Well, I am a bit of an opptimist ( now, was not always the case ) However I have been dealing with bipoal 1 and psychsosis since I was 11. Much like you these thoughts would be triggered by something, sometimes a small thing and just seem to run on autopilot. I would also awake to voices contantly telling me " you don't want to be here", which would continue until I slept.

I do believe that even if there is a pathway set up over time, that new pathways can be built, and old ones destroyed. Our moods are quite pliable, and so our our brains. If we even look at the universe and how life and consciousness even came about, well might seem quite impossible. Nothing is really impossible. Triggers can be diffused, and new responses can be learned.

One thing I started focusing on was how much time I spent fantasizing about dying. And what might happen if I started fantasizing about living. No one talks about that much. But it helped me a great deal. Also staying in the now, and not like today, or the next few hours. Just this exact moment that we are in. That itself difuses a lot of these seemingly auto-thoughts.

I hope that makes some sense. I beleive we can overcome a lot, and have a lot of power over these things, but the depression, the thoughts, the past experience, trys to show us evidence that we don't. I think it's a bit of an illusion. I have a hard time with concepts that don't allow room for change or growth, they seem unnatural to our world, and they leave one feeling powerless, and with out enough wiggle room. I realize that not everyone shares this idea, so just my opinion.