I don’t see a massive flaw in your theory but I think it needs some refinement.

I’ve been trying to understand how „healthy“ people’s minds work and I think it comes down to straight up denial of the state of the world.

The people who have been through THE SHIT as you say have probably all had some traumatic experiences in their lives that dragged them face first through how shitty and cruel this world can be and once you see it you see it everywhere and it becomes a downward spiral if you don’t find a way to catch yourself.

And then there are people who somehow managed to not look too closely all their lives, you will recognize them by their unwillingness to discuss any downer topics. They manage to live in blissful ignorance and by just copying each other they stay in their happy ignorant bubble and voila life is good?

Since this seems to be almost a 80/20 split I’d also like to throw in that about 20% of the population fall into the category of being highly sensitive and thereby prone to notice all the shitty wrong things happening around them. We just can’t ignore it and its wearing us down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_processing_sensitivity

I have generalized anxiety because I worry about the general state of the world

Never abandoned alcohol either and depression is like the crazy ex that won’t let go of me

Creamy nooo I promise I love myself now 😭

It sure looks like my brain got the message that crippling depression is not the way anymore.