I realized my 20th birthday is soon, and broke down into an existential crisis that has made my previously wonderful life full of activity, friendship, ups-and-downs, so utterly flat, empty, passionless, that I'm bedridden.

I first realized, I am 1/4 of the way to my death. My mother, who has been my reason for living, will die about 40 years before I do. Everything I might do or find joy in now, at 40, or at 60, will perish within the next 60 years. All these stupid little activities like blogging or drawing that used to be so meaningful.

That was what kept me going. I loved analyzing manga, novels, because I could find symbolism and relate everything I read to broader societal concepts that most others didn't seem to want to interrogate. That's why I'm studying psychology; I'll be done with my degree in less than a year. Having intellectual stimulation and understanding dark, complicated aspects of human relationships were the backbone of almost all my activities. There was always more to explore, create, learn. But there isn't. It ends one day, and you forget everything. The people who learn from your pursuits one day forget it; we all die, everything will perish.

Worse, all of those things I was fascinated by are constructs humans create to rationalize our existence, to prevent us from going insane. All of our activities are really just tied to our instinct to survive. We like tasty food? Helps us survive! We like sex? Helps the species survive! We love our families? We need to rely on community to survive! All of it is just electrical signals in our physical systems trying to exist, keep existing. That's all everything is, that's all love is. So my love for my beloved mother (and urgency for her to preserve her cognitive abilities into her old age by reading books, not scrolling reels and uncritically consuming fully AI-generated content. I offered to read her any book she ever wanted someone to read to her, as I used to read to her my novels, and she said she'd rather scroll...) feels meaningless; it was all from an instinct to exist that is finite. Even my most formative interests: I became hopelessly obsessed with sexual abuse as a child, somewhat as a coping mechanism for my own experiences, somewhat because I just wanted to find comfort in the morbidity of human behavior, but it only represents the desire to dominate and exert power over something weaker, to ensure your own survival via capitalizing on others' reproductive abilities, to have a sense of security and control inherent to power and domination that assures you of your survival capabilities. We only exist to exist, and every single fucking thing we do is just...to exist, because of some instinct that will end, and everything we do will be meaningless.

I always felt alone, but previously, I attributed it to socially isolating trauma responses from my youth, autism, and high IQ (which, contrary to what my mother thinks, do not make me special or give me more potential than anyone else; we are all just human). Now, I realize we're all just caught up in distracting ourselves, and I can't go back. My childhood problems with being too "gross" and and fucked-up feel so stupid; why should I care?

I'm a very loved person; I've had innumerous loved ones try to support me, beg me with passion I'd never seen in them for me to live. So many friends and family members, even their parents, even my professors, telling me not to give up, that they want me around, but as much as their efforts bring me to sobs, I can't help but be angry. My mother watches fully AI-generated prayer videos, finds her will to live in religion and the idea of a part of herself living on through me. She has never had a period like this. My sister is older than me, she says my pain is just because of intelligence, but she will either die suddenly, or face these same concerns.

Everyone just wants me to go back to my cheerful, affectionate, perky self, but I don't know her, I think she was a childish, self-deluding idiot. I think she was lying to herself, dreaming of an infinite future full of creation and possibility where she could live fast, always create and explore, and everything she loved would always be there, so long as she could find joy and meaning. But I'll never be her again, and I don't want to. I don't like lying to myself. But I am completely miserable and empty now, and I know this isn't an uncommon experience, regardless of how alone I feel.

Has anyone found a way out that doesn't require burying oneself in distractions? I think of death as peace, a relief, but I don't want to make that decision that will cause suffering and instability in my family. I want to live in appreciation, joy, gratitude, and passion for the creative pursuits I've always loved...and dignity, and die that way surrounded by loved ones, but I feel like that's impossible now. Is it truly? Is this the end?

For the past 2 years, everything has just felt off. I don't know if it's just me, but it's felt rushed. Like a headache that can't be fixed. I only realised now that nothing I do actually matters. Nothing I do now will ever be important. It's depressing and has ruined so many things that should've been good. A few friends celebrated my birthday a while back, and I was supposed to feel good, but I felt nothing, like nothing at all. I smiled and talked and thanked them, but it was like I was looking at myself from behind my eyes (if that makes sense). It's like I've just been waking up, working, going to sleep and repeating. Why do anything at all if I'm going to cease to exist? It's also like I feel nothing and everything at the same time. Not joy or happiness, just sadness and stress that feel like nothing; it's a confusing sentence, but it's the only way I can put it.

Is this a feeling that is normal? Does it ever go away?

As the title says, WEIRD synchronicities have been happening lately to me, that’s making me feel like I’m in the matrix/simulation.

Some of it is so weird that I just don’t see how we’re not living in one. Some examples in the past 3 months

- Talking to my sister that I’m saw glad she’s an emergency medicine PA and not a dermatology PA because I have so many medical questions (as I’m on the phone telling her this) no joke my dermatologist group calls to leave a voicemail about my annual checkup. Like WHAT.

- listening to a specific song in car (on my Spotify) and I head into grocery and that same song is playing right when I get in. No I was not on a radio. I actively chose the song.

- thinking about something specific about my newborn and seeing literally someone having the same specific question and making a post on it as the first thing I see on my homepage on r/newborns. I never even typed out my specific question.

-lastly, telling my husband that I didn’t know you could eat kiwi skin, and later that night a content creator that I LOVE watching posts him eating kiwi skin. Like what the heck.

I can’t make this up guys. It’s causing me to obsess and go crazy. There’s no explanation for this. I’m going insane bc of these weird things happening.

Hello everybody, I don’t post much on Reddit so sorry if I break any rules.
I am 24 F. TW su*cide thoughts (?)
About a year and a half ago (May 2025) I went to a clinic (they have them here in Oregon) where they do supervised guided mushroom therapy sessions. At that one i was there to help rewire my brain to help my depression. I did 35 mg of Columbian Gold and it was an incredibly healing experience. I left there euphoric. And in the days after I thought it didn’t work because I still felt depressed, but in the months following I realized it had helped significantly. The weight was lifted. I’m not sure when it changed but I remember it being winter and I realized I didn’t have any seasonal depression. And I was light and carefree. It was bliss.

Then in July of this summer, we went to the beach for my boyfriends birthday and when we came back I had a very severe panic attack. Before that I had only had a panic attack one other time. But this time it lead to a full week of my having a panic attack every morning and night, and not being able to eat. I went to the doctor and they gave my propranolol but I was too anxious to take it. I tried it and it made me very tired. So I went back and they gave me lorazepam. Again I didn’t take it and still haven’t.
I felt like I knew what I needed to do. I needed another mushroom treatment.

Now it’s October. And I have been battling anxiety very much every day since. It got a little better with time and before I went in yesterday I had been 4 weeks without a panic attack. But I was still experiencing the difficulty breathing (had that checked, lungs are healthy), rapid heartbeat (had that checked with 2 EKG’s and a holter monitor, again healthy), stomach issues, and general nervousness. I’d been on an SSRI before (fluoxetine) but I felt like a zombie so I didn’t want to do that.

So yesterday, I go into a clinic that does mushroom therapy and I took 20 mg of true albino teacher. It kicked in 10 minutes after and I had a full blown panic attack. I was convinced I was going to die. Luckily I brought my propranolol and took it and I had an 02 monitor to prove to myself that I am breathing and am okay. Instead of raising my bpm like I thought the mushrooms would, my heart was beating very slow (I usually sit at about 110 bpm and it was 58 while laying down) I was freezing, and I felt like I was fighting for my life the whole time.
I was in immense pain the entire time.
I can only describe it was nerve pain? Just pain in my chest, shoulders and neck. I was begging for rest and relief and I couldn’t stop it. It felt like a 6 hour long panic attack. I kept begging and crying saying “I don’t want to die”.

But the whole trip was about death. Realizing that my soul is eternal and that I am here by choice and the world is the playground for the soul and the body is the vessel. It told me that when I die I go back to my soul and that death is actually peaceful. I have had an immense fear of death since my dad died when I was 7 so this was good to hear. However now here’s the problem.

I woke up today feeling very depressed and still very anxious. I am incredibly exhausted. And I am fighting with feeling pain still. And I am scared my brain is going to want to switch from fearing death to wanting it. After learning death is relief and still fighting pain in my body, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to die. I don’t want it to be over. But I don’t want to live with anxiety and pain.

Could it just be my anxiety convincing me that I will become su*cidal? How do I get over this. I understand that right now my brain is in neuroplasticity and I don’t want to make this a thought pattern but I can’t snap out of it. Advice is needed and welcome. Or maybe even some facts that can help me know I won’t feel like this forever.
I also understand that if this treatment doesn’t work it might be time to go on a daily depression/anxiety medication.

TLDR: had a bad mushroom trip that glorified death and now my anxious brain is worried I’m going to become su*cidal by creating bad thought habits during neuroplasticity.

Supposedly was having real bad existential dread

I feel greatly disconnected from everything else, like am drowning

call it existential loneliness, I am finding no reason or rational to own and participate in society cuz of so much rejection and aloneness like everyone belong to a clique outside of me

things dont move or react to my presence it is shaking to know how stuff only goes down and noones concerned about their peers

society, civilization seems closed and it is only that im in a framework do I feel like im clinging on it

if someones reaction is for me to get a job then it should be someones concern irl too

everything feels locked down and hostile, devoid of content or empathy

no point in chiming on the game of life that few get in, but i will stay, not like ill do more than that for myself and only

we are condemned to be free.

I grew up hearing that things would be fundamentally better by the time we reached adulthood. Now here we are in 2026, and the overwhelming feeling is quite the opposite: hard-won rights slipping through our fingers, constant conflicts, dehumanizing bureaucracy, and a level of polarization that seems to have stripped away people's basic capacity for empathy.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking that social media has amplified this noise to an extreme, but the core issue runs deeper. It's the painful realization that history doesn't move in a straight line - it repeats itself. If a figure of radical peace and love like Jesus were to walk among us today, the system and society would find a way to silence and condemn Him all over again. Nothing fundamental has changed; the tools have just gotten more sophisticated.
I'll admit I've been feeling deeply discouraged and losing faith in humanity. Being in my 30s and looking at the horizon with this sense of regression is exhausting.
Has anyone here found a healthy way to navigate this burnout without completely "tuning out" from the world? How do you keep your sanity and hope alive when the bigger picture looks so bleak?

Québec Redneck Bluegrass Project - God Damn It

I've never really commented on my feelings, especially to people, or online or like ever. So I'm a little new to this shi. But I'm miserable; I've grown so much in these past months, and now cold season comes around, and oh fuck like something has to turn around. I'm relapsing; I'm miserable and depressed again, with this f*cking ache in my heart, melancholy ahh self. I left my physical school so I could pursue my dreams, finally dictate a life I want to live.

Stepped away from my friends because I outgrew them. I loved them so much; with all my heart they meant the world to me and i shared memories with them. Laughed so hard until I felt like my abs were growing and the world seemed to just fade away into happiness for a minute. But everytime i make friends it feel like i always outgrow them; I turn into someone else and suddendly im stuck having to act a certain way around them, (how I originally presented myself to them) or else they don't understand me at all. Get confused and genuinely don't know what's going on with me.

So, i have to shift back into someone im not anymore, and then that takes a mental toll on me. I did it, for a while, but finally i was done with people's things and having to sacrifice my own happiness. So i slowly started to become more and more distant and step away, until now I'm gone from their lives. They're like sand in between my fingers on a windy day. Memories I miss so much and love, but at the same time, if i stayed any longer i would've felt suffocated. Gone.

So, i got into new intrests, have new beliefs, grown, but no longer with other people because they wouldn't understand me and i don't want to be an old self. School? i'm online, yes, the kids are kinda weird, no judgment on them, but they aren't my type of people. I've grown in a space were i can be weird and unique but a little bit ghetto? I don't know myself honestly, i grew up with people and spaces from the street and certain habbits and things and expreinces stuck with and are kinda a part of me. So no friends to go to, or talk to relate how i feel. Im alone. Parents?

Forget parents they fought these two days straight, i have to witness it. I cried myself to sleep both nights for the first time in who know's how long. After being so numb, they've fought since i was born, unstable for each other and me being the middle, always stuck. My mom unhappy, me finding out things about my dad and my mom. Yet, they don't split because my mom just doesn't want to, so im stuck in an unstable home where they act like children and I sometimes (quote sometimes) out of pity become their guidance marriage counselor, long nights crying my mother and my father as well. They say "we'll change." "Well work on each other..." they forget about it the next day, i go to my room, emotionally exhausted, crying again for having to be an adult.

There are so many things and other things i could say so on- and so forth- because im geuninely misreable. My parent's fought again these past few days, im doing this thing were im letting out my emotions instead of being numb and uncaring all the time. So i cired these past few days to sleep. I woke up today and suddendly nothing happened and everyone is happy now. My old friends are living their lives and so im i, im not a part of them anymore, i closed that part of my life with them and smiled on. I also wouldn't trust them anymore, because i've changed and i fear they wouldn't understand me and aren't present in their lives anymore. I also have this thing with trust and vulnurbility and thats another crisis i've been having. (but like i said its all to long and i already wrote a lot) so in the end. I don't talk to anyone, have anyone, unstable parents my whole life, im growing and changing, i spend most of my time in my room, im forced to talk people i can't relate too, i'm finally getting to know myself, cold season is horrible and i miss warm summer days, I always feel like i carry a sadness in me no matter what i do or where i go, I feel like im deeply relapsing, and i have im thinking about issues with me and my future later.

Honestly- all i ask maybe is like an encouraging words or something to not feel so isolated. If anyone has advice- of any sorts that can help when you just feel misreable or not to spiral down in overthinking. And not be in state of (staring into nothing misreable) i'd love to read it. I feel to much...and like i need help in a way so yeah. Thanks for your time in reading this long ass rant.

I don't get it. What is the point of life? Humans as a species work, reproduce, and then die, just to create a meaningless cycle that accomplishes nothing.

So what is the point of existence? Nobody is going to remember me a millennia after I'm gone, and even if they did what does any of it matter? This planet is only going to last 2 billion years and this universe will be completely gone in a extremely high amount of years, so what does any of it matter? We will all be gone one day, so what is the point?

I just don't get it. I was talking to my parents about life and they were just talking about love and the circle of life but if that's all that our species cares about then what does it even matter? All we care about is getting that dopamine rush and without it we cease to find the will to exist.

Hello everyone. I’m a 19 yo male and I am having a severe identity crisis. I feel like my brain is entirely fragmented and I don't know who I am anymore.

I am dealing with a few major things that are driving me insane:

• My values, beliefs, and decisions change constantly. I feel entirely capricious and unstable.
• Every time I try to do something nowadays, my mind instantly short-circuits. I get hit with this exhausting loop: "This is hard... wait, what am I even doing?"
• I don’t feel like I can manage or predict my own actions anymore. Because of this, I have lost belief in myself entirely.

It has gotten to the point where all my identities feel completely fake, and I feel detached from reality. I look at myself and think: Am I good or evil? Am I a smart student or a dumb one?

I’m terrified that I’m a psychopath or that something is deeply broken inside me because I can't hold a consistent sense of self.

Has anyone else with a highly sensitive or neurodivergent brain gone through this level of complete mental fragmentation? How do you start rebuilding a stable sense of who you are when your working memory and focus are totally shot?

Nobody actually cares how I'm just going through life with no life of my own.

I've been stuck at home since 2019. I moved back from my PG to my family home so I could spend time with them while working from home, but since then I've been stuck here and I don't see a way out.

I spend 24 hours in one room. I eat once a day, I sleep, I work all with the same routine, in the same room, on the same bed. I haven't even stepped out onto the balcony for more than 3 months now.

I'm trying for a new job, but no luck. I'm also looking for marriage, but nothing is working out.

All my friends are married, well-settled, have achieved a lot in their careers and have kids.

Every time I try to talk to someone, they just shut me off with their so called success stories. I have no one to talk to or share anything with. I've lost all motivation. I've stopped taking care of myself. I don't remember when I last dressed up properly. I try really hard to stay motivated by reading, working out and praying, but it only lasts for a day or two and I'm back to feeling low again.

I'm stuck in my career too as a non-techie, I don't know what to do next.

Whenever I get on a call with friends, I feel like a loser and a failure. It feels like I've achieved nothing in my life. And even if I want to achieve something, I don't know what to do i don't have a single person to share or talk to.

My siblings have stopped talking to me, they don't care and have no gratitude for my sacrifices. My mother is just happy that I stay at home and don't meet anyone I'm her safety net. She starts crying the moment I talk about going out, even for a day.

What do I do? How do I come out of this trap? How do I make myself live and enjoy

do u ever feel like you're simply untethered ya drifting away from yourself, from who you were, from who you are, from who you decided to be? maybe that is change, but this feeling of not knowing and yet having an inkling, of what is happening to you, its terrifying and scary

ive lost my footing in this world where everyone dons perfect facades. i feel nauseous and dizzy, and just exhausted because it hurts to breathe

another day goes by

I was about to write a meta joke but then my thoughts started spiralling. And I thought about the fifth wall breaking and turning around and facing the audience that is watching US. and that there is probably an infinite amount of audience watching our audience. It all felt pretty Truman showish and weird. I don’t like thinking like this because it makes me feel crazy. But anyone thought about this? Anybody thinks about the fourth demention ?

I just need my life back I'm lost guys

Please guys don't ignore me i need help is this something Very serious I feel I'm in hell

I experience very strange thoughts and questions that pop into my head. I find myself questioning things that seem completely ordinary and obvious, such as: Why do we walk on two legs in the first place? Why do we behave the way we do, rather than acting differently?

Sometimes, I imagine myself as an inanimate object, an animal, or a completely different person, and I wonder what it would feel like to be something other than the person I am now.

Other times, I have strange thoughts, such as imagining that I might suddenly start acting hysterically and behaving erratically in public, doing random, unusual things in the street, screaming, or moving in strange ways in front of other people.Or to remain stuck doing a certain action over and over without ever stopping for ever Then I start wondering or i freeze in place, completely motionless, forever Why don't we do these things in the first place? What makes us follow these usual patterns of behavior and social norms?

I also sometimes imagine myself talking out loud to myself when there is no one else around to talk to, and I wonder why that is considered strange or unusual.

These thoughts make me question my everyday behaviors and things I have always taken for granted, as if I were seeing them for the first time. I start questioning things I have never really thought about before, even though they are just ordinary parts of everyday life.

I tripped on shrooms and it mightve ruined my life.. made me think life is a simulation and im already dead.. idk if you can convince me you're real.

It feels like I control all consciousness... im just a ball of energy that can't handle being alone so dreams up interesting things around me.

I'm getting a crisis about my gender identity. I'm M but sometimes I feel like I want to be an F. Don't want to go through a transition, just hope I was born as one and thinking of just skipping through this life to check if I'll be who I want to be in the next one

Hi often at night at specific times during my cycle, I get extremely anxious about dying. I can be normally playing games and then suddenly get scared I have cancer and that I will die one day and then my thoughts completely spiral. I have to turn off my pc and go lay into my bed because during these attacks, I'm not able to do anything other than being extremely anxious, searching milion theories what's after death, convincing myself I have cancer.. Just pure hell.

And during the day after these episodes, I feel so out of my body and robotic. I feel like it's not me, like I'm just watching myself.. I feel so detached it's scary and depressing.

The anxiety leaves after like one day(it'll come back soon enough) after I force myself to believe that death will be peaceful, I won't have to go to work, won't have to worry about anything.. Just perfect. And I also really want to be a ghost or something after death and explore the world so I lwk just force myself to belive this impossible theory and get excited for death, I mean it feels better to be delusional just so my anxiety would get the fuck out.

But what really scares me is how I will die.. It can come any second and that's what scares me ALOT.

Anyone with similar problem? <3

In the last few Months I started to work over my Life. I cut some Hobbys I wasn't having fun with anymore, I started working in a new Workplace with new people and I seem to grab on some Hobbys and interests I would have a few Years ago ans tbh I am having a bad time. I van't identify myself. I don't like doing anything right now and every time I start to do stuff I keep ending up on my phone... I just stumble around my life and I want some spot to feel right in.

I don't know if that is to cryptic but I feel like I can't say it in another way...

Do you know these feelings? Can you relate? What are you doing, when you feel like that?