please help me.recently i have been having increasing thoughts about death .im scared of just the fact that the voice in my head would just stop after i die it has become increasingly dificult for me to focus and i dont know what to do either to lock in or to live life i live alone with my mother and when i look at her i feel sad about the fact that she will die one day it has gotten increasingly more depressing i just want to forget this thought and just go back to how i was two days ago it literally started a day ago and now i am in no condition to even look at anyone.i just want to stop these voices in my head im 16 and this has become increasingly difficult for me please help me

And it’s warped my ever present sense of guilt to a philosophical and secular (I am non religious) conundrum.

Okay, so I’ve been having my own crisis 😭 and just to disclose, I have done shrooms before so I’m very much content with death and life and stuff. That’s not what’s bothering me. What’s bothering me is that I really NEED to know WHY are we human? And why us? In this time and day? I believe in reincarnation and that our energy transfers to another life form. But it’s like… where did the life come from? And why do we have to die? I’m just soooo deep in my head with these thoughts and I’d honestly like to please stop thinking like this. It’s obsessive and it gives me anxiety. I will never know. And then I get even more anxiety because I realize with the reincarnation means dying over and over again. I saw a movie on Netflix like a month or two ago, and the guy basically just keeps dying over and over again until he can get his mission perfectly correct. And for him, each death was something he had to mentally prepare himself for. Idk, and then I keep thinking if I’m having these thoughts, I’m probably going to die very very soon. 😭😭😭😭 I’m anxious asf even writing this but I’m okay, I just want to know if anyone has any advice? Even old tales that may provide me some type of comfort? And if anyone else has experienced THESE types of existential crises? 🤣 I’m just shook as hell idk

I’ve been a strong atheist most of my life, never once doubting my beliefs until now. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been afraid of death, fearing that after life there’s nothing — just eternal nothingness. But now, I want to believe in God, to believe that my spirit won’t end with my physical body. I want to believe that there’s somewhere joyful waiting for me after this life.

This fear of death has been overwhelming, leading to hundreds of panic attacks. It had eased for a while, but lately, thoughts of death and my future have come back, weighing heavily on my mind. I’m tired of being afraid; it’s taken a serious toll on my mental health. Earlier, I prayed to God, hoping to feel something, and now I find myself uncertain about what I believe.

On one hand, I still lack concrete evidence of God’s existence. On the other, the odds of my existence feel so incredibly small that it seems almost impossible — yet here I am. I’ve also been through experiences that make me wonder if a protective force was at work. When I was a toddler, I climbed a dresser with a heavy TV on it. The TV slid off, but a box caught it just in time, sparing me. It came so close that I was scratched on the forehead.

When I prayed, I felt a warm, comforting sensation, as if someone was listening. And beyond personal experiences, the universe itself seems perfectly tuned for life: if the size of protons, neutrons, or electrons were even slightly different, or if gravity were a bit weaker or stronger, life as we know it wouldn’t exist.

Despite all of this, I’m still on the fence and need more reassurance. I need to be convinced. If you could provide any support it would be greatly appreciated.

I apologise in advance since I understand this question must’ve been presented a hundred times here, but still I’m at a loss and I would appreciate any help or advice. I don’t know how to cope with this feeling of permenant dread in regards to my death. I feel like I’ve tried all the advice I’ve seen - work, distraction, medication, focusing on family/life etc, trying to accept the inevitable, therapy, self improvement, philosophy, I even tried religion. Nothing ever seems to help me.

It seems I can’t enjoy anything anymore, not even games or music or shows. I’m unable to focus on my exams and I can hardly sleep or eat properly, all because of these distressing thoughts. Even memories are ruined, because I acknowledge that they’re gone forever, and I realise how time slips away so fast. I also believe the thoughts are worsened from the fact that I’m turning 18 next week. I know 18 is young, but it also means my childhood is officially over, and that scares me. I’m not ready to be an adult. I don’t have any friends, romantic experience and barely any social skill. I’m terrible at school and I don’t have any real hobbies or goals. I can’t be an adult when I have literally nothing going for me. And what about when im older, what if i still don’t? I don’t want to grow up, it terrifies me. What if I have to live with this feeling forever? How do I stop these invasive thoughts? I want to be happy and oblivious, it feels like these thoughts are ruining my life. I don’t mean to be such a downer, but if anyone has any advice on how to supress or deal with these thoughts or feelings, i’d greatly appreciate it. I just truly dont know what to do.

I (30f) am virtually invisible in my everyday life. I have a fiancé that I have been with for 8 years, most of which have revolved around his needs and wants. I actively try communicating my need to feel seen/heard to no avail.

Outside of him, I have a few people who call themselves my friends, but unless they need help or assurances, I do not hear from them….including when I reach out.

Recently I realized that if I disappeared, it would be a very long time before anyone noticed, let alone asked after me or looked. Outside of this, it is very common for people in public settings to overlook or completely miss my presence. I’m virtually invisible. I don’t even have someone to call to tell this to.

So the question is, is it even worth it?

It’s the tree falling in the woods dilemma - If there’s no one to care about my existence, does it even matter?

Why am I going to work, paying bills, hemorrhaging whatever hope I have left in me.

Hey everyone. This is a thought I had today. Where do I even begin. Gay, born in a homophobic country, escaped, ADHD, probably Schizoid or at the very least strong Schizoid tendencies(imagine anhedonia being a personality trait, imagine emotions feeling flat and insignificant) and I've been passively suicidal for the last year. Today I realized how much my suicidality does for me. With my Schizoid thing, I live in a world that doesn't have the ability to satisfy me, yet despite that it demands so much. It demands that I protect myself against the elements, that I can afford medication, that I can afford food.... I am giving so much effort to live in a world that will never do anything for me.

This year I've noticed this paradox of my mental health getting better the more I give up on life, the more convinced I become that life is the problem. And I realized it's because when you're suicidal, your focus is much narrower. I don't think about what's gonna happen tomorrow, i can ignore all the shit around me much easier... It's honestly very peaceful

Every thought I feel is worthy of going over twice I like to imagine it being read by those I admire and them giving me the validation and that all this means something and that I’m not just lying to myself that I know shit. I also imagine people who are not able to comprehend and come up with the same ideas as me admire me and give me respect they never did. Maybe I’m just a narcissist and wasting my life on the hope I’m actually special but I guess time will tell. I also imagine those who did me wrong and hurt me see themselves in my angry and bitter words and feel enraged and embarrassed that they know it’s about them but yet I’m above it all and it’s all just my past. I like to hide in past and future because realistically the only thing I have is now and now fucking sucks. All the memories I go back to are just that, memories, but I didn’t know I was making them when they were my present nor did they feel like something worth remembering or feeling nostalgic about. Now doesn’t feel like a memory either but it might be. Maybe things just get worse and this feels like a state of peace. But I actually gave up on peace a long time ago, as long as my mind can think I will never be at peace. The present sucks but the only thing I have is hope of a better future because sadly I cannot live in the past. But I have a harrowing feeling that future is just another state of longing for something better. That I’m going to remember this period and feel nostalgic for it. And then after that has passed I will miss it and wish I had got more out of it. I hope the people I worship as Gods one day see me as one of them. Their voices comment on every single thought I have in my head. I hear them telling me how I’m actually doing well and that there is hope for me. I see them looking at me with as much of a lovestruck look as I do at them. That not only is my mind brilliant but my body an altar worth bowing down to. I fear they will one day get to see me and toss me away like the rest of us mortals. Just another fool who thought she was worthy of the throne and making a change. Lol sorry if I started to act all poetic and shit

Every thought I feel is worthy of going over twice I like to imagine it being read by those I admire and them giving me the validation and that all this means something and that I’m not just lying to myself that I know shit. I also imagine people who are not able to comprehend and come up with the same ideas as me admire me and give me respect they never did. Maybe I’m just a narcissist and wasting my life on the hope I’m actually special but I guess time will tell. I also imagine those who did me wrong and hurt me see themselves in my angry and bitter words and feel enraged and embarrassed that they know it’s about them but yet I’m above it all and it’s all just my past. I like to hide in past and future because realistically the only thing I have is now and now fucking sucks. All the memories I go back to are just that, memories, but I didn’t know I was making them when they were my present nor did they feel like something worth remembering or feeling nostalgic about. Now doesn’t feel like a memory either but it might be. Maybe things just get worse and this feels like a state of peace. But I actually gave up on peace a long time ago, as long as my mind can think I will never be at peace. The present sucks but the only thing I have is hope of a better future because sadly I cannot live in the past. But I have a harrowing feeling that future is just another state of longing for something better. That I’m going to remember this period and feel nostalgic for it. And then after that has passed I will miss it and wish I had got more out of it. I hope the people I worship as Gods one day see me as one of them. Their voices comment on every single thought I have in my head. I hear them telling me how I’m actually doing well and that there is hope for me. I see them looking at me with as much of a lovestruck look as I do at them. That not only is my mind brilliant but my body an altar worth bowing down to. I fear they will one day get to see me and toss me away like the rest of us mortals. Just another fool who thought she was worthy of the throne and making a change. Lol sorry if I started to act all poetic and shit

Every thought I feel is worthy of going over twice I like to imagine it being read by those I admire and them giving me the validation and that all this means something and that I’m not just lying to myself that I know shit. I also imagine people who are not able to comprehend and come up with the same ideas as me admire me and give me respect they never did. Maybe I’m just a narcissist and wasting my life on the hope I’m actually special but I guess time will tell. I also imagine those who did me wrong and hurt me see themselves in my angry and bitter words and feel enraged and embarrassed that they know it’s about them but yet I’m above it all and it’s all just my past. I like to hide in past and future because realistically the only thing I have is now and now fucking sucks. All the memories I go back to are just that, memories, but I didn’t know I was making them when they were my present nor did they feel like something worth remembering or feeling nostalgic about. Now doesn’t feel like a memory either but it might be. Maybe things just get worse and this feels like a state of peace. But I actually gave up on peace a long time ago, as long as my mind can think I will never be at peace. The present sucks but the only thing I have is hope of a better future because sadly I cannot live in the past. But I have a harrowing feeling that future is just another state of longing for something better. That I’m going to remember this period and feel nostalgic for it. And then after that has passed I will miss it and wish I had got more out of it. I hope the people I worship as Gods one day see me as one of them. Their voices comment on every single thought I have in my head. I hear them telling me how I’m actually doing well and that there is hope for me. I see them looking at me with as much of a lovestruck look as I do at them. That not only is my mind brilliant but my body an altar worth bowing down to. I fear they will one day get to see me and toss me away like the rest of us mortals. Just another fool who thought she was worthy of the throne and making a change. Lol sorry if I started to act all poetic and shit

What's the point of dealing with the suffering in life when everything is going to end anyway. We will all die and be forgotten so why carry on when life is so hard

I have been dealing with panic attacks about something so obscure and confusing I don't even really know how to explain it. It's like a fear that I am ME. See it's really confusing. It's like I exist, and I am trapped in my own conscience and I can't do anything about that, and that scares me. Then for days, weeks even months after a panic attack I will spiral into a state where I'm hyperaware of my existence and my thoughts and I'm really focused on NOT having those thoughts again which makes them worse. Nobody in my life understands and makes me feel stupid because I will have really bad panic attacks about it and even I feel really stupid all the time because I don't even understand it. Can anyone help me here? I feel like I'm going crazy.

I don't know why but I feel like nothing that made me laugh anymore makes me laugh. Like I feel either boredom or a bit of fun but I can't have fun anymore

Come my early twenties, I had ongoing systemic friction with my family, but when I went to my pastor, he ignored my anger over the pattern of abuse, all the trust issues, and just told me to forgive them like it was a solo incident, and not ongoing.  I got mad, repeatedly seeking out emotional support from both him and others, but got none.  The pattern I got into was this:  I would ask for validation of my criticism of my family only to get declined.  I would then get angry, lash out and then my audience would distance itself.  I would then back off, causing my audience to reengage.  I would then again seek their support, and the whole situation would restart over again.  Over about a year I shut down my feelings after failing to get any support or validation, for my desire to punish. 

Essentially, my trauma therapy self-prescription is to engage someone in therapy, yelling at him, baiting him to disengage, and then constraining him not disengage to per the rules of engagement, forcing him to maintain engagement with me even if he does not wish to as I am continuing to yell.  After he has proven his compliance, if even at the expense of his pain, I will stop, my mastery of a situation that once caused me trauma having been demonstrated.

And that, friends, is how I intend to get my need for safety/control met, to say nothing of catharsis.

The trouble is, I've failed finding a therapist who can do this, whether in psychodrama, psychodynamics, or whatever, to enact this therapy, and they keep talking about "ethics" as they do.  Instead, I am looking now for a specific-such sparring partner on my own, preferably a trained professional therapist, too, who can join me in discourse during my regular therapy sessions to do this, and to this end, I will, at minimum, be willing to pay $40 per session.  

That said, where exactly might I find/recruit said sparring partner to enact my therapy protocol thereto?

Just tell me no bs even if you don’t know try and explain or something. its going to get me killed if I don’t find out

Hello All,

Thank you so much for reading this! My name is Alanna Barnes, and I am currently enrolled in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program (Psy.D.) at Chaminade University. I am seeking participants for my dissertation research study. My study aims to create a novel measure of psychological safety. This measure would be used in the psychotherapeutic setting to assess if a client/patient perceives their therapist to have created a psychologically safe environment. To participate, I am asking for individuals to complete an anonymous ten-minute survey. There will also be a raffle for one of three $50 Visa gift cards for any participant who would be comfortable sharing their email address. The email address will be kept confidential and only used for the raffle. Upon the completion of the raffle, all email addresses will be deleted.

To qualify as a participant, here are my inclusion criteria:

• Must be over the age of 18
• Must be located within the United States
• Must be English-speaking
• Must be currently receiving psychotherapy from a licensed mental health professional OR it has been less than a year from your most recent session with a licensed mental health professional 
• At the time of the study, one must have completed at least two sessions with a licensed mental health professional

If you know someone or a group that would be interested in taking this survey, please forward. Lastly, if you qualify to participate and want to participate, please use this link.

This study was approved by the Chaminade IRB on September 30th, 2024 with Protocol Number: CUH 449 2024.

https://preview.redd.it/3pkzdz4txp1e1.png?width=1545&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bac7c09e8163f9ae17d35ceee49eee6d181465d

To be honest, I'm just 17 (almost 18) but I feel like something is wrong with me. Normally, the main purpose of life as a teenage is to complete school and/or get a job, but I feel hopeless.

I went to different schools and as time passed I realized that it's the school itself that I don't like. I just can't do things like studying or more generally I can't adapt to what society asks, which at my age is to get a job or to study.

So for these years I just focused on the few positive things I had, and my addictions (weed and cigs) really helped me go forward with everything.

But inevitably, without having friends and without finding any motivation do anything, I'm having an existential crisis.

My family hates me, I have no friends, no money, can't do anything about school or finding a job and I am wondering why the hell am I even here. Tried therapy, took anti depression meds for years and once everything seemed better, in the summer, I stopped taking them (lost almost all efficacy).

But here we go again... I hate my life and I have no purpose or goal in it. I just wanna end it

for context, i'm a young adult and ever since i was a child i struggled with existential crisis as i'm not religious or anything and questions a lit.

lately, i've did made tremendous progress about them but i still feel like i'm missing something to get over them definitely.

indeed while i've learned to not identify with all my thoughts and feelings about existence, learned to see the seer, learned to enjoy life without having to explain every little thing, even learned my practical purpose which is both art and helping people defending my values, well i still feel like something missing.

to explain, i still to this day get weirded out by life it's very hard to explain, it's like i'm questioning the afterlife but also the fabric of life and reality itself, like words and concepts and just every little stuff, does that make sense it's like the ultimate existential crisis. and i just feel like i've come to a point where i have to directly adress the issue to move on & just it will help me to enjoy life more and be more proactive in my life if i'm not in that existential state anymore.

anyways, i've did made a lot of progress i just need some final advices or anything that might help me move on, thanks in advance.

I always feel like I look better blurry. When I can't really see my own face in the mirror, it feels more beautiful. It's like I'm not really me, just some stranger looking back. I don't feel like I'm anyone special, just another person who will live a little while, then die, and be forgotten. I don't want to be alive anymore. I don't care what happens after death. I just want to escape this life because it doesn't feel real. I'm just surviving, not really living. People say that survivors win, but I don't feel like a winner. I feel stuck, just waiting to die and finally be free. I hate myself and I'm tired of waiting for things to get better. I don't think they ever will. People who are supposed to support me are holding me back and keeping me from achieving my dreams. I feel trapped and hopeless.

Feels like its all over, I'm gone. Nothing left of me.

Nothing really, I messsed up beyond comprehension...likely just in this moment, possibly not in perpituity... everything is crumbling figuratively.. all feels figurative. There doesnt seem to be a connection, just a disconnect, everything feels like its disintegrating. I think I am disintegrating, slowly, I forgot what I needed to do... why was I even doing it? What was my purpouse to do it? There wasnt an actual reason... maybe some form of reason. Thats gone now. I'm floating and sinking in different directions. Everyones moving past me, leaving. moving on, im stuck in the past. More and more stuck in the past the more time goes on. Relatives I knew are still little children, x is still called twitter, I'm living in some other year, the math doesn't work out. 2021? .. feels like nothing ever changed. Its 2024, I'm slowly catching up, what happened? Why am I in the wrong place? Why are the names and ages of everyone wrong? Covid happened but my mind stunted itself. Everyone is the wrong age, and now im melting away cause of it. Everything is incongruent, and abstract, re-aligning itself. How? Everyone else has a life, I have a life too I talk with others I go to college... everyone seems to be a decade ahead of me. Very very ahead of me. I need to stop and think. Everything just crumbles faster if i stay but i do not know how to leave. I'm in the wrong place. Sometimes I think I'm crumbling everyone else as well, but i can't crumble their lives. Not unless I did something harmful. I'm not mentally stunted I just feel out of it, like I got plucked from a ship in a cluster of stars and now can only observe from a million light years away.

Everything is unfamilliar... familliarity slowly fading away, understanding blooms anew and fades my morning time. My communication skills run amock, misunderstanding abounds, I need to stop the clock again and its like the problems stop for some time.. but the clock hasnt stopped and reset in a very long time.I thought it almost did this week, but it never trully did. This post is a jumble, a mess, just a crumb from a crumble of pieces all falling over eachother as they collapse into the void that is my feelings on everything and anything. Is this an existential crisis? My brain runs weird, wild, random paths trickling like water into all directions.I messed up, others picked up on it, what am I even doing?

Where am I going? Why am I even doing this? Its fine i'll "get through this" but where am I even getting through to? Some peoples lives seem great, peacful, happy, i.e. some familly members. Happy cozy home, kids and grandkids, lived their life and retired. Can I not do that? be done with it all and just be an elderly person with... someone I suppose... but I have so long, decades and decades till then if it ver comes. Not sure why im doing any of this anymore.

I'm 20 yrs old and I've been having an existential crisis for a week or two and I've been si terrified of everything. How did you guys stop feeling this overwhelming dread? That there's nothing after this life? I'm just such a mess and really need help but I don't have the support system to turn to. :( Please help, I can't live my life properly anymore and i just feel like crying every time i think and use my brain.

Some people just seem better cut out for this life. What am I supposed to do if there’s no way out of a life that is meaningless?

I am an 18 year old college freshman studying Chem. Engineering. I am trying to survive my first year of uni and make the most of it. But every single day of my life for the past 8-ish years I have thought about the day i will die and the fact that I will be gone forever. I am thinking of trying therapy. I take medication for anxiety and depression, and have a little OCD.

I don't even know what to ask or what Im thinking of getting out of posting this. I just want out of this somehow

I don't know where to begin or how to structure this as everything bleeds into each other so I'm sorry if this is ramble-y. I'm going to segment this into sections.

Loneliness/Lies: I feel like no one would like me if they knew all of me. I have unusual religious/spiritual views, political views, sexual desires, etc. I can find a community that accepts one of these, but I'm always hiding the rest of me. I feel like I'm constantly lying. I am going to try and be totally honest here in this post, but it's so easy to lie by omission and just give people the part of you that is most acceptable to them. I feel like no one has even a decent understanding of me.

Gender: I am an MTF I think? It's possible I have deluded myself into believing what I want to be true. I have maybe two life goals and one is a deeply driven desire to be a woman. I can't come out though. Maybe my parents would accept me, but it would be a massive emotional and financial strain on them that they can't afford. And beyond that I am too cowardly to admit it to them.

Age/Job: I am 28. I feel quite embarrassed about this in conjunction to my lack of non-success. I write and self publish books of which maybe a dozen people read. I don't think I really have any useful skills. I feel like I am constantly an embarrassment to my family due to this in conjunction with other things about me.

Living Situation: My parents are divorced. I live with my mom in my childhood home. I sleep in my childhood bed that should be too small for an adult yet fits me fine. I feel like an overgrown child. I am spoiled and immature. I feel like such an embarrassment. The fact that I have the gall to be still discontent with my situation... it should fill me with shame, I feel even though I don't feel anything to the thought.

Laziness: My life is characterized by two traits, both deadly sins. One is my Laziness. My family is financially struggling and I can't even make myself try to help except continue my writing. Sure maybe I couldn't make much money but shouldn't I be trying? Instead I do nothing all day, living off the money the government gives me for having executive dysfunction and in someone else's house. I can't even do basic stuff consistently like clean my room, do laundry, etc.

Sexual Desires: The other trait defining my life is perversion. I feel so embarrassed saying this, yet in the venture of honesty I'm trying to be honest. I spend a lot of my time in erotic discords and in sexual fantasy. The other of the two things I'd want if I could do anything would be to have sexual experiences.

Sexual/Romantic Orientation: I'm not really sure. I understand my SO decently well (Primarily interested in Women but not Exclusively), but I don't really know what I want Romantically. I don't know if I'm not interested in a romantic partner or I'm so introverted that I am convincing myself that or I'm so pessimistic of my prospects that I am convincing myself that. I had an online relationship once and it felt amazing but I don't know if that was just from feeling validated as a woman. Also I don't even know who it would be with.

I am in so many ways the picture of what should disgust people. Lazy and Lustful, living off other people, spoiled, immature and ungrateful. I feel like a useless embarrassment to the lives of others. I recognize I have some positive traits. The money I do get I am generous with and would give in a heartbeat. I am empathetic to the needs of others. I don't experience envy or greed and am happy for the successes of others. That said I feel like a loser, completely useless and a bad person.

My major hopes are that either the Singularity will happen or that I die and go to Heaven and that in either of those I can live the life I wish I had, not that I even really know what that is other than living as a woman and maybe finding romantic/sexual partners.

So like I’m kinda fine sorta but.. I believe an existential crisis can be ongoing. Please remove if wrong sub.

Anyways, I’m wondering if anyone else in the US is finding it harder every day to succumb to all the BS just for a box to call home and kinda survive just enough to get through the next work day. It’s becoming unbearable for me and many people around me, and completely unmanageable for many as well. Even if the finances eventually work out, it’s like my whole life is revolved around whatever job I have at the time. The majority of us have no way to get ahead, i.e. have time and resources to actually live for more than an afternoon or two a week or whatever. I’ve heard it phrased as working to live vs. living to work, and we are certainly doing the latter (many people so very blindly, as well).

Point is, we should all be aware this is intentional; keeping us all in our place, which is to serve and uphold a wasteful and frankly disgusting society that many of us were born into. Sure, it could be worse - why I said I’m kinda fine sorta. But.. I’ve been sick and tired of this truth for a while. Just been trying to find better avenues but, ya know, it still ends up being the same BS. It just never ends. So, yeah. I’d say I’m in an existential crisis related to all that, and I know others who are in that same spot. Have been and will be until… probably the day I die at this rate. Thoughts?

few days ago I saw a Rick and Morty reel that left me with the thought that morality doesn't matter, or has no value, or doesn't exist: it also extended to emotions and positive intangible world concepts like love, kindness and other things. And now every time I see an expression of some of these concepts taken to a deeper place, I feel weird and like a hostility towards that element. I want it to be understood that I suffer chronically: I suffer and suffer and suffer, a part of my brain is constantly looking for some way to make me suffer.

And I don't even know well what torments me, what hurts me, I know it has to do with morality and therefore with emotions.

I know that what torments me has to do with cynicism.

I'm trying to explain myself, give explanations of why, why it matters, why it has value, why this and why that. But I don't stop suffering: I stop for a while and then I go back to suffering and I don't know what to do.

To give an example: I listen to a singer, Aurora (I feel like it's coming off as post bait because of all the names,but I swear It isn't)

She has a philosophy in her music that I always liked, but with this crisis, I'm starting to feel it "ridiculous"

I want to clarify that it's not that I just let it happen, all the trying to fix myself is so that that and more disappears.

But again, it goes away for a while and then comes back, and always comes back, and I'm tired.

I am a 19 year old male currently pursuing my 2nd year im design education. Recently I have been having existential crisis every single day regarding my growth, relationship and my environment. Ever since I was 16 my hairline started to recede which completely destroyed my self confidence in anything I do. Though people and my friends say i am very nice as a person, talking with them feels weird as somehow mentions about my hairline. I try my best to avoid people to remain in solitude but that also frustrates me because i also need someone close to talk to. I have never been in a relationship but i atleast want to experience it once but my ability to ralk with people has completely vanished. I became such a nihilistic person and now I want to embark in a journey where I want to reflect on my life and start to accept the things they are. Though I try not to worry, somehow or the other it just comes back. I am sick of this life and really want things to change. I really hope something good happens to me.

To say my experience with existential crisises has been a messy one would be an understatement. I had my first one when I was 17 and it was so bad I genuinely went into psychosis for almost four months. I am now 20 and have been having daily reoccurring existential thoughts and dread about death since that first freak out at 17. What’s crazy about it all is: I am both completely content, and yet absolutely to the bone terrified.

I came to terms a while ago with my own personal meaning and reason for existence. I personally believe that we are the universe experiencing itself. We keep looking for answers we will never find because there are no answers. We simply are the answer. There is no afterlife, no heaven or hell, no eternal reward or divine punishment — we just all simply return to where we were before we were born. I assume it’s painless and content, since you would probably remember if it was anything other than. I believe that our purpose in life is simply that: to not have purpose. If we do have a purpose, it’s simply to exist. To be alive and experience each other and ourselves. However, just because I have found my own personal meaning, doesn’t mean I am not absolutely scared shitless of losing it all.

I can go a full day without dreadful thoughts or reminders of the fact that I am going to die, but once I lay down at night, the moment I close my eyes, it all starts flooding in:

“You are going to die. It is inevitable. You are going to die one day and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Everyone shares the same fate, including you. How will it happen? Who, what, when, where, how, why? Who knows? Not you! It could happen tomorrow. It could happen 30 years from now. It could happen when you’re 107. Regardless, you will die. Chances are you won’t even know it’s happening. Your days are numbered. The clock is ticking. Every second is now wasted. One day you will be dead. You will not remember any textures, any scents, any sights or sounds. You will leave everything, and everything is going to leave you too.”

It’s almost hellish. I’ve started trying to count my wife’s breathing to ground myself with something, anything, but then the thoughts turn to her and her demise instead. Then, I get scared that either of us will get dementia and forget the other, dying without remembering our love. She is one of the only ones who knows I get these feelings of dread and these thoughts. My family doesn’t know because I have a personal disdain against sharing any mental health problems with my immediate family (I could not tell you why). Because of this, I don’t have easy access to proper therapy. If I was honest with my family about how terrified I get, I’m sure I could get someone proper to talk to, but I just can’t do it.

I’ve been handling it relatively fine on my own otherwise, it’s just… sometimes it’s a bit much, y’know? This probably all seemed like a bunch of yapping but I just HAD to talk about it or I was gonna go crazy.

I hope everyone here is doing well and staying healthy. You are your own purpose. You do have meaning and you are loved. Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.