u/Zestyclose_Worker_29

I was ok for a few months with small fleeting thoughts, but all of a sudden it just hit. It's been more frequent for the past few years and lasts for weeks."You won't be here anymore." I can't do anything in the moment because my brain tells me it'll just be over what's the point. Why do anything like go outside? Everyone says to just make the most of the moment but my brain switches on these horrifying thoughts 24/7. It's going around and around in a constant wheel. I've completely lost myself because I feel like myself doesn't matter when there won't be a me ever again and I can't experience anything. I feel like time is flying by and I'm watching it pass from 3rd person. I just needed to vent maybe someone relates to this. I don't want to feel so alone it's like everyone's blinded to the inevitable, all TV shows and movies and fun things were created as a distraction. All the memories I have of watching my favorite show will die with me and the things I learn in life won't matter because they won't be carried on anywhere. It's just so exhausting I can't sleep because it feels like I've immediately skipped to the next morning and it's all bright out.

I'm definitely a real human lol. I don't really know what's going on I can't find my account anywhere online

24 here.

I don't know what happened. I don't know what caused this panic. Sometimes I fall asleep without meaning earlier at night, and I wake up in a complete sweat extremely hyper aware. So much time has passed and now all of a sudden it's this early hour and I didn't do my before bed routine and process that I'm getting in and falling asleep. So it feels like I blinked and went forward in time. I can feel my body laying down, every time I see my hands or feel anything, my mind jumps years forward and I become a wrinkled version of myself standing in the mirror thinking of all the time I had in my youth that I no longer have. It feels like every second is slipping away and nothing matters. Taking a drink of water doesn't matter, watching a movie doesn't matter, engaging in hobbies doesn't matter. All the things that became routine suddenly stop as time goes by. The thought that I won't do the same things forever horrifies me to my core. If it helps I'm autistic so I like having my routines uninterrupted. I like going to the same stores and ordering the same foods. I also collect and watch some of the same things from when I was younger. I am a fully capable mature 24 year old man, but I get uncomfortable thinking about how long it's been since I was just a happy oblivious kid. So I surround myself with what I know is familiar and have been known to comfort in the past. Back then, I believed I couldn't grow old as unrealistic as that is. I thought my skin could never wrinkle, my body would never start to slowly shut down. Maybe I had been chosen by some higher power and I'd live on this earth forever like the characters in books I got too attached to. (Totally delusional I know but I was a special child who was always scared of growing up, changing, and losing himself.) It didn't really help that my mom did not allow me to be in the know of my grandmother's passing so I was not exposed to the topic of death growing up. I don't personally believe in religion or afterlife due to the way my brain works it refuses to think beyond "the consciousness is a brain product we are organic beings and therefore are like all other animals". (Putting that in quotes because I don't want to present it as fact because consciousness is nearly impossible to study at the current level. There isn't an actual study to either prove or disprove this.) But I find religious beliefs absolutely beautiful and fully respect them all so this isn't meant to knock down anyone. We all just think differently.

Everyone in the past is gone. They were living their lives just like us with the same basic human instincts. At this moment thousands or millions of years ago there was someone, or something probably standing where you are in the exact moment looking up at the stars, at the vastness of the universe wondering the same terrifying things we are. I look at other people and unwillingly picture them as old, I picture how buildings would look crumbling down because one day they will be. Once great cities in ancient times have been long forgotten.

Even if a city like New York survives until the end of the human race, nothing would matter, the sun will eat everyone and everything in its path. The here and now will always be gone, I can't live in the now. Every second of the show I'm watching is now gone. The thing I built in Minecraft is now complete. I took a bite and filled my senses for a moment, but then it's gone. but I won't remember anything when I die so watching it in the first place won't matter. Nothing in my brain matters memories don't matter because they will be gone. Sorry this was so long I'm going through a terrible crisis and ended up writing out a lot of things that did actually help a bit. Maybe someone's going through this too I would absolutely love to connect with those who might be feeling similar. I've never been more terrified in my life because a fear like getting hit by a car or, I don't know, quick sand can be calmed down by "you can take steps to protect yourself." When it comes to death, you cannot protect yourself. It all comes down to non existence being scary. I don't want to not exist and not know what this massive universe has for whatever explores it.

It's like I'm hyper aware of everything, almost like waking up from the matrix. I'm hoping I don't sound completely crazy with my wording. It just feels like I'm in a different reality as of late. I wake up every morning, and lie in bed sometimes at other times and the thought comes to me that "nothing matters." Everything in this life is all created as a distraction, learning something new means nothing. Every thought that goes through my head will one day disappear all together, so what's the point? I fear getting old and losing the interests that comfort me. Cartoons, collecting physical items of my favorite characters, my plushies. I'm terrified of my brain thinking these things aren't cool to me as I age. I just turned 24 so I have my whole life ahead, that's the scariest part. I only have a short time being young. I just think how it'll pass so quickly I'm stuck in that mindset. Our bodies are growing older by the minute, we're designed that way. It feels so unfair that nature gives us this time to explore earth and the creations that others have made, just to take it away and erase everything we've learned as individuals in an instant. All my memories and everything, my whole life just, gone like that. Surely life has to have some meaning behind "distracting yourself with things others have created to distract themselves from the inevitable."

I can't even look at a building without thinking how it'll be bulldozed to the ground one day. All the places we visit, the companies we know, the products and brands we're familiar with, will end up being spoken of in future history. The greater meaning of life always boils down to "nothing matters." We become like the things we leave behind. Inanimate objects. Humans are a very complex species and it's a true miracle we developed this high level of consciousness in the first place. But we're all the same as the trees, the grass, and the wind when we die. Why does having this high level of consciousness matter? So we can come up with more distractions to ease the fear?

There will be hundreds, maybe thousands of generations of people after we're gone. I just want to stop looking at things and comparing myself to inanimate objects because of my fear of death. I'm just like that piece of paper one day I'll be having to be moved around by others without ever being aware.

I want to be buried with my beloved Pikachu plush, but will I have grown out of even finding comfort in him when I age to 40? Or even younger. This is a question only the future can answer, but the future is terrifying. "When I was your age. I remember..." reminds me how life goes by in the blink of an eye.

To sum it up, I feel like I'm living on another plane of existence where I'm hyper aware of things. Why do people even create stuff like TV shows, movies, video games, restaurants etc. Are they really just meant as distractions to keep us busy so we don't think about the inevitable?