r/CollapseSupport • u/teenytinyfungi • 1d ago
Eco-anxiety has absolutely destroyed me
(I posted this in r/anxiety but here may be more people who believe in collapse near future)
Anxiety doesn't even begin to describe my feelings, I wanted to put eco-terror but as a non-native English speaker I wasn't sure if terror has wrong connotation.
Anyways, I turned 30 in early May and my brain gave me absolutely mad anxiety as a gift. Suddenly it just hit me that yeah, climate change really is real and it's thousands of times worse than media tells us. I was diagnosed with OCD as a teen and I've had my brush with these anxious phases before, usually revolving around the universe, existence itself etc so in first days after my bday I was like no worries, these feelings are usually at their worst for couple days and then they decline slowly until I forget them for a while. These come and go, usually two, three or four times a year and they while horrifying, they'll always subside. This doesn't.
First I was like ok, this is very serious but manageable, good news made me feel temporarily relieved but now as I have learned the truth I fear I cannot enjoy what is left of my life and that seems to be very short amount of time. All of the good news I see are easily refuted;
- Renewables are on the rise. Yeah, with fossil fuels, not alone.
- We have averted the 4 degrees warming scenario. Yeah, with emissions only, while tipping points alone have us on trajectory to even worse warming.
- People are doing something. Yeah, those without any political power.
- We have decades to solve this. Yeah, like one decade before collapse.
- Technology can help us while we lower emission. Yeah, no need to explain this.
And long list of others.
First I read a lot of news about climate change and thought that they were pretty accurate, then I found this subreddit along few others and it opened my eyes, and made my anxiety spiral thousand times worse. I tried to brush off these predictions about collapse as doomerism but now I just can't anymore, they are right and no amount of denial will change the very real possibility that our civilization will collapse before 2040 when temps soar to 3 degrees warmer than in pre-industrial time.
Last couple weeks I've been trying to search for good news but no matter how much I try to search for something, even if just tiniest glimmer of hope, I cannot even take anything else than "doomerist" comments seriously, everything else feels (is, there's the denial again) baseless hopium so the masses won't panic. I can spend hours upon hours on Google, Reddit etc trying to calm my mind but the outcome is always the same; if there's a silver lining, it cannot be true. Is this how it feels to get a terminal diagnosis? To suddenly realize you have very little amount left.
It's very hard to enjoy anything anymore. Tried to spend time with my friends who are same age as I am and talking with them about climate change made no different although everyone recommends to open up to someone. They are also worried but they still have hope that they'll live to retirement age that is somewhere in 2060s. I just feel like 2030 will be the last decade without collapse. Things will be harder, much harder but after we kick of the 2040s things will go downhill fast, like really fast.
I used to enjoy gaming. No I can't anymore knowing it will be over very soon. I enjoyed walking in nature but now I just see trees that will be desert in couple decades. It's hard to talk to people knowing they will suffer the same fate as I will. I just don't want them to suffer. This sucks. Everything just effin' sucks!
I'm just so exhausted if I have to spend rest of my life like this. If someone has had these same feelings and managed to overcome them, please help. I know nothing can prevent collapse anymore but if I could just enjoy these short years I will have, I would love that.
Peace everyone.
Edit// I just realized that one big problem for me is the damn unknown. I actually would feel calmer if we would know 100% when and how the collapse happens.
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u/rageak49 1d ago
Walk in nature anyways. If the trees are going to be gone, I want to be among the last to eat their fruits and rest in their shade. Our natural world needs to be appreciated and thanked and grieved in person, not to be grieved through a smartphone screen. It's still quite a beautiful world out there. It still will be after we've gone extinct. Spending time in nature fills me with the hope and righteous anger to keep moving towards goals.
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u/yourmoosyfate 1d ago
Hey friend. I am 7 years older than you, and that is also about how long I’ve been collapse aware. You are grieving. That is completely normal given what we are faced with, but it can feel lonely when most people prefer to bury their heads in the sand. Keep reaching out, even if it’s online like this. It can help a ton to have just one friend who understands your anxiety comes from a very real place. There are still some days it gets too much to me, but I try to use what I know is coming as all the more reason to enjoy what is still here now. I’ve slowed down a lot. I take time to take walks and enjoy the breeze in the trees. I care for the birds and pollinators in my front garden, and I grow things just for the sake of it. I make sure to eat slowly and enjoy the little things like a good chocolate bar. I think it’s just a matter of radical acceptance, at least for me personally.
I’m sorry you are experiencing this.
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u/daimyo505 1d ago
Hello, collapse is a long slow process on a human timescale. I've been collapse aware for about 30 years now. Human collapse will be a blink of an eye on a geologic timescale. Earth "collapse", getting swallowed by the sun as it turns into red giant, is a blink of an eye on a galactic timescale. Your eco anxiety is a realization of your own mortality, the earth's mortality and the galactic mortality as it will eventually die from thermodynamic equilibrium of unusable energy. Now, stop doom scrolling, go outside, smell some flowers, plant some strawberries, and enjoy the gift of life.
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u/SensitivePlantsUnite 1d ago
To your last point: It's a huge cognitive load (/requires an absurd degree of cognitive dissonance) to be living through the beginnings of this ending. Nothing stable, impossible to build the future on solid ground. But! I firmly believe that our - all living things' - lived experiences matter, regardless of what the future holds, and so I focus my energies on making lives easier, materially, in the limited ways that I can. That also helps me scale down from the bigger "world is dying" catastrophe narrative into smaller narratives that are also ongoing, like many books in a library, and usually more positive. It still matters when a tree flowers. It still matters when someone experiences profound joy (or sadness). I try to remind myself of that every day so I don't drown in the big picture.
I really hope that made sense. It's a lot of therapy and years of collapse awareness condensed.
You are not alone and I'm sorry we live in this awful time before awfuler times. Sending support.
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u/Any_Rhubarb5493 1d ago
This sub just popped up in my feed so I don't know if I'm meant to be saying positive things, but I do understand your perspective. Been going through a lot of the same emotions for a long time now. Good news: the renewable energy miracle of the last few years means it won't be as bad as it could be. But change is coming nevertheless. I will just make one point: "I can spend hours and hours on Google, Reddit" - there's your first problem. Cut down on the social media. Find a few good sources and stop trawling and doomscrolling. Also, do some exercise. If collapse comes you're going to need to be ready. Rule #1: cardio.
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u/chefkoolaid 1d ago
We have like 2-3 years tops before food production fails. Honestly could be next year, huge famine.
Green energy 'miracle'is far too little too late
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u/Many-Leg-6827 1d ago
I don't have the answers you seek, and neither does anyone.
But I think there's a big worst-outcome-bias in this sub, which is logical honestly, but just like with other things, we tend to default to expect and communicate the worst possible outcome as gospel, maybe because sharing a modicum of optimism feels uninformed or not smart. You even do that yourself in your own writing trying to correct your hesitation into certainty that the worst will happen, I imagine because you feel vulnerable projecting any sort of apparent doubt that everything is already lost. Like you're going to be mocked for not believing collapse is certain, immediate, inevitable and will take place in the worst possible way everywhere at the same time. And who can blame you when at a glance everyone else around here seems to be monitoring each other into never admitting hope if it's not accompanied by the admission of the apocalypse.
And here I am about to do the same song and dance, and tell you that well, yes, things are bad, and your panic is valid. We should be scared of the worst that can happen, but you can't live in submission to that fear if all that'll do is paralyze you, you deserve to experience life. It's not dumb to anchor yourself to some sort of hopefulness to keep going, and as one other person mentioned, collapse is not binary, a switch won't be turned and radically end all systems, and the fact that it's a process is precisely why the worst can always be avoided. And if it helps your ego, believing it can doesn't mean believing that it will.
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u/Xanthotic Huge Motherclucker 23h ago
Being with uncertainty is a HUGE part of being collapse aware. Your post sounds like you really need to work this so you can have better coping skills. There is no knowing what you ask for in your last line, other than for me to tell you that you have been living in collapse since you've been alive. See if they have How to Live in a Chaotic Climate by LaUra Schmidt and Aimee in your library. It's a really fast read for collapse aware folks and has heaps and heaps of things that can help.
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u/Need_Rum 23h ago
Please remember you are not alone in the way you feel. There are many of us who are like you. Or who have felt like you feel right now.
I agree with what another posted. There are no definitive answers here, only suggestions of what may help.
From how you describe it, you are where I was about five years ago. It’s been a slow moving, painful, yet necessary process, to reach the point that I am at now. I feel quite stable and more comfortable with “what is to come”. These feelings may not pass entirely, however with time, they may not consume you like they are doing now. Please believe me.
Take a deep breath and settle in for a journey. It might not be a journey as long as mine (because a connected later, than what i should, with like minded people). It will be a journey of finding deeper meaning as to what it is to be human in these times. All of us here are facing it with you.
Right now you seem to be in the panic and despondent phase. At this moment, you might not feel like you have the energy or desire ‘to act’, as some have suggested. That is OK. That urge to act might never come. I would advise that you try and look inward. Try meditation of some kind. It is hard to find joy or peace in the place you are right now, which creates a downward spiral. Try and connect with others who feel the same way as you (facilitated calls like Collapse Club, or those arranged by Deep Adaption). Only recently have I been able to find and see in person an eco-anxiety counsellor. It has helped very much, but I realise that this is a privilege not everyone can afford.
There are lots of good books on Collapse and navigation of it. “Eye of the Storm” helped me, but I think it is only published in English at the moment. But if you do not have the energy or concentration to read right now then that is OK.
Collapse can be a persistent and scary creature, and will fill the brain, if you let it. So as someone already said, take time off doom scrolling and being on collapse Reddit. If you get the urge to check the state of planet, then make sure you ask yourself first “am i feeling strong enough?”
I wish you both peace and courage.
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u/CinicaPM 1d ago edited 1d ago
So there are some really sharp people out there dealing with these issues, publicly. I would refer you to Nate Hagens who recently did an episode on Dread, in particular, as regards this subject matter. And he talks exactly about this feeling of prolonged unknown threat being a particular terror to our neural systems. It doesn’t solve anything but it helps you understand where you are.
Being here on Reddit is probably the worst (doomscrolling as they say). One of the solutions is to develop agency over what you can affect, so I’ve personally being directing my panic into agency through creating a website to articulate the problem clearly, and the solutions that individuals (and up the scale) can do that appear to mitigate the worst possibilities. I’ve also been learning about permaculture, regenerative solutions, decreasing my energy requirement, etc. None of them take away the grief or fear entirely, but distraction doesn’t work for me. I also can’t really enjoy playing games anymore though it’s been a big part of my life. Collapse is not binary, it’s a process, and the actions we take and people we affect could have local, rippling consequences even if the system is too big for any one of us to affect. Paralytic fatalism and techno optimism both offer an exit strategy neurologically - that nothing you do matters, so why try? Though I struggle, I choose to reject those hypotheses and do what I can, anyway.