doomsday scenario

[stanwixman]

Hi i have been on and off cypralex for various panic and axiety disorders for the last few years. For the last year or so I have been symptom free as a result. To cut to the crutch of it last week I was helping my son with his homework. He had to do a time line of the earths life. I was checking on the internet to help him and came across an article as to how the Sun is dying. It has really affected me in a way i thought not possible. I know i shouldnt worry about it as it wont happen for over a bilion years but i cant stop thinking about it and its making me ill, so much so my gp has put me back on cypralex. Its not the fact that earth will be wiped out in million million years but the fact that I cant stop thinking about how everything we know as life today will go and why continiue to live as we are now when its going to be gone (even though not in our life time) I have only been back on the meds since last week and feel so bad. I know that it will take time to kick in but will they help me stop thinking about the future all be it so far away and not in our lifetime. It seems silly but i keep thinking about how knowbody seems to be worried or talking about this? its really getting me down and its the fact that I worry about this not going away is really starting to worry me further. I even went out at the weekend with the wife to try and feel better but when the sun came out it brought out all the negative thoughts again. I cant stop living just because of what will happen a billion or so years from now and i cant stop going out when its sunny? LOL. please help I feel i am at my wits end and if it carries on i will loose everything my wife family and job etc and the thought of this is making it worse. I am not a religious man at all so I have no faith to turn to please please help.

[stanwixman]

It isn't a silly thing at all - many people fear the end of the world as we know it! It's an extremely terrifying thought. I can understand completely how this is affecting you and your way of thinking, but it needs to be rationalised. You talked about not being religious - and i wonder, what do you believe comes after death?

I have an intense fear (as silly as it sounds) of the end of the world in the form of a zombie apocalypse. The idea of the human race being dead (as they would if the sun was to die) and everything we know being abandoned absoultly terrifies me - and yet alot of people laugh about it and call me daft! I am able to tell myself that my fear is irrational - its something that appears in storybooks and fiction - and yet if i want to wind myself up about it, then i will! Your fear is something that is almost proven to be certain - and of course that is going to be frightening! I too, get triggers that make me think about my worst nightmare - honestly, it can be someone screaming or someone walking weirdly - i panic! I think the main thing to realise is that it wont affect you and your world as YOU know it. Try not to dwell on something that will happen long after you have lived. Don't be depressed about the world being gone tomorrow - enjoy the world as it is today. Embrace all of the things that you love and cherish about this world - the people, the places. We appreciate certain people in our lives because we know they won't be here forever - and we recognise the fact that we ourselves won't live forever!

Its a morbid thought, the end of the world, and i think everyone is aware of it, one way or another. Its just how we deal with the thought - and i do hope that you are able to find a way through your fear :)



Thanks for the reply. I am not a religious man as i stated before. I am what people would say agnostic i think, I would like to believe in somehting but belive science over religion so feel it hard to belive in life after death so that scares me too. The thing that upsets me more is that this time last week i was 100% myself and without a care in the world then in a short week pow all this happens.. I am back on my cypralex but its the thought that i might not kick these irational thoughts for the rest of my life is whats worrying me, then i start worryin about other things. I know people including my wife keep saying live my life today rather than thinking of what will be after im dead and gone but I find it hard to stop thinking about all the beauty in the world and what we have today will be gone even if in a billion years. I also worry about what the people if any left would do ? crazy i know. My wife if a brick in this and is very supportive. she keeps trying to help me by telling me that we have achived a hell of a lot technology wise in the last hundred years or so so maybe in the future , future civilizations will be able to sort something out ? who knows. just hope i can get my life back on track and not keep thinking these thoughts.

[sarah_85]

when i am having an anxious episode i fixate of stuff like this. about why is no-one else around me bothered about the fragility of life and the fact that in the end we will all end up dying so why are we here etc and it goes on and on. i was like this last night in fact. however, it passes! i have been nearly myself again today and gone to work and haven't given it a second thought. my only advise is to try and distract yourself from these thoughts because they will cause you to sink deeper into anxiety and panic. the way i managed this was to say to myself, ok so that is life in basic terms, life and death BUT what about what comes in between? that is what counts and if we're here, we need to make the most of it. you sound like you're happily married and have have children? that is one of life's most precious achievements. try and remind yourself of that all the time. i promise you this will pass. the only way i can deal with my anxiety is by ackowledging the fact that some says will be good and some will be not so good, and that is the nature of it. im sure once your meds kick in again, you will be back on track. you are so not alone, anxiety and panic are so cruel, they make you dwell on things you never normally would.
i hope this helps, and i hope this really horrible period will pass and you will get some relief from it. xxxx

[stanwixman]

when i am having an anxious episode i fixate of stuff like this. about why is no-one else around me bothered about the fragility of life and the fact that in the end we will all end up dying so why are we here etc and it goes on and on. i was like this last night in fact. however, it passes! i have been nearly myself again today and gone to work and haven't given it a second thought. my only advise is to try and distract yourself from these thoughts because they will cause you to sink deeper into anxiety and panic. the way i managed this was to say to myself, ok so that is life in basic terms, life and death BUT what about what comes in between? that is what counts and if we're here, we need to make the most of it. you sound like you're happily married and have have children? that is one of life's most precious achievements. try and remind yourself of that all the time. i promise you this will pass. the only way i can deal with my anxiety is by ackowledging the fact that some says will be good and some will be not so good, and that is the nature of it. im sure once your meds kick in again, you will be back on track. you are so not alone, anxiety and panic are so cruel, they make you dwell on things you never normally would.
i hope this helps, and i hope this really horrible period will pass and you will get some relief from it. xxxx

hi thanks for the kind words. i keep trying to think of happy thoughts my wife keeps telling me this too but its hard. i keep looking at everything and think why is everyone carrying on without a care that one day it will all be gone - fact!! even though that this will be so far into the future longer than earth has existed already. i keep trying to tell myself that maybe in the future that earth will be saved by advances in tech etc but then feel selfish when i keep saying its not our problem etc as mentioned i am back on cipralex after coming off them about 6 months ago. i came off them as i felt ok and that i didnt need them as i wasnt feeling any affect of them anymore. now im back on them i keep feeling that suppose they dont work this time etc, i am getting some of the side affects ie increased anxiety , tiredness nausea etc this was as soon as i took the first pill so i guess they are doing something. i know last time i had highs and lows but then it was usually one day at a time etc but this time i have about 5 or 6 mood swings a day. i do hope they do kick in as i dont want to be like this for ever. my wife has been a rock in all this but i too worry that one day she will crack. please help

[Nigel]

Hi stanwixman,

I read this the other day but didn’t have time to stop and reply. But what I was going to say is exactly what you’ve since said your wife said. She’s dead right too!

I think it’s only natural to feel something when thinking about these things, but think about how we’ve come in the last hundred years alone... Radio, telephone, flight, were only just being invented. Didn’t even have calculators when I was at school, and I’m not that old :winks:

So in a billion years it’s quite possible that mankind will have the technology to protect the Earth. Or will we even be bothered about it? I’m sure we’ll be inhabiting new worlds by then, and some of those might be far nicer than this one. That far into the future we’ll probably think of planets in much the same way as we think of cities today...

So it really isn’t worth worrying about it today because so many things – things we simply cannot comprehend – will be possible then.

Take care,
Nigel

[tiredzombie]

Obviously that's some pretty huge stuff to be thinking about.
I guess it's possible that humanity may have moved on to solar systems new by the that point. If we're still around then I should think we'd have moved forward pretty significantly technologically speaking.

Pondering the death of our species is not a pleasant thing to do, but I suppose death is a part of life. In the long term it's not something anyone can isolate themselves from, and I'm not sure we'd really want to if we could.

Even if humanity is wiped out, who's to say that there isn't another species out there in the Cosmos similar to us, with the same hopes and dreams? Other green worlds, filled with natural wonders, and creatures enjoying their beauty. Is that any less wonderful? Apparently it's a pretty big universe.

Also I suppose a lot of people see potential value in the lives we live regardless of the end result. If you only value the legacy that you leave behind, e.g. in somehow helping to prolong human existence as much as possible, then armageddon is going to seem pretty awful. But if the value resides not in the lasting difference you make to the world, but in the experiences we take from life, then maybe it's not a big deal.

I think ultimately wondering about these kind of things can lead us to question what we are doing here. That can be scary in itself. But I don't think you need to accept a religious answer (or any answer for that matter) in order to be ok with it. For me, it is the sheer uncertainty about our reality that sometimes stops me from feeling down. Are we simply the product of unconscious material forces? In which case is it worth worrying so much about what we do in life? Why not just relax and do what you feel like, and enjoy it? Do we even really have any free will about the way we act? Or does consciousness somehow precede the existence of the material world? In which case what happens to our consciousness after death? Does what we do have a lasting impact? I've read various answers to these questions, and I've never found one that convinced me beyond all doubt. So I suppose that all one can do is keep on living, and thinking, and investigating, until you find an answer you are prepared to live by. When I think about it like that, the universe seems more awesome and amazing than worrying. Sometimes it even helps me to stop worrying about the more mundane and insignificant stuff that currently plagues me (like catching the bus tomorrow:).)

Anyway, hope the drugs help. And maybe there are other forms of help you could try too?