Welcome, Husky, from a fellow English Maj and writer.
You packed a lot into your post. I try not to make myself miserable about what the world is doing. It seems like a lot of craziness to me and not something I could ever affect to any significant degree. Here's a bit from Pema Chodren that helps me:
". . . the analogy is that you're barefooted, it's like being barefooted and walking across blazing-hot sand or across cut glass. Or in a field with thorns. And your feet are bare, and you say, this is just, you know, it's really hurting, it's terrible, it's too sharp, it's too painful, it's too hot. Do I have a great idea! I am just going to cover the whole Earth, everywhere I go, I'm going to cover it with leather. And then it won't hurt my feet anymore . . . But it doesn't make any sense, really . . . "but if you simply wrap the leather around your feet" -- in other words, shoes -- then you could walk across the boiling sand and the cut glass and the thorns, and it wouldn't bother you. So the analogy is, you work with your mind, instead of trying to change everything on the outside . . .
Regarding a cure for pain . . . if you mean physical pain, cool stuff is happening with the venom of poisonous frogs and such. Non addictive and reported to be more efficient than morphine - with none of the side-effects. If you mean emotional pain - I think that's kind of the human condition and the whole reason why poetry and literature (and English majors) exist.
I hope you stick around. There's lots of good stuff on SR.