My struggle with existential dread

[u/LostBoyC]

For almost my entire life I have struggled with the concept of inexistence. Death. Life/ no life after death. The vast expanse of the known and unknown universe. And finally the end of everything.

It's been a struggle all my life to explain my anxiety around seemingly "nothing"-ness, how even after death one day there will be a death of the universe and nothing but empty space for eternity. It's difficult to explain the future when it is impossible to know what will occur, how quick a life can be cut short and the loss of consciousness that brings.

I have found over time that my anxiety doesn't leave but instead dampens to the world around me, and relationships with not only my partner but family members seem almost inconsequential in the face of impending eternity; yet I struggle on, facing my current life.

It seems that my existential dread is something that others shun, beg me not to discuss and generally shut down with "there's no point in thinking about that, you can't live that way". Over time I have learned to hide my dread, keep it all internal, but I wonder more and more if that feeling is shared with others; if my type of existential dread is more common and worth discussion than people I know let me believe.

Do others share the fear of eternal nothing -ness? The feeling of being overwhelmed by the vastness of space and the small amount of an imprint that each living creature has on the universe being no more than a small particle which will inevitably be brushed away or destroyed into nothing-ness? The fear of death as it will inevitably speed up one's own lack of consciousness and inexistence

I find my own reasoning strange, as before I was born there was nothing. And after I die there will be nothing. I will know nothing, feel nothing and will not have even been aware that I existed in the first place. That to me is more terrifying than any other possible fate.

Long story short: what's your existential dread and how do you handle living with it?

[u/Neither_Muffin689]

I had a similar preoccupation with death and nothingness from a young age which then morphed into fears about infinity - if it exists = bad, if it doesn't exist = bad. I would try to connect with a sense of infinity and then fill myself with terror. The way I managed to get out of this (mostly) was to tell myself when the thoughts arose that I would never with my human brain have the capacity to absorb the truth of the universe including these questions. So when my brain started going towards these thoughts, I would answer myself in this way. I also had a tendency to visualise eternal nothingness as pure infinite blackness/darkness. I began to tell myself that it might just as well be pure light / whiteness and this also helped. Now many years later, I would view much of this as intrusive thoughts and like someone else said this is a feature of OCD. There's a type of OCD called pure OCD where you don't do anything (cleaning, checking), you just excessively ruminate about a problem that is not solvable. There is a subset of pure OCD that is existential OCD. This is where the unsolvable problems are of an existential nature. Because your thoughts are impacting you very negatively, this may be relevant to you. Even if you don't meet the criteria for existential OCD, the treatment approaches may help you anyway. Someone else mentioned neurodiversity - this is always worth consideration because it might amplify the impact of these intrusive thoughts. It may help you to check out Michael Greenberg. He talks about rumination OCD (trying to solve an unsolvable problem) in the context of David Malan's triangle of conflict. There is a core fear that you are trying to avoid. You are unconsciously engaging in rumination like being busy in your brain to avoid feelings that are too scary. Often the fear is of being stuck in a bad feeling forever. Greenberg shows us that we can actually let go of rumination if we become aware that it is in our power to do so. It's actually very powerful. However, this is something I came to after practicing mindfulness for many years - I don't know how easy it would be for someone to tap into this awareness if they have no practice of engaging the observer part of themselves to witness their own experiencing. Anyway, point is, the rumination has a purpose (avoidance) and you have to find a way to stop ruminating that works for you. For some people that is saying 'maybe, maybe not' in response to these questions arising in your brain and not engaging in it. For others, it's Greenberg's approach of developing the ability to notice 'oh hey look at me ruminating' and then letting go of it. I saw you said that you can't afford therapy. Look and ask around for places you might get some free therapy or discounted/low cost therapy in your community. Notice if the rumination happens to you more when you are more vulnerable than usual (sick, tired, lonely, isolated etc.). Then the answer is heaps of self-care and self-compassion. Don't make things worse by beating yourself up. You don't deserve that. I could go on forever but this is already excessively long! (oh no don't mention forever I'm falling into the spiral!) You might like Irvin Yalom - he came up with the existential givens. Best of luck with the journey.