Coping with Persistent Misery

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This isn't a suicide post; I am not suicidal. But every day of my life, as I go through my daily activities, I find the only way I can pull myself through them is by chanting "I want to die" in my head over and over. I used to say this out loud, and was chided by a friend, who was legitimately concerned for my well-being (though I assured him I meant no harm to myself). I do feel pretty miserable reciting this over and over, but in a way, it validates my internal struggle in ways no one around me ever could, mostly because they are unaware. Does anyone do something similar to this? Or even, is anyone acting out their lives in a constant state of misery, as I am? I have a burgeoning career that is pretty fulfilling thus far, and I am in a satisfying long term relationship with my significant other. I am healthy and have a supportive family and a satisfactory number of friendships. I am not despairing, but I am miserable. Everything seems too much, even the good things. Sometimes my significant other will show me a grand gesture of love, and it will be so overwhelming that I well retreat to chanting in my head to get through the moment, with a big smile forged on my face. It seems the only way I can have peace, is not through happiness, but through nothingness. I know Aspies need their solitude, but the nothingness is not satisfying, just peaceful. The only way I can achieve satisfaction is through doing, and doing is always a miserable ordeal. My life seems so paradoxical, it is objectively amusing, but subjectively frustrating.

TLDR: Who else is miserable?

Its like I understand pieces of what you describe, but haven't experienced it in that intense or continual a fashion.

I can relate to the mantra. I have done things like that. And its nothing to be ashamed of. I am not sure why, but it may be helping to stop from being overwhelmed. In time you might find it will morph or change into something new, a different thought, or words. Almost like weighted boots a diver uses to stay on the ocean floor and not go drifting away.

Its a compensating technique I would guess, and over time you will try and find others that work. In my case these techniques helped and things did become easier in time as you become more experienced. Try and use your good brain to work positively and to make little gains, and try as much as possible to limit letting it gnaw on itself like some bites their nails in nervousness.

I do this a lot in my head. "I want to die", "kill me, etc. I always felt as if these were annoying, intrusive thoughts. Never thought of it as stimming behavior, but it makes sense now. I don't think it is healthy stimming, but I have yet to replace it with a positive mantra.

God, yes, I chant "I want to die" in my head. I do feel miserable a lot of the time and like nothing is worth doing--like you said, an ordeal--and yet because I live on other people's dime and it's unsatisfactory for both me and them in the long-term, and because I can't just erase the entirety of my life from history, I feel very definitely obligated to keep going. When interpersonal difficulties are particularly threatening, the mantras create a cold place where no one can touch me. Singular and simple and contained. When the words aren't enough I imagine becoming financially self-sufficient, everything in my hands at last. I imagine coming home by myself to a tiny apartment at night with all the lights out, shutting the door, locking it, closing my computer, turning off my phone. And then I just think about having the freedom to kill myself if I damn well please. If I start thinking about or imagining the act itself, I upset myself remembering all the obligations and personal connections that wouldn't actually go away if I did this--e.g. that it would break my parents' hearts, my friends' hearts, etc. But walling everything out with the desire and the circumstances, that I do.

And then when I actually do end up doing something pleasant on occasion, feeling safe for long enough not to think about it much, or when I'm confronted by something like the TV/movie suicide of a character with whom I actually identify--when I'm confronted with things I can't bring myself to shut out like that...I get uncomfortable transition phases. Where something bad happens immediately after, but the chants don't sound quite right still, like I'm actually cutting myself off from things that aren't obligation. Flawed, fundamentally so, this catch-22.

Yeah, I do that too even though I don't actually want to die. I have other chants that get stuck in my head.

I'll say: "I miss xxxxxx" (name removed) because he's a very calm person and if he was there he would calm me down.

Another is: "I'm so lonely" and "I want to go home"

I don't know why I do it.

I'm trying to replace them, but keep going back to the negative old things I always say.