this world means nothing to a Buddhist. They would abandon us all for true happiness.

Wrong. Completely wrong. Buddhism recognizes the interconnectedness of all things. The world matters, a lot. Life matters, a lot.

but everyone knows true enlightment isn’t possible, especially in our lifetime

Again, wrong. Awakening, looked at from a neurological p.o.v. is: The discriminating mind realizes at an experiential level that the output of the "narrating" mind, the I\ego is nothing more than a construct of the narrating mind itself and thus stops producing intentions based on this false belief. That's it. Its not some magical, mystical thing. The narrating mind is the "binding" consciousness. It takes things from consciousness, and binds them together to create a "story" of whats happening and then projects that information into consciousness. The colour Phi phenomon shows this clearly. The brain can't know what colour the light will change to, but instead of two lights of different colours, people see one light travel across the screen changing colour midway--how can the brain know what colour it was gonna become? It can't. We experience "reality" slightly behind whats actually happening. And what we experience is a "story" put together by the binding consciousness. And this narrating mind attaches an I to the story because stories have to happen to something, its like a function of memory, like you can't remember something unless it happened to someone. And when the mind knows at a deeeeeep experiential level that the I attached to the "story" is also a construct of the mind like everything else we experience, you experience a permanent ego reduction or ego death. Awakening is said to occur in stages and its because of how much of the mind "system" has reoriented its understanding of reality based on this new information (that everything we experience is a construct of the mind because we experience reality through the senses. And the ego, is also a mind construct).

If you want a western understanding of meditation and awakening from a neuroscience p.o.v. then you should read The Mind Illuminated. Its on libgen.

In regards to your other stuff about mental illness and other things that make it harder, you're right, even the Buddha said that people need to be economically lifted up before they can work towards the path to liberation. If you need medication, you need medication; if your position in life leaves you no time or energy, then it will be hard or next to impossible to achieve any real progress on the path. Awakening isn't something that happens because you meditate 10 mins a day or something. It takes effort. The whole, right view, right effort, right livelihood etc etc. There's a reason why monks "enter into homelessness" and give everything up to walk the path. That doesn't mean that lay people can't do it, the suttas have examples of lay people that reached enlightenment. In modern hellworld I can totally understand the frustration, and even the Buddha would agree that people don't have the atmosphere that would be conducive to walking that path. This why I made that Buddha mega awhile back, I firmly believe that like Liberation Theology, Buddhism and Leftism are compatible. We lift everyone up so we can all be liberated(whatever that means for you).