r/Existential_crisis

▲ 7 r/Existential_crisis+1 crossposts

this is what happens when you spend all week inside
this has been going on for two (three? i have no sense of time anymore) days.

it goes like this:

i think of the question of free will

if god exists, then everything is pre-determined, because god is omnipotent, but then god is a liar because there is no free will afforded to reject or believe in religion and thus existence simply becomes a sadistic game for god (this is the gnostic notion) <- this is all built on the assumption of abrahamism

but whether god exists or if he's a liar is completely meaningless to me as a person since we can't prove his existence or prove his non-existence, so it's fine to live in absurdity as it's beyond our comprehension or our sensible logic/account of reality

up until i encased myself in the thought game of free will through a supposedly fully scientific & secular method

neuroscientists think our entire existence is a machination of a predetermined universe

this has obviously highly distressed me
because determinism ends up being fatalism no matter how you look at it
and compatibilism just tries to re-establish the concept of free will into something that ends up being fatalism anyways

and it is impossible to be a fatalist without being a depressed nihilist
absurdism, optimism, existentialism don't do anything to my worldview anymore, since there is absolutely no point in making a meaning out of something predetermined, should free will exist i would have been 100% content with albert camus' ideas

then i also have to think about the idea of what really entails a living being, if it's all just atoms anyways? is everything made up? materialism is a terrible state of mind

even if i try to reconcile with absurdism physical cosmology comes in and shatters every inch of clawing to life i still have
what's the point of living on if scientific progress inevitably turns us into this? all that science has been concerned with is the elimination of suffering, but we're not used to that existence of no-suffering, in a world of immortality (or even, a greatly increased lifetime that everything human pales in respect), what truly matters anymore? am i just fearing evolution?

and beyond that, as far as we can tell, the universe is cyclic, come 40 billion years and if humanity ('s very evolved predecessor) still exists as a type-whatever civilization, all that exists will be wiped nonetheless

perhaps the way out of this is a sort of eastern religious philosophy like buddhism but i can't honestly in good faith interact with that faith system instead of finding a way out through suicide, since it locks you into another sort of faith-based system of having to persevere lest you wanna be reborn into something lesser and re-continue the cycle... and that's totally unprovable, and as far as i'm concerned any secular account of that is entirely nihilism in a different package anyways

this is probably my worst depressive episode yet, good lord, i have never felt this way in my life, i feel disoriented in a royal way, confused yet not so in a manner like nothing i've ever had to deal with, like a walking contradiction, everything feels fake and claustrophobic now, there are feelings arising when i look myself in the mirror, when i talk to my parents, that are overwhelming (in a bad way) and also very novel

and yet in a strong irony i find myself also feeling stress about my final exams in a month, wanting to masturbate, wanting to hit the gym, and all those other fleeting whatever-the-hell human desires despite being clearly met with knowledge beyond my deepest intellect

is this what a manic episode feels like? my psych gave me olanzapine for my szpd, i have some left i think, i see no way out, i'll self-medicate and see where that takes me

u/Different_Arm402 — 6 days ago

Existential OCD… I can’t help but feel so miserable

I’m 18(F) and I never thought about death this seriously until a few months ago, I simply didn’t care but when the realization of death and absolute uncertainty hit it hit so fucking bad. I’m diagnosed with OCD, I use 100mg Sertraline daily but that shit doesn’t help anymore.

I can’t cope with the fact that one day I will die, it’s scary and I don’t want to stop experiencing, living. I never believed in any religion or afterlife stuff and I started to believe that we just simply cease to exist since it was the simplest answer. I couldn’t sleep countless nights because of this though. But my spiral didn’t end here because then I remembered the fact that this planet will also be destroyed by our sun one day and this universe will be either face a heat death where nothing will happen or disappear in another way, that’s what science says at least and I can’t help but feel that everything is painfully pointless. No one will remember us and there won’t be anything to remember. Nothing matters because when we die we won’t be able to tell how much time has passed and we can just think that the universe died in a blink of an eye from our subjective perspective. Even if I was immortal I don’t think I would want to experience this awful things. Dying and seeing everything die (if we’re really a part of this reality we also disappear with it so there’s no actual immortality yada yada 🧍‍♂️) are equally scary.

I can’t sleep properly, I’m always tired and always in a derealization state, I can’t focus on my life because I always think about the “bigger” stuff, my life doesn’t feel like “my life” anymore, I can’t get myself to care. I don’t know what to do, I hate that everything will end one day and it’s fucking scary.

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u/Diomil_ — 2 days ago

I don’t believe love is real anymore

A couple of weeks ago I came to the realisation that love as we know it doesn’t really exist in my brain. I do belive we love each other as a species and how we connect with each other, but I don’t belive in that “special someone”. I feel the love we are being portrayed in society is easily replaced by a dog and a whore.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Am I broken for not believing in duality in this aspect?

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u/Sufficient_Garbage_1 — 2 days ago

Something vs Nothing

This causes me more anxiety that I would call sane. I have gone through a gastroscopy, and it does not compare to this. What do you mean "there just is "something"? But then again, how can "Nothing" exist? It does not make sense. Is our brain just too puny?

Better question: How do I know anything is real? If I can not prove anything, how tf do I prove I am not a consciousness floating infinitely through infinite time? Seriously, this is one of my greatest causes of anxiety. My brain makes up some sick belief where I am a suffering god who experiences eternal time unwillingly, and made this world to ease the suffering of erernal existnce. What the fk?

And no no no, my brain doesn't stop there, Every time I try to think about anything deeperx anything in physics, my dumbass tries to fo to the foundations since in a nerdy maths geek who likes axioms. The universe doesn't have axioms. IT IS SEARCHINF FOR SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT EXIST. EVERY TIME. I try to think, "Oh hey, I wonder *why* a higgs boson does this and that' and I'm immidiately jumping to trying to imagine nothing, which cannot exist because it contradicts the idea thaf we live in something. And what, more anxiety and I can't even chill and think about physics anymore?

The worst part is that this is periodic. Most days, it's not even there. Some months, it makes my life poopoo. By the time I get a therapist from the NHS. it is long gone, waiting to prey on me again. No psychological help has worked ao far.

Chat, idk what to ask, I'm at a loss for words. Going through this crap at the big 16 for like 2 years now. Atleast its some proof im smart or somethinf.

(TLDR START HERE)

How do I deal with thinking revursively about nothing? (I mean full nothing, "Why does anything exist if there are conditions for existence? Furthermore, how could nothing exist since it requires a domain to exist in? And lastly, if neither nothing nor something exists, and that means lofic exists fundamentally, ok where does logic come from?") I can not imagine anything of this scale, and it gives me a headache just thinking about it. Its 2:30 and I can't sleep. How do I actually deal with these feelings, and what helped toy?

I have a weird belief that I am a solipsist, creating the world to escape eternal time prison torture. Anyone else? How did you stop this sick belief?

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u/Civil_Bus_5029 — 6 days ago