# Existential anxiety and depression



## Guest (Jun 9, 2016)

Sorry for a really long post guys.

I've been suffering from DP for nearly two months now. That's quite short compared to most people here I think. It really sucks, and my worst symptom is definitely existential anxiety and hyperawareness OCD. im completely bewildered by my own existence, consciousness, ability to produce thoughts and a million other things relating life and what it is. I can really relate to this article: http://www.barrenmind.com/weed-induced-derealization-depersonalization-existential-crisis/(except the text at the end written by Albert Camus whom I do like as a philosopher but for whatever reason could not understand for the life of me when I tried to read/understand it). Everything feels futile and meaningless and arbitrary, strange, confusing and quite terrifying. I don't know how many other sufferers of DP get this but I don't know. I do always feel like I can't quite explain what I'm going through and that I'm the only one going through this particular type of DP, if it's even DP anymore idk. I feel like ive lost myself and I'll never come back. I know it's not good to scare yourself by reading fatalist stories but today I read a story of a guy with DP looking into assisted suicide because he's had DP for 10 years and has tried everything and nothing's working for him. I've now got it in my head that I'm gonna end up like that. I'm just afraid of my own existence, it's crazy. I heard it described by somebody today as 'like a fish who's afraid of water'. That's quite a good way to put it I think. But that particular person is now currently in a psych ward. I can't imagine ever 'recovering' from this because it doesn't even feel like an illness.

Anyway last night I was drunk and smoked weed. I know, what a stupid decision. I don't know how I let that happen but I guess i was just drunk. I didn't have a panic attack or anything though, I was actually fine on it and had a good night. It was in the morning when I woke up that I just instantly regretted it. The anxiety just gripped me the second I realised I was awake and remembered that I smoked a load (I can't even remember how many hits I took). I was kinda hungover and had little sleep but I just felt foggy and detached and really anxious. It's evening now and the existential anxiety I mentioned above is pretty difficult at the moment. Im really sick of being in this state. It's just debilitating. I feel like now that I've smoked weed while in this state I've somehow perma-fucked myself. It's irrational but that's how I feel. I'm feeling so depressed as the apparent meaninglessness of life. It feels like a chore. I look at other people and just don't get how they can just 'be'. I mean they must think about it from time to time, the things I think about. I know I used to think about these things before DP/DR but I feel like other people don't think about them in the same way as I think about them now. It's so horrible. I mean I know that the weed obviously made it worse but I don't think I was doing too well regardless. I'm not going to commit suicide, but I'm thinking about suicide quite a lot and it scares me. I don't want to die, it would tear my parents apart. I was in therapy today but that's not for DP/DR I've been in therapy for a year because I'm quite a messed up kid already. I just cried and cried about my mum and how much grief I've caused her in the last two years with all my hospital admissions and self-harming and stuff. She knows I've been very suicidal and one time when I was crying after a small crisis not too long ago where I cut myself a lot she just broke down and cried too and said 'I couldn't bear to lose you'. I know I love my mum so much but I have no sense of self and it kills me so much.

My head is all over the place. I don't feel in control of my thoughts and myself and I'm scared of losing control. I feel like I can't relate to a lot of people on here anymore. I don't worry about things being unreal and solipsism, although I can sympathise with people who do suffer with those sorts of anxieties because they sound horrific. But I just don't know what this is anymore. I don't know what to do. Distracting myself did help a little but I don't know if it's a great strategy. Sometimes it just feels like I'm trying to run away from my own thoughts which is impossible and I just end up feeling desperate and frustrated. I've listened to the audio tapes of Dr Claire Weekes' 'Hope and Help for your Nerves' and tried to 'accept' everything about this but I don't feel like I know how to do it. Since everything is so strange, the idea of 'accepting' anything seems strange. To accept is a strange and absurd and abitrary, meaningless thing to do. That's the nature of the state I'm in. It's engulfed EVERY part of my being. It involves my own consciousness and my own thoughts. I find thoughts themselves strange.

What can I do guys? I have no idea what I can do.


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## JayB (Apr 6, 2015)

Could have write that myself. You are not alone. Jeffrey Abugel himself had this type of depersonalization which is called ''phobic-anxiety depersonalization'' described by Martin Roth. He went trough the frightening realizations that he was alone in his own mind and couldn't know what others were thinking. He obsessed about concepts like the wind (what is this invisible force that I can't see but that I can feel around me?), human anatomy and thinking. The fact that we are thinking in words and that we bring up ideas from seemingly out of nowhere became strange. You feel like you come from another planet and can't relate to human life anymore. Being detached from everything make you analyze every aspect of life in an existential and cartesian way. I don't feel in control of my mind too, even though I know I am. If I try to picture an apple in my mind, I am able to do it, but I am also instantly pondering how weird it is (and scaring myself). Stuff come to my consciousness, but I feel like I'm just watching a screen displaying words, images, sounds, etc. without any feeling of ownership towards those things. All my thought processes are strange to me. Memory, inner voice, visual imagery, name it. I'm constantly thinking about those thought processes while having them and wondering how is it possible that's the way things are and work. It's literally as if I used to be another form of life with different cognitive processes and now i'm stuck in a human body. Those are obviously obsessive thoughts but I can't seem to accept them because of how I feel : unable to ground myself to anything because everything have lost meaning and/or is strange. During the day, I look at the sky and the clouds and It just looks like a fantasy painting and I wonder where the sky ends while being scared/depressed by the fact that we are so small on the universe scale. I look at people (that I now see more as animals now) doing their things daily and envy their ''ignorance''. It's like I've seen (or perceive) things that a human is not meant to see because it is just too much to bear. I've talked to many people (Jeff Abugel, 2 psychiatrists, 2 psychologists, many people recovered or not with similar symptoms) and I came (with them) to the conclusion that anxiety needs to be treated so DP can fade too. I try my best to accept things as they are while living a healthy life. I've also started a new medication that is recommended for anxiety, depression and OCD/Pure-O. Give yourself all the chances you need to recover, I know how hard and painful it is to just leave your house for a few hours but do it, We need to reprogram our brain into thinking that everything is fine and normal. I believe that once fear/anxiety fades, metaphysical/existential thoughts are more easily ignored and become meaningless.


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## Alex617 (Sep 23, 2015)

Existential angst is just one of those things I've never been able to logically beat. The only thing that has worked is just living life anyway, and things seem to make sense for a while. Then I go back to ruminating and the angst comes back in full force. It's horrible, and if I could choose cancer over existential angst I would choose cancer in a heart beat.

The worst aspect is the isolation and feeling of hopelessness, especially if you read books about it, nothing seems to satisfy. I hope you don't make my mistake of spending so long reading about it and ruminating, human connection and interaction is the antidote here and I fucked myself by withdrawing away from my social life and in to my own head. I'd really like to suggest you maybe go to group therapy, see an existential therapist and be active about living your life and finding some inner peace.

Also take in to consideration depression, the common variety kind. I find that my existential angst cycles along with my mood, when I feel good it all seems silly to me, but when my mood drops the existential fears rear their head.


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## Carl_34_m_UK (May 3, 2016)

I've been in group therapy for two weeks solid at a private hospital as an in patient. I don't feel any different from when I was admitted. I've accepted this needs a therapist who specialises in existential obsession and anxiety. I'm not actually convinced anyone can reduce the agony of this for people who's minds are wired this way. It's like opening a door and viewing the world and existence through some glasses that reveal the truth behind human life. My skin burns with angst at being stuck having to be alive and live with being a person. A human existence that I no longer like


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