It was definitely a journey and I know lots of things had an influence. Probably some that I didn’t even recognize were impacting me in the moment.
I can tell you that friends made a large difference. No one has more influence on you than someone that actually cares about you. So having several friends that cared about me despite my warped viewpoint was probably a fundamental fulcrum for shifting my views.
I also had the opportunity to befriend a lot of people who are often “othered” in conservative circles. It becomes a lot harder to accept someone painting a group in a negative light, when you actually know people that clearly don’t fit that narrative. It forced me to question the narrative.
Finally though, I think it was me starting to recognize the hypocrisy. An obvious one is that Christianity is strongly tied into the culture, but nothing about modern conservatism exemplifies “love your neighbor as yourself”. Another big point of hypocrisy for me was when Trump was made the candidate in 2016. I’m old enough to remember that one of the large talking points made against Bill Clinton in the 1992 election was a lack of character. And I just couldn’t comprehend how character was so important to the Republicans then, but clearly wasn’t an issue for their current candidate. Character and integrity are important attributes to me, and in retrospect Trump’s candidacy was really a final straw for me.
As for why I moved towards socialism specifically? Largely because I don’t believe capitalism scales well, and the free market leads to too many competing priorities that basically boil down to the Prisoner’s Dilemma (the best outcome for the individual versus the best outcome for the group). I think there has to be an authority external to the market who can intervene when advancements are clearly coming at the expense of the society.
It sounds like you are super depressed right now, and I’m sad you’re going through that.
There are a lot of things out there that are worth living for, and some great experiences to be had. But I’ve had severe depression in the past myself… and I’ll be honest, no one could convince me in that moment that life was ever going to be a positive experience again. So I doubt I will be able to convince you right now.
What I do hope you’ll hear right now, is that your own assessment of life can’t be trusted at the moment. Depression is like a feedback loop. It makes us feel hopeless, and prevents us from believing better things are ever possible. I promise you, there is some way to get help. And your depression is going to tell you I’m wrong. Or that if you could find help, there wouldn’t be any thing they could actually do to help. Don’t trust your depression. It makes us lie to ourselves. There’s help to be had, and you’ll never know if it could help if you don’t actually try.
Don’t trust your self right now. Look for help. Tell professional people that you feel suicidal and trust them to help.