency, as are the social interactions of most people in the world (the remainder largely being psychotic or reclusive), you have zero boundaries, you're totally enmeshed; your philosophy of life is dreary; and spirituality and morality are not even questions in your life, because they aren't in most people's lives. And don't even get me started on religion.
You're right to be looking for the exit, but there's a solution that enables you to carry on operating on the material plane without buying into the system. We can show you the second door out of the lobby."
The solution to the ego system is not to bed down in it and make oneself as comfortable as possible but to escape it altogether by transcending it without leaving altogether. Essentially: to rise above the battlefield. Suicide was plan A. There is a plan B. Thank heaven I found it.
If you want further reading by people who have found a plan B, apart from the Big Book, try:
Anthony de Mello
Joko Beck
A Course In Miracles
There are many others.