This is a phenomenon ive noticed watching humans handle their health. They arent suicidally depressed but even when they have a chronic condition, they know its manageable, they simply dont, or do the bare minimum to keep their doctors happy.
Ive noticed it with those i know with heart problems, they complain that they wont live long because their heart is doing poorly but still eat many of the things that brought them to that place.
And before you say "walk a mile in their/my shoes" i will remind you; i am diabetic. Its type 2, and it was so bad when my doctors first discovered it that they werent sure if i was type 1 or type 2, thats bad, extremely bad. I knew how horrifying that was based on my cursory knowledge of chronoc conditions and cold turkeyed everything remotely carb or sugar laden, i ate extra lean, i switched to extra virgin olive oil as my sole cooking fat, i went on insulin, metformin, and atorvastatin for my extreme hyperlipidemia, i turned around my whole act.
The first 4 months i was dealing with tremors, hunger pangs so profound i couldnt move, full body pain, a headache that never, ever ceased in all that time. But i knew "its either this, or dying a horrific, painful death." And thats all i needed to consider, my A1C went down from 13 to 7 in 3 months, then 7 to 6 in 3 more. I didnt do the exercise they suggested only because of the nerve damage keeping my legs in excruciating pain. But i managed to keep my blood glucose in safe ranges for over 95% of the time.
When my diabetic counselor was finally able to see me i was already deep into my cold turkey, she looked at my numbers and then told me "we consider your blood glucose to be good if your average is above 70% which most of our patients struggle with." And i was shocked, it had been so easy for to just... Change, it even reduced the cost of my shopping trips. So when someone i know says "ill die early anyway" when i ask why they continue to eat unhealthily, i wonder if they hadnt grappled with the horror of dying of a health complication, or if their heart just... Isnt in it to choose life.
I dont understand this human proclivity to ignore imminently deadly and painful health threats, but then, i dont understand much about humans.