I can't go on like this, I just fucking can't anons. I need a purpose...

Not literature. Kindly feck into the underbrush.

I will pray for you user.
Do not lose hope.
Read the gospels for you are blessed.

Leap. I was there too. Managed to hop off before dying. I'm back to square one but now I know there is something to strive for, something more. Mentioning the Divine already puts you on the right path. And don't take drugs, it won't fix anything, just delay it.

Read the homeric poems. The stories are good as fuck for men because its only about heroes, demigods and gods and the target audience is men and only men. Wanting to be the hero is in your biology, it's called testosterone, and I believe the poems can help fill in the blank left from all the gay shit that are written for children and women.
Follow the hero names, it can be confusing at the start, google their names and all, and she how they act under all these circumstances.
Of course it wont solve anything but it can help you feel better, it helped me.

Talk to people more, face to face. I thinking we all need to be more social than we are.

unironically this

Don't fret user, it'll all be over soon. After you are no more, all your woes and worries will have had no more of a bearing on this world than a cigarette butt in the middle of Antarctica. So why worry now? I'd be troubled if I were a god, for what would I fill my infinite emptiness with? But this way? Nah. No stress. Nothing new under the sun.

Truth

*Brothers Karamazov

This is the real answer

Become Orthodox. Live Orthodox, become a part of the community. Faith will follow.

Don’t be one of those people who acts like he has nothing to lose but won’t do anything. If you’re truely at the end of your rope, you have nothing to lose by trying something new.

Have you tried reading any existential texts already? Many great authors and philosophers throughout history have found themselves at one point in their life in the same situation as you are now, before re-discovering something that gives them meaning. Of course, others have arrived at the conclusion that life is inherently meaningless but can be enjoyed anyway, and others have concluded that life is inherently meaningless and allowed that to lead them to a path of nihilism and suicidality.

I've been where you are and I know how awful it is, and I'd be lying if I said I was out of it yet. But I've recently started to try to challenge this nihilism within me. Memes aside, Jordan Peterson addresses this topic extensively, so you might benefit from listening to some of his lectures. As a result of listening to him, I've started to read Jung and Frankl (psychotherapists who have written many books about man's search for meaning in life), and maybe I'll find an answer there. If not, I plan on reading some Christian apologetics from serious theologians, because I realised that my past atheism was Dawkins-tier, and I didn't really have logically coherent reasons for disbelief (although I've got no logically coherent reasons for belief either). Failing that, I've also got an interest in eastern philosophy and might try to explore that further, and I know that existential themes are common there too.

I don't know how it will end for either of us, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is that just because we're having an existential crisis now, it doesn't mean that our views will never change or that no one else has felt like us before. Try to challenge the views that are making you unhappy - you've got nothing to lose.

The Orthodox churches just seem way too much to be tied to a specific country. It seems like it would be weird to go to a Greek Orthodox Church without being Greek or to a Russian Orthodox Church without being Russian.

Do some shrooms

You are not supposed to be anything or anyone nor do anything in particular. All your misery comes from your unfounded, twisted expectations about yourself and others. Follow through on your natural curiosity, speak your mind without fear, renounce fear, share your likes and dislikes, embrace change, surround yourself with people you feel comfortable and let them know your appreciation. No one is watching you.

user, please. think long-term and beyond your lifespan.
i don't know your background, but you are talented or passionate about something for sure.
we're all here in this suffering, but we can make it for our sons and grandsons to be better, that they can endure the pain of existance better and eventually overcome those issues.
everyone has a potential of purpose here, whether you are scientist, writer, comedian or just a regular guy living an honest life.
i'm still young but i can relate to you 100% so feel free to chat with me.
also don't listen to this guy stay away from bad habits. it destroys you and you lose a purpose.

read this

charleseisenstein.net/books/the-more-beautiful-world-our-hearts-know-is-possible/eng/separation/

When did this begin and how long have you felt this way?

I'm not that guy, but I disagree that psychedelics are (necessarily) a bad thing for someone having an existential crisis. A strong trip has the capacity to permanently change your approach to being - most people who take things like shrooms, ayahuasca, or mescaline rate it as one of the most significant and positive experiences in their life. Psychedelic therapy has also been shown to be effective for helping terminally ill cancer patients to reduce their anxiety about dying.

It's been years since I last tripped myself, and at that time I hadn't had an existential crisis or ever thought about those sorts of things too deeply, but from the reports I've seen it helps people move away from hard (and unsatisfactory) scientific rationalism by changing what they consider to be 'reality', and helping them to experience concepts such as the universality of all being and the dissolution of the ego. I guess you could argue against that from a philosophical perspective and say that it's just drugs playing tricks on the brain, but if it helps people to become happy (even if everyone thinks they're just a slightly deranged hippy) then I don't suppose it really matters.

You are repeating what you have heard about people saying that it's the most significant and positive experience of their life, I suspect this is false. E.g. What about all the folk who say having children is the best experience.

As someone with quite a few drug experiences under my belt I recommend nobody should do them because there are risks, and I have experienced long-term cognitive problems as a result of drugs mdma/psychedelics. And I was quite moderate in my use so it depends on susceptibility which of course you won't know if you're susceptible until you've been affected!

It is not worth it! The insights from psychedelics slim as they actually are can be gained elsewhere.

Additionally I work in the medical sector and I have read increasing evidence about serious long-term effects of drugs such as lsd, mdma and probably mushrooms.

I'm not OP but I can identity with his feelings - probably worse. I have recovered now but I'd describe at as a really bad mushroom trip now that I think about.

I didn't say THE most significant and positive experience, just ONE of them. For many people who have taken them, it's up there with getting married, having children, etc. Lots of people, including many who felt as hopeless as OP, will attest to its transformative life-changing potential. Research evidence seems to point to the same conclusions - like I say, check out that study where terminal cancer patients were given psilocybin (the active compound from shrooms). I don't think it's ever been investigated for existential crises specifically (for obvious reasons it's very difficult to get ethical approval for research with psychedelics), but I think there's little doubt that they definitely have the potential to help people with this sort of thing. Indeed, the widespread use of psychedelics in shamanic rituals in many different cultures worldwide also shows their potential to support spiritual growth.

I guess this is where set and setting come in. An experienced colleague who can watch over you and support you can be the difference between a good trip and a bad trip. It's also worth mentioning that bad elements within the trip are not necessarily a bad thing - sometimes people report going to 'hell' only to come out the other side and experience pure ecstasy, and for it to be an incredibly powerful experience.

Again, from a hard materialist perspective I suppose you could write this all off as a powerful drug playing tricks on the brain, but if it helps people to come to a happier way of being, then it doesn't really matter.

43 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. 45 Then Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.” 47 When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. 48 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

Evidence comes after movement, not before. Take the blind leap of faith brother, what do you have to lose? God will catch you.

Psychedelics, at a sufficient dose, can indeed change your life

Mescaline especially, holy shit that drug.

In The Last Messiah Zapffe described four principal defense mechanisms that humankind uses to avoid facing this paradox:

Isolation is "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling".[3]
Anchoring is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness".[3] The anchoring mechanism provides individuals a value or an ideal that allows them to focus their attentions in a consistent manner. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society, and stated "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future"[3] are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.
Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions".[3] Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation.

Telling someone who has been a suicidal spiral for years to do shrooms is a really bad idea.