View Full Version : Existential terror/dejavu/dream flashbacks/panic attacks/agoraphobia
Hello everyone,
**TW**
I would appreciate it if anyone can relate or give me any advice because I'm absolutely terrified.
I've been suffering from severe panic disorder for a bit over a year and unfortunately it led to severe and debilitating agoraphobia. I can't work and can't do anything. My social life now is literally non existent. I have severe crippling panic attacks every single day. I also have ocd but for now it is under control. After the panic attacks started I started experiencing dejavu which frightened me more than words can describe. I have had dejavu before but "normal dejavu". For some reason now it causes feelings of terror. Also randomly I started having dream flashbacks of random dreams which caused me a lot of anxiety. I thought I may even be suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy but haven't seen a neurologist yet. Tbh I'm thinking it's caused by the extreme anxiety I have.
I will post my FULL story soon but in this post I want to talk about the existential thoughts I am having. It is absolute mental torture. I thought my life was hell but this is a whole new level of hell.
In a way I blame myself because of all the reading I have been doing online and deep thinking and over thinking about life etc. is probably a huge reason why I am now in this mess. I mean I have always been an over thinker even when I was younger (I'm 31 now). Always over analyzing everything and leaving no stone unturned. Always have to know "why" or "how" etc. I remember being young and wondering about the universe and how can it be so big etc etc. Even in the past few years I would think these sort of things but it never caused and panic or fear. It would amaze me actually. Now it's absolutely unbearable. I's like all of a sudden I realized my existence and awareness. First it started with me being hyperaware a few days ago and feeling really uncomfortable with it. Now in the past 48 hours it has been HORRIBLE. Question after question driving me mad. Here are some examples of thoughts I've been having:
*Where does consciousness come from?
*How can the universe be infinite and if it's not then what's outside of the universe and what's outside of that etc?
*How can there be no end and no beginning?
*Who am I? What am I?
*Is everything an illusion? A dream?
*How can we just cease to exist? How can we exist? (eternity scares me as much as non existence)
*How was the universe created. What was before the universe was created. What created "that"...etc
*Did the universe come to be from NOTHING? How can this be?
*Where are memories stored?
*Is my mind the only thing that exists?
*Absolutely cannot comprehend death and ceasing to exist.
*Solipsism...like WTH?? This is beyond terrifying.
These thoughts cause extreme feelings of terror. It's like suddenly I woke up and realized I "exist" which has made me hyperaware. My perception of reality has totally changed. I feel "weird". I don't understand how others don't question these things. I feel like I'm losing my mind. I honestly feel like these thoughts will drive me completely crazy and unfortunately I find it almost impossible to just "not think" about them. I'm terrified that now I can't "undo" this. I can't just forget these thoughts. I used to think panic attacks from a heart phobia were bad but this is PURE HELL. Solipsism is especially terrifying. I mean that seems so unrealistic and I honestly can't wrap my head around it. My mind is going absolutely crazy.
Does anyone feel this way??
Please please please don't just read and not reply. Any answers will greatly help me. I'm so frightened.....
:(
GbGb
I have a thread on memory. As for the rest of your thoughts, why ask for answers to things that have no answer.
Hi GbGb, I can relate to this. After experiencing a major death, I became really distraught thinking about all of these questions - especially how we can exist and not exist, what happens, consciousness, etc - all of the ones you wrote about. I can't say any specific advice on how to get past this, but I think with time, I somehow worked through it and have just accepted that there are no answers to these questions. I wish I could say how, but I don't really know. I think I just got tired of spending a lot of time and energy on it when I wasn't getting anywhere and was missing out on what we DO know is real - the life around us.
Wish I could help more, but just wanted to say I can relate to you. Try to focus on the external, on what you know is real, enjoy what you KNOW you have - life! Those questions are like quick sand and once you start, you get sucked in fast and it's hard to get out.
Hey GbGb,
you will find a lot of people in this forum who go through exactly the same! I suffer from the existential thoughts and the hyperawereness for a few months now so I know what you are talking about and just wanted to say that I totally relate :(
xvolatileheart
31-05-15, 15:50
There are a lot of people here who have experienced this so we can relate.
Have you spoken to a medical professional about your anxiety and panic attacks? Are you on any medication? Do you see a therapist?
What it comes down to is getting your anxiety under control. This is just a manifestation of your anxiety. It has latched on to thoughts that have no answer, which is the ultimate cruelty because you feel like there's no way out! I've gone through a similar experience as you, where I was having panic attacks and health anxiety, which led to depersonalisation/derealisation and the fear of going crazy. I tried everything to make it go away, but finally I accepted that I needed medication and therapy to get me out of this hell. It's still early days but I do feel I'm making slow progress.
Hope this helps a bit.
I have experienced this exact same thoughts and panic, anxiety, flashbacks, memory, etc for 2 months now. My sister was diagnosed with cancer and that started the entire process. I lost my mom when I was little and it was very traumatic. Then I suddenly lost another sister in January, and it set off a trigger of so many torturous things. I am in counseling (not working yet) and trying meds (not working yet) I am struggling very hard in my life just to exist. I take everything day by day, or sometimes, one hour at a time. I'm scared I will never become normal again. I am worried that I am going to be in a psychiatric hospital if I don't come out of it. But I do also know that it takes time to heal....sometimes lots of time. There isn't a set limit, so I try to remind myself every day that "in time" things will get better. I keep a journal with me at all times and write in it hourly sometimes. I would never wish this on anyone. I don't find peace at all. I am trying meditations, praying, positive thought affirmations, but still no relief yet.
Thx for the replies everyone.
I barely slept last night and today I'm feeling even worse. Thinking about solipsism all
night has caused me such intense anxiety that I thought my head would explode. This philosophical idea is absolutely terrifying. Please don't look it up if you don't know what it is and stop reading this post **tw**.
I seriously wish I never read anything about it. Now it's stuck in my head and I can't get it out. Last night I had to keep fighting off a panic attack the whole night. Knowing that there is no way to refute it is literally driving me nuts. Now I question reality for real and having DR I see no way out. Absolutely petrified. In other words, this forum, the replies, the Internet, the posts about solipsism etc is all just my mind?! My friends, my family, my doctor, the news, technology, languages etc etc is all me? How can I ever experience happiness again knowing that everything I see and know is just me myself and I?
:'(
The people who developed the IDEA / theory (!) of solipsism did not suffer from what we do so to them that is just experimenting with all kinds of stuff/thoughts/whatever without any mental consequences, fear etc. There are many different theories and it has a reason they are called theories - it does not have to be the truth. There are many different philosophical schools, also there is physics and chemistry and stephen hawking. Solipsism is one idea out of many and even though I admit that it is scary it is acctually just some bullshit some psychedelic philosophers made up.
It is not a mistake to ask the questions that you ask yourself right now - many people do that. So some people invented the theory of solipsism, other people think it is the structure of time. But we are all equally clueless. It is just that we suffer from anxiety which makes this cluelessness (is that a word?) unbearable and frightening.
xvolatileheart is right - anxiety is tricking you into the ultimate dilemma of questions none of us (noone ever!) can answer. It is just an overactive brain gone wrong which I know is kinda stupid but well I guess all of us try to explain that to our twisted brains already :)
And even though you now think: what if this post of lisa0406 is made up in my head too. No it is not, I am here, somewhere else, with my own mind and imagination and I am real and so are you.
Your questions are absolutely reasonable. And experiencing DR/DP is like being on drugs for a certain amount of time. There are people who try to achieve this state of thinkging by meditating and taking LSD. The DR/DP experience is heavy and frightening and it is called the philosophical illness for a reason: because it challenges a whole new level of perception which none of us ever wanted. I know that sucks and I know this brings one over the edge of normal life. But at least it is understandible and logic under the circumstances.
Thanks Lisa, I appreciate your reply.
It's just extremely difficult because I'm suffering from DR and up until now I would calm myself down by telling myself it's just anxiety and other people have it. Or I would talk to my mom and feel better. Now it's unbearable because of this solipsism thing. How do I make myself feel better by talking to someone that may not be real??
Now "normal things" that I used to enjoy like going to a mall or going for a coffee or buying something nice have in a way lost their meaning ....I can't see how I would enjoy them. I feel weird. It's like I just realized all of this! It's like my worst nightmare has come true. It is so difficult to find relief because maybe this forum is just my imagination. Not sure how the heck I am supposed to live my life like it was before after knowing that there is a chance life as Ive know it is all my imagination?
Can anyone give me any good arguments to keep my sanity?
I feel sick...haven't even been able to eat a single bite since last night.
I'm really feeling for you, GbGb. My thoughts too have caused me intense distress.
I think Lisa's post is excellent...a theory is just a theory and doesn't have to be the truth. Same with distressing thoughts, they don't have to be the truth.
Sparkle1984
31-05-15, 22:20
I've been through this solipsism obsession too - it happened when I was 19 years old, and it seemed to just come out of the blue, although looking back I think it might have been triggered by the stress of my first year exams at university - anxiety can trigger all sorts of abstract thoughts.
Although it seems so scary right now, the good thing is that the obsession will gradually die down. For me, as the months went on, the feelings of solipsism and derealisation gradually wore off. Every day I would try to look for evidence to disprove solipsism. For example, if you really were the only person in the world, then it must mean that you created everything yourself, including famous writing such as Shakespeare plays, famous pieces of classical music etc. I definitely wouldn't have been capable of creating those things in my own mind. So, for me, this disproved the theory of solipsism. I do still think about it occasionally, but nowhere near as much as I used to. I didn't have any more anxiety episodes for a few years. Years later, when I had my next anxiety episode, it was about a different theme.
Thank you to everyone who has replied.
Where does one draw the line between say derealization and solipsism and schizophrenia? I know solipsism is a theory but I'm so frightened of it being reality then how do I know it's not say..schizophrenia?
I'm still having a hard time comprehending solipsism. Then why are there things I don't know? Languages, how certain things work, even the word solipsism was a word I didn't know the meaning of until a few days ago! If this theory was true then would I question this? Why would it suddenly dawn on me 31 years later? Why would my own reality cause me such distress? Am I making sense?
---------- Post added at 02:18 ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 ----------
I have experienced this exact same thoughts and panic, anxiety, flashbacks, memory, etc for 2 months now. My sister was diagnosed with cancer and that started the entire process. I lost my mom when I was little and it was very traumatic. Then I suddenly lost another sister in January, and it set off a trigger of so many torturous things. I am in counseling (not working yet) and trying meds (not working yet) I am struggling very hard in my life just to exist. I take everything day by day, or sometimes, one hour at a time. I'm scared I will never become normal again. I am worried that I am going to be in a psychiatric hospital if I don't come out of it. But I do also know that it takes time to heal....sometimes lots of time. There isn't a set limit, so I try to remind myself every day that "in time" things will get better. I keep a journal with me at all times and write in it hourly sometimes. I would never wish this on anyone. I don't find peace at all. I am trying meditations, praying, positive thought affirmations, but still no relief yet.
Thank you for your reply.
I'm so terribly sorry for your loss. I can't imagine how hard it must be for you:(
I also totally understand what you mean by struggling just to exist....I feel
the same.
Hi! New member, I googled "existential" and "panic" 'cause I'm going through the same things, too, and I saw your thread, and decided to join and offer some help on your solipsism anxiety.
I'm 19 and these past couple of months have been hell for me. It all started with an out-of-the-blue panic attack, which was terrifying, and then it led to weeks of anxiety, and more panic attacks, which led to agoraphobia, which led to a deep depression, which led to acute anxiety, my thoughts raced every waking moment, and eventually, I became "aware" of myself, like many of us have shared already, and I too suffered with the concept of solipsism for two weeks.
But I'm over it, that idea is gone-- sometimes the the idea floats by in my head, but I never believe it anymore.
Hopefully I can help you out, hopefully the way I explain myself helps you-- if it doesn't, I'm sorry I can't be more immediate help, but I completely trust 100%, I know you'll make it through this, whether it's through an epiphany, or just growing weary from the thoughts and moving on.
Anyway! My solipsism began a little when I became aware that I exist. I was at a party, and I'd like to think the marijuana smoke contributed to my weirdo thoughts, but I started to ask myself "OH MY GOD? Why are we humans? Why does anything exist? Why do we take up space? Why does the universe exist? How did it begin? What is infinity? Why why why?"
It's just a whole bunch of why, right? I'd like to think that all of us that suffer from either anxiety / derealization/ existential depression or anxiety are just extremely deep thinkers, and we want an answer to everything. And because we don't have answers HERE, we panic.
If I may, let's tackle your worries:
SOLIPSISM: I used to worry that everything, everything that I saw, everything that existed, was a product of my consciousness. Everything feels real because my subconsciousness created it. I got an idea and tried to put something to a test: if everything is in my subconscious, I should be able to let the roof over my head cave in because I'm creating this action. It never did. I don't know German, but German exists. I meet strangers and they stir different feelings within me. You and I experience novelties-- the universe around was created, meaning that if we really were suffering solipsism, there has to be a greater force, above us, to have constructed all these things, no? (I use this lightly, I know the idea of God or anything similar may cause anxiety to some, but my point is, that there is a power greater than your own consciousness that created the framework of the universe that you live in-- does this make sense?)
And since there is an outside construction other than our own consciousness, why just you? Why would you be the only person that is fully conscious?
And even further, why would your subconscious be trying to convince you that PERHAPS you're the only conscious person alive? What's the point of the concept of solipsism existing if you're the only person that exists? Who would someone who TRULY believes in solipsism be trying to convince?
This is an anxiety-produced idea. Like lisa0406 explained, solipsism is just a concept that a philosopher came up with, just like philosophers come up with a WHOLE BUNCH of different ideas to explain various aspects of life that are unexplained. It's just that you and I have a tendency to freak out over stuff that we're not 100% certain of. But the first step to easing the pain is to remind yourself that you had anxiety first. All the scary thoughts that come after that are because your anxiety is running wild.
Nothing to be ashamed of, obviously, your capacity to recognize that there's no immediate danger is just a little wonky like, I'm sure, a lot of people on this website, 100% including myself.
I really hope this doesn't sound aggressive, I'm just trying to make the points clear so that you can resonate with them.
Can I leave you with one last thought? My belief, and my understanding, is that we're just human. Our human brains aren't programmed to understand the questions you and I have. 'Cause trust me, every single bullet point you've got written up there, terrorized me every waking moment for months. But have this analogy, hopefully this helps:
A bunny rabbit lives a bunny rabbit life. Now, I don't study bunny rabbits, but from my understand, their lives revolve around hopping, mating, pooping, feeding, eating carrots, building habitats, being aware of predators, and that's it. Then humans come along and cars and buildings and they're like ?!??!!!!!?!?! WHAT IS THIS I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS IS!!!!!!!!!!!! because their bunny rabbit brains have not been created to understand the workings of human life or technology. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? Perhaps the universe has the mind of its own, or perhaps there is something greater than us out there, like God, but whatever it is, whenever it thinks of existence or infinity or consciousness, it's probably like "Well yeah, of course... DUH"
You are real. I am real. Existing only seems horrid because our brains have developed the bad habit of worrying and making everything seem horrible. You weren't born an anxious mess. I wasn't born an anxious mess. There's no reason we have to continue this way, we know what it feels like to not be an anxious mess. I have faith in me and I have in you, GbGb!
Edited, like 5 minutes later, to add: I used to have schizophrenia panic, too. One of my friends made a mistake of telling me about a movie called "A Beautiful Mind" with Russell Crowe (TRIGGER WARNING: details on character with schizophrenia, if you feel it'll make you panic, perhaps avert this paragraph) and by the end of the movie, he realizes that these two friends he's been talking to were in his imagination, so he looks at them and he's like "You're not real-- I will never speak to you again" and the hallucinations disappear, as per my understand from my friends synopsis. She was trying to make me feel better, suggesting that that's all I have to do, decide the that fears I have are in my mind, and I can tell them that they will not be causing me anxiety any longer. Instead, all I got from that conversation was that maybe I was inventing people in my head, too :roflmao: That's how my fear of solipsism developed and it all went downhill for about two weeks. Only after two weeks did I get tired of believing this, and I said "Wait... how could this even make sense. This was just an anxiety produced idea. How did my brain trick me into this!"
Did that make sense? A lot of people become afraid that after recurring anxiety or panic attacks that they'll "go crazy" or "develop schizophrenia". That has never been true, never has a person developed schizophrenia from anxiety or right after a panic attack. Okay, this was a lot, I'm sorry, I'm out, be chill!
Hi Vixenelle,
Wow, thnx so much for your reply.
I've been not stop thinking about this and at times I really feel like I'll go nuts. I, like you have thought of arguments including languages, why don't I speak them if I "created" them as a solipsist.
Also, like you I thought then if solipsism is true I should be able to make things happen how I like when I think of them (roof caving in). I felt a bit better but then came across a philosophy forum where I read that arguments such as these don't necessarily prove much because the subconscious mind can be creating what " I see " and I have no control over it consciously. Says who???? Also the universe for a solipsist is nothing more than their imagination.
Yes logically looking at this I think it's absolutely insane but the more I think of it the more terrified i become. For example where is the line between say schizophrenia and solipsism. This "theory" is so absurd that surely a psychiatrist would think a person believing such things needs help.
Which philosopher came up with this theory that is destroying my life? And why wasn't he seen as nuts? And why come up with it if you think nothing exists then why bother saying anything?
I'm also confused on the varieties of solipsism. From what I understand metaphysical solipsism is the one that means no reality exists other than my mind. So no "body", nothing.
My question would be if that is so then why does my stomach hurt? What about eeg's? Why do I need sleep? If this is a dream then what are the dreams I have when I sleep? I can clearly know there is a difference between my everyday life and what I dream. Dreams don't always make sense, there is no pain, they jump from sequence to sequence without order etc. Are these not good arguments? And surely if its just my mind that exists it would not cause me such anxiety and panic. I'd be happy in my "own world". If everything is my imagination why in the world do I suffer from panic attacks and my heart racing if it's "just my consciousness". I mean I can't even talk to people about this it sounds so insane! Yet it's driving me nuts.
Thoughts welcomed.
Hi, bud!
I find that a lot of times, when my thoughts are racing and going all over the place I want to return to my "base line". Which is, my main truth.
Right now, because you have a lot of philosophical and conceptual and theoretical ideas going on in your mind, you may struggle finding your base line, but the one truth is this: you are not going nuts, you are not going insane, you are not schizophrenic. I'm sure you've googled a whole bunch of symptoms you have and various kinds of anxiety and derealization and mental health websites, and what's the common variable between the encouragement every website leaves you with? Anxiety / panic attacks / derealization / depersonalization are NOT dangerous.
Trust me, 100%, that I have been in the EXACT! state you're in. I swear to you, up and down. All these questions you've had, I promise you I've had them and they circled my mind every waking moment until my brain and body literally got tired and I slept at night, all for the cycle to begin the next morning. There is obviously some hope in you, since you came to this website-- even if it may be a shred of hope, let that hope rest in that you will find your peace, but it will take some time. It might not, you might have an epiphany soon and your thoughts will cease, but anxiety and obsessive thoughts are a bad habit and just like it's taken weeks or months or years to create these bad habits, it may take some time to turn those bad habits into good ones.
May I suggest, while you're creating your "base line" of your main truth, to stop looking any further into what you need to know about solipsism? Like I said, I don't have much room to talk, because I did EXACTLY what you did, spent every waking moment googling phrases of what my mind was making me anxious about, and like 100 different perspectives on solipsism-- none of it made me feel better, it just made me more anxious because there was no definite answer. Because it's a theory :-) But that's not my point, my point is, I know it's a bad habit and you're not a bad person for having it, but try to cease the googling of solipsism.
Concerning your psychiatrist and "a person believing such things needs help" sentence, may I make a further addition to your "base line"? You are not going crazy, you are not going nuts, you are not schizophrenic. Therefore, if you did need to see a psychiatrist, it would not be because of your thoughts. Your horrifying ideas that are, as per your words, "destroying your life", are coming from your anxiety. You think about this all day because your brain has become fatigued from trying too hard to keep you from becoming anxious, so it just lets the anxiety run free willy-nilly 'cause it's easier than fighting it. Does this make sense to you? I went to a psychiatrist for the first time last week and I explained everything to them, and my psychiatrist explained that I have acute anxiety, that has developed from months and months of uncontrolled thoughts and years of ignored general anxiety. The fact that I have my thoughts aren't dangerous, but my brain wasn't letting me be happy and at peace, so I now take Ativan. It has helped me monumentally and I feel I can fight my mental battles much more efficiently. Even if you're a little bit apprehensive about medicine, I think you'd feel 100% better talking to a psychiatrist or a therapist, it's suffocating, thinking these things, eh?!
Hopefully I can hear back from you, I'm interested in what your next step will be! If you have any further questions (if you're interested in my answers, I go on and on and on omg I'm so sorry :roflmao:) do let me know!
P.S. You'd be surprised at how people will respond to your "crazy" thoughts-- so many of my friendships have strengthened when I confided in select people I was sure were going to alienate me and call me a weirdo, but people can be so understanding and helpful. May I suggest you build a support group of people? Stay chill, bud, I believe in you so hard.
Sw48: Same! This was my fear, too! Why does anything exist? How does anything exist?
But, like I mentioned in my first post, I really think that those of us who have anxiety over existence and why anything exists or how anything exists... I think we're trying too hard to understand it by attaching human characteristics to life in general. I think we're trying to "get" life as a whole the same way we get our own personal lives and lives on Earth. I think it's far greater than for us to understand, it exists, and we are only human, and can't understand it! And since we fear the unknown, we have anxiety over this! I still have occasional anxiety over this, but I leave you with this thought: how does being aware of yourself hurt you? Like we've mentioned many times, it's just anxiety-- the fact that we don't know makes us anxious, but it's not literally hurting us, is it? Whatever life is, it's out of our control, isn't it? Plus, I think we have an advantage over those who haven't had this terrifying epiphany yet, tbh... we can appreciate life more rather than live it mundanely!
Hopefully this didn't sound aggressive, I hope this help soothe even a little!
@vixenelle - thank you for your detailed accurate posts, I really aprreciate it and can only agree with you on any level.
@sw48 - I feel exactly the same. Last week I sat in front of my therapist and I was talking while at the same time felt like "wow it is so weird that I can think" which led me to sitting there stammering some words and being in awe of humanity. I suffer from hyper awereness very much the past few months whilst also suffering from the opposite that GbGb is describing. It is making my life living hell.
@Gbgb - dude seriously! Stop googleing! I know too well how you try to bring it under control by digging deeper into it believe me. But I promise you, won't work. If you have health anxiety and google water poisoning bc you are not sure wether you drank too much water - googeling it only makes it worse. Everyone of us knows that. Suddently you are sure you have cancer or a brain tumor or whatnot bc some bored idiot in a "health" forum said so. Same with philosophy forums! These are random people which do not suffer from what you, we all, suffer from. As i study cultural studies I know a lot of philosophers who love to take drugs and discuss about Kant (seriously, they are that stereotypical!).
What i am trying to say is: a) google does not answer everything, sometimes it makes shit worse. b) It is not the problem that there are questions you cannot answer...you don't panic over not knowing ...I dunno...how a refridgerator works or ancient Roman aqueducts or a camera. Even though these are also legit questions to ask oneself. How weather works, the physics of light, whatever. What I am trying to say is what vixenelle already tries to tell you, too. It is anxiety being all over the place not being able to stop. We all here suffer from this. It is a tired mind gone horribly wrong. But it is not wrong to ask yourself these questions! That is only human. Philosophers just simply didn't freak out bc they didn't suffer from DP/DR experience or OCD or whatever. To them this is fun. Just like how college kinds love taking LSD and having hallucinations while walking around in the woods or buddhists daily meditating for 35 years to experience enlightenment. To other people this is fun and interesting and not scary. To us it is. But that is probably not the fault of the questions / theories / ideas itself (even though of course they are overwhelming) but how your brains reacts to them.
I know how horrible this is - I suffer from it myself. One day it is shizoprenia I'm afraid of, the next day I am hyperaware, next thing I know my family is acctually just a bunch of strangers and another day maybe everything is unreal. I know the cycle, my brain suffers from it, too. Everyday a new surprise of crappy thoughts to a point where i feel like i have ruined my life completely and cannot come back to just be.
So, no matter how hard you try to understand and google everything: noone ever found the answer, everyone can only guess. Physics and esoterics and philosophy and cultural studies - everyone is totally clueless and due to this clulessness that is why every one of these academic disciplines thinks their concepts and theories are the best / most true (do you say that in english? most true? truest?) ones. And that is okay. But I know how hard this is to accept as i am suffering from the same thing you and all of the others on here do. But time is passing and i understand it even more that not my thoughts are the problem (they are human), but it is my mind dwelling over them again and again, making "normal" life impossible and simply freaking me out.
From my own experience I tend to find that when I'm feeling at my worst my mind finds all the stuff thats scares the complete crap out of me and dangles them in front of my consciousness. I've learned to (mainly) not react to this with the help of some therapy. Meds didn't work out for me. I've had the solipsism thing, but don't any more. I still get periods of depersonalisation, unreality etc, but they don't phase me the same anymore. It can and will get better with the right person to talk to.
If you can take a step back from the minutia of it all for a moment (the specific questions - who am i? etc) these questions obviously have significance to you - they did for me. We simply can't answer them, so it gives your subconscious something it can torture you with, that you don't really have the ability to deal with. Nietzsche was right (about that at least) we're just not equipped. You are not alone here. What is important though is that you have control of your conscious mind - CBT did this for me. Roughly how it works for me now is I've come to see my subconscious almost as a separate entity from my conscious self. I have as much control over it as I have over a dream. Actually, thats not entirely true as I have trained my base responses to react differently over the years, but in the short term, its hard to control, and I tend to treat it like a screaming toddler. You can shout at it and scream back which makes it scream all the louder, or let it scream itself out. (then give it a big hug and a cookie ;))
In a healthy state you'd react to all these existential ideas with some form of emotive response. Now dial that up to 11 when you're not in as healthy a state of mind. They cause intense emotion and they 'stick' in a tired and emotionally fatigued mind. When emotion is involved, you've already lost. We can't be rational when emotional - you'll know this - they're difference mechanisms and are pretty much mutually exclusive. If you can work on the periods where you're not emotional and realise that thoughts are thoughts, ideas are ideas and none of it actually has to impact on your physical life, you can learn to access this when the emotion hits hard. Again a good therapist can help you out hugely here.
A little background as I'm new here, (found the place by accident when looking for something entirely unrelated :P ), I've had an anxiety disorder for 20 years. In that time I've managed to get on with living a normal life (well, as normal as I get)- wife, kids, job, education etc . What i'm trying to say is that it doesn't have to stop your life. It feels like it will, but you will learn to live with it in your own way. I've come to learn to live with all my little madnesses - I can actually sit in meetings now while having a panic attack and nobody would be any the wiser. I have bad days. Very occasionally bad weeks, and it feels like being back on day 1 when it happens. But now it doesn't last - generally the next day and its better.
So hang in there - get some help - as I say CBT worked for me really well, if you can get a good therapist. It can and will get better once you can find your path.
TonyBDavies
03-07-15, 12:20
http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/an-argument-against-solipsism-45342.html
Subject: An argument against solipsism
The argument goes like this: If this whole world is an illusion created by my brain, then that means that it was my brain which wrote Shakespeare's work, created Mozart's operas, and quantum physics, among other things, something which I find beyond all probability.
The gist of the argument is that when encountering a higher quality (which can be found in things like Shakespeare, Mozart, or quantum physics, just to take some examples), the subject will actually admit to itself that neither its subconscious nor its conscious part could have produced this at the moment.
The as such assumed simulation of the outer world becomes so complex that it feels more adequate to treat it as a factual outer world, rather than something that belongs to the I.
This does not mean that it would be impossible for the subject to ever write music of the same quality as Mozart's. Rather, it just cannot do it right now. And neither can its subconscious.
I've had this sort of trouble for around a decade, but that said I didn't start tackling the problem until I was 17 (now almost 21). I figure it out once my anxiety dies down, but then in a relapse I find myself having to reason it all out again. The reason this is auch an issue for anxiety/OCD sufferers is because the answer is hard to get your head around, and there doesn't tend to be a sufficiently satisfactory answer for the anxious mind. We can think out arguments for and against at solipsism all day long, but the trouble with philosophy is that someone can always come up with a counter argument, convoluted as it may be. Right now my anxiety is back with force, and as a result this has reared its ugly head again.
First of all, you need to become calmer and capable of thinking about the problem without panicking. Your anxiety is what is preventing you from looking at this issue from the viewpoint most people, non-anxious people, do.
After that, I advise you research the reasons solipsism isn't treated as a genuine possibility within philosophy. It isn't even seen as a theory, it is generally only used as thought experiment. The issue isn't disproving solipsism or you will potentially be there for years mentally ruminating on it, the issue is seeing why it is a concept, not a problem.
Non-anxious minds are able to think about this without feeling hellish and ruminating forever (easier for me to say as I have been there, managed that before), so yours can too.
Hello, in my opinion we shouldn't immediately come up with our own assumptions with regards to what you are actually encountering. I think the best thing you need to do is be diagnosed by a doctor first to have some sense of certainty as to what exactly you are experiencing. Anxiety and epilepsy is not that far from each other and it'll be troublesome if you have both. You'll be prescribe with medicines that have side effect that will only boost up Solipsism. So have yourself checked up to find out exactly what's happening to you. Then search for other approaches in handling your situation do not depend on medications.
GBGB -
I know exactly what you are going through. This is the precise nature of my DP/DR episodes. For many people, I think this is where the notion of God and/or a higher power comes in. Our knowledge is limited, which makes humans feel uncomfortable (I sure as hell know it makes me feel uncomfortable), so they put their trust and faith in the possibility that maybe a higher power is orchestrating all of this for us.
I am basically an atheist - believe me, I wish I could have faith - but my logical mind will not allow me to believe in an omniscient presence hovering over all of humanity and/or otherworldly humanities. Faith would allow me to relinquish my need to have these questions understood. I feel I would be more comfortable with believing that this was all God's plan.
However, as much as my logic can liken believing in God to believing in Santa (I am not minimizing others' faith in God - this is just how I have always thought about it), I also have a healthy respect for the fact that these questions that you list - the burning desire to understand the reason for our consciousness, for our existence - cannot be answered by science.
If you are a person of faith, maybe your higher power is the answer to all of those questions.
I understand your pain all too well. I am struggling with it as we speak. The way that I get through it on the regular is re-framing it like this - if I'm going to be here anyway, even if all of my world is fake, even if everything I have ever known is a lie, I might as well enjoy the ride and see what happens. This "reality" that is constructed, whether it be in my head or something that is true, isn't so bad. I get to have some perks along the way - good memories made, love, sex, happiness, etc. - so even if it is fake, this "reality" could most definitely be worse.
Hope you recover very soon.
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