hm ...
If you look at the term mental illness in my language - German/ "shift something", "displace a thing" - literally translated, then the perception of the broad reality shifts to a focal point. The desire to take one's own life is a kind of concentrated ray of salvation of an unbearable and ultimately completely senseless existence.
Therefore, I would call it "mental focus on suffering".
I had suicidal thoughts once during a major depression. And I think that my perception of the world was distorted and one-sided at the time - I have a good comparison as it now lays in the past and my outlook on life broadened again, fortunately.
I had an experience that had awakened me so violently from my illusion that the world would be a safe place and should this also be, that I was so frightened that I shrunk together as if in a reflex and escaped any courage to live.
It tormented me for a long time that I was looking for people to blame for my condition. It was only when I began to realize that waking up to the fact that life means that I cannot expect to live through my existence completely unharmed that a greater peace set in.
To make it clear: my experience had to do with fear of death and the violence I experienced before. For many years this trauma haunted me and I have to tell you that your suggestion that there are people behind it who consciously stoke it or make it possible is not very helpful because it further promotes the illusion (I must be unharmed at any time under any circumstances) and makes it more difficult to let go of it.
Which does not mean that there aren't people with bad intentions. But I can stop to blame and focus on that.
It feeds a painful body. Like the analogy that if someone squashed your foot between a door, years later you still murmur the long healed bruise and define yourself as saying that it still hurts even though there is no open wound. The perpetrator is responsible for the moment he closes the door carelessly, but not for the years of self-torture that follow. I had to forgive myself for blaming me not having had the strength to escape from the situation.
Neither do I see myself as prey nor do I see others in this way.
I do not press you for details, and don't feel they would be helpful in better understanding your circumstances. I can appreciate your experiences, and would but note that they are singular, and unique to you. Others have experienced other things.
Some of those things are sadistic depredations. I am glad you have not had that impact your life. That doesn't mean no one has.
I have.
Squashing your foot in a door on purpose is one cruel act. Some people are trapped under the control of others that strive to daily commit cruel acts. This doesn't only create mental stress, it is an actual trap and promise of more to come, and if you cannot see how this can leave one with nothing but despair, then I am glad you cannot imagine more than you can bear.
You are availed of a free and easy mind about the world, and for you that enables you to find joy. This is good.
It isn't the solution to everyone's problems, and self-torture isn't the cause of them either.
From your comments here in this course, I have found that powerful people or bankers exploit people and that some subjugate others. Now that you are talking about a personal experience and sadism, it is very different to reading about fraud or enslavement.
In media cacophony, I often hear these terms and for me, they have therefore stepped out of the personal and gone into a general lament, which I also perceive through conversations with people as a kind of intensified expression of an existence perceived as exploitation. ... In my culture, my fellow human beings are not forced to do something by force of arms or the threat of torture. People force themselves to act because they have a loan on the house or the things they want to buy but cannot afford, which is contrary to their ethics, for example.
Indeed, the personal experiences are as dreadful as they are painful. We don't need to compare mine with yours or speculate which one might have been worse.
My light-hearted attitude is to be credited to the process of recovery. ..... My desperation from that time was so strong that I seriously thought of suicide. That should be enough to let you know that we both drank from that same cup.
If my comment was not helpful to you, maybe it was because I made a criticism ... which has prompted you to concretise a little - I much better understand you now. I want to leave you asking what the solution would be for your problem. Without expecting an answer.
I'll cut to your final question about a solution to the problem of slavery and torture.
I believe that physics is creating the solution by making freedom inevitable. Technology always empowers individuals more than groups, and technology that is now on the cutting edge inevitably becomes available to even the poorest in time.
50 years ago, no king, no pampered pasha, had a cell phone. Now, most homeless people scrounging in dumpsters for their meals do.
What is technology creating today? Weaponized drone armies, 3D printing at home, cryptocurrency, and much, much more. These technologies will enable civilians to prevent armies from subjugating them. We see militarized police in armored vehicles today raiding civilian homes with extreme violence all around the world.
That will no longer be possible.
When thugs can not murder us, take our money, or enslave us without being in danger of their lives, they won't. Then, we will be free of despots, and the despair they cause.
Thanks!
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/zen-for-neighbours.pdf
... I was long thinking of an answer to you but nothing sounded right.
If you wouldn't have survived your own story, you wouldn't be here to confirm it. Same counts for me. The story of violence or trauma needn't dominate our lives. We need all our ingenuity to get out of our closet.
It does not seem appropriate to me to teach people to fear each other, except when the lesson corresponds to the above.