this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
38 points (100.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

40445 readers
1083 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Like what biological function thinks it's helpful to want to die? It's a visceral reaction so it has to be a kind of biological intuition.

I've got it so bad off of something that is seemingly not worth this reaction. But I can't shake it anyway. But if this sense is biological, then it can cascade beyond reason like an allergic reaction.

I went to a board game night with some folks who are mostly acquaintances. I show up and a group is already starting to figure out a game and it looked like the easiest group to join. This game is bad. I was chill. My teammate was chill. The people we were playing with were chill. But this game was so bad I can't shake the fact that despite everyone having made the best of it, this was not a good social interaction. And I just feel bad. More bad than I should feel. It's just painful.

The game was Jurassic Park Danger! And maybe I just need to tell someone. I'm not going to do anything. I don't need a wellness check. But I can't shake this feeling like death would be ok and maybe for the best.

What is it about bad social interactions that make us feel like death is preferable?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Humans evolved to be social. Hunters and gatherers relied on each other for survival. Ostracism literally meant death. It's so ingrained in our DNA that a social fuck up triggers this thought that we might as well end ourselves and get it over with. The good news is that in modern times you can always find another social group if needed.

[–] janonymous@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

This is the answer, I think. However, as far as I understand it, we can get outsized reactions that are not evolutionary sensible. This oversensitivity can be just a random trait that might not be helpful at all in the current environment (or any other previous environment). It can also just be a psychology response to a traumatic event for example. Humans are quite complex.

[–] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yep, the emotional reaction is unhelpful. Autistic people face this constantly.

[–] dingus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I wouldn't say it's necessarily totally unhelpful. I have extreme emotions and would get frustrated about it, but I recently learned to look at them a bit differently. Emotions are like data. They are signaling something to us. In this case, they signaled something that OP analyzed and then wanted to talk about. Negative emotions tell us that something doesn't line up right and we need to look at why.

Some of us unfortunately just have the intensity of that dial turned up to 11. Makes for some hairy scenarios sometimes lol.