This is my first time here - I discovered this via a link inside Love of Magic, while I was playing earlier. I have yet to try Esoteric (moments away, actually), but something compelled me to click this update as I scrolled down the main page, so here I am. I even made my itch.io account, (finally - I have lurked around here and there for a long time), specifically so that I could respond to this.
I don't know you, or what your project is like, but I did read this post. Believe it or not, I do care. And while I can not honestly say that I know exactly what it is like, these things that you feel...the way that you describe them makes me want to say, yes, I do know exactly what you mean.
My life went to shambles about five, six years ago, and it has been...a continuous state of varying levels of misery, a day to day existence that has a singular purpose - to see what torments the universe has in store for me next. What family I had left are gone, friends I thought I could count on vanished without a trace... A cascade of events out of my control leading to the opportunity of experiencing life when forced to be transient, homeless, with literally no one I could turn to to ask for help. Sleeping under a bench to keep out of the rain, so much energy on a daily basis just...surviving... drove home how...worthless I am. The staggering weight of my own incompetence and lack of having done, or of doing, anything worthwhile..
It definitely puts things in a certain kind of perspective. A dark one.
I struggle with not wanting to exist, as well. And at some point, I actually convinced myself that it was better for everyone, and everything, if I didn't... something I am still trying to undo, to this day. When I can convince myself that I should, anyway. When you can't shake the sadness, it is difficult to do a lot of things.
I do not suffer from chronic pain, at least not physical pain - I do suffer from (and have since I was young) very, very bad depression, and the way you describe how you feel...I could not have said it better. I know what it is like. I know how hard it IS.
I do not mean to come across as minimizing, or anything like that. You've said below that you will endure - when you're always in that space, that void, it is a lot harder than some may think.
I don't expect my own life to get any better, even though I am at least not sleeping on the streets anymore. And I am able to interact with the few things that do bring me some measure of peace, if not slivers of happiness - interacting with the creations of other people. Learning new things. Trying to find my own spark of creativity that I dimly remember having, now gone for so long.
This...may not help, in any way. I'm not sure what I was trying to do, here. Hope and I have been estranged for a long, long time, so...I wish things improve for you, though. I'm lending my energy for that, though I am unsure how much it will help things. I'm not a wizard, after all...yet?
While I find it hard to care about myself as much as I should, these days, it hasn't stopped me from caring about others. Even those I have never met. Enough to get me to finally create an account here and ramble on while probably not improving anything. Felt like something I had to do, though. It can be lonely out here.
Plus, now your existence matters to another person. What you say, too, or else I wouldn't be here. Having read the description of your game before heading in to this post, I think I am going to like it, as well. So there is that, too. But I've talked enough. Too much, easily.
I don't know you, and you don't know me. That is okay. And if we never exchange words, that is okay, as well. We share the enduring, and maybe, just maybe, that is enough.