fear of eternity

[lyn87]

I am not sure where this idea came from, and why it consumes me so much and others fail to obsess over it like I do but I am terrified of eternity after death.  I am not afraid of dying, but of eternity afterwards.  Do we remain aware of things?  This notion, even the idea of being in a happy place like heaven forever, terrifies me.  Anything, no matter how good, that continues without end, is my worst fear, and thinking about it literally forms knots in my stomach and intense fear.  I know that the answer to this can not be proven, and most would find relief in the idea of eternity, but it is my worst fear.  Does anyone else share this fear?  What can I do?  

[hernebill]

I feel exactly the same as most people on here. My biggest problem is that I do not believe that anything could solve this question as I do not feel that there can be an answer. This leaves me with a constant feeling of dread. It petrifies me so much I could never tell my loved one's what is wrong with me as I would never want them to start thinking about it. Obviously this causes problems in itself as they can't understand what is wrong with me and will start taking things personally. I have also manipulated thoughts in to visualizations in my head which enables me to feel like I am stuck in a loop of one big panic attack. I wish I could be hypnotized to believe in infinity but I am too frickin cynical that I wont let it work! sheesh.... What to do?

[lila118]

I am glad i found this forum, for me the worst part of it is that i feel ashame to take abt  it especially with family members, i have severe headeach,and nightmare just the word eternity makes me sick, at the same time i do not wana be withdrawn from existance it will then be eternal, so there is no choice and that is what scares me the most. i hate that i can not stop thinking, it is a viscious circle, there is nothing that could make me feel better , i am lost........

[deliberate]

i can relate to the screamin- panic attack!
my fear is based more on a celestial approach- what will happen to everthing?! cant even start dweling on it...

[mateo84]

My fear of eternity and infinity began when I was 12. By the time I was 16 my anxiety attacks had become so frequent that I was sure I would be in a psychiatric center by the time I graduated high school. I went to pretty much every psychologist/psychiatrist in my area and in turn lost a lot of respect for those professions. That was when I discovered yoga therapy and it definitely improved my life drastically. I think yoga therapy helped because it taught me that people have been troubled by these thoughts since humans started recording their history. One thought that came to me during one of the therapy sessions that particularly helped put a damper on my anxiety, was thinking about eternity in the reverse. I thought "well, since I have already 'survived' eternity from the past, maybe there is something that I am missing about eternity into the future." I don't know if that will make sense to all of you who have commented here but for some reason it helped me. I am by no means 'over' my obsession with these thoughts, but I have learned to keep them at bay and not just by mere distraction. Meditation has really helped me to take the reins of my mind so to speak. In eastern philosophy they have a term called 'sunyata' which is roughly translated as 'emptiness'. In my limited understanding of eastern philosophy I have learned that this 'emptiness' is the essence of all material existence and I have come to believe that people like you and I are getting a glimpse of this truth of existence when we focus so deeply on such concepts as eternity and infinity. However it is a truth that is so vast that our minds/egos don't know where to place it so we simply freak out.

If anyone else who has commented here is interested in starting an official "crazy about eternity" forum I would be very interested in participating. I am curious to know what if any similarities people with this fear share. May you all experience an anxiety free day. love and light ad infinitum (pun intended)

[Allie2017]

I made a med help account just to comment. I am up at 1 in the morning freaking out about eternity and then I read your comment and it actually just helped me so much. I was so upset and crying and now I feel so much better. eternity in reverse.. I get it. It helps me make sense of eternity in forward somehow and how our earthly brains can't grasp it. This whole thread is helping a lot. I thought I was the only one who had these crazy thoughts.

[edgyboy]

My fear of eternity comes in the form of the cosmos. I don't obsess on it as much as I use to but I would think of the vasness of our galaxy. The thought of all this existance being inside of one of trillions of galaxys in the universe made me feel lost and meaningless.

The never ending, eternal universe. These thoughts would crush me with panic and anxiety. Over the years I have come to terms with these thoughts and they don't bother me as much as they use to.

Another crushing thought of eternal existance is the big bang, big crunch theory. In this theroy, this existance of ours may have happened countless times every trillion years or so. The universe explodes, we exist then everything comes back together in the big crunch only to start back over again. This can be disturbing to obsess over too.

God? I was raised a Catholic and believed in God like I was taught. But as I grew older, I questioned his existance. This only created more intense anxiety. My faith now varies eventhough I have seen miricles in my life. Actually, life itself is a miricle. We are only finite creatures living on this planet for miliseconds in the time of the universe. How can we understand or comprehend eternity? Here is a question for all, What was here before the universe? Answer = NOTHING! Wow my anxiety is acting up.

[edgyboy]

Mix all of these thoughts in with our own reality. That is what makes it tuff. Will we see our parents again? Our other loved ones? That is the disturbing part of these thoughts of eternity and the unknown.

Two distinct realities that mess together and become distorted, at least in an anxious state. I almost think I see things the way they really are when in derealization state. Keenly aware of the way things really are. I read that anxiety sufferers are in a way "too sane".

Geez, I am scaring myself thinking about all this stuff. I remember once being in a friend's house watching TV. Someone came on and was talking about our galaxy, something that I was always facinated with. As the conversation continued about our solar system and the distance between our closest neighbor, I began to feel far away. My arms and legs became numb, I was in a full panic attack. No one in the room had any idea that I was going through this.

The next day I woke up and I was living in a different world. Totally unreality. The anxiety levels were through the roof. I felt trapped inside this galaxy with no way out. A month later, I made an appointment to see a therapist.

The first two sessions with her were interesting for her I would think. The only thing I spoke about was the cosmos and our galaxy and how overwhelmed I was by the thought of it. During the third session, I began to talk about the cosmos again and she stopped me. she asked me a simple question, what is going on in your life? Well I obviously had alot of stress in my life at the time that caused me to obsess over nature and cause anxiety levels to increase.

It was all new to me so I didn't know how to handle or deal with it. What I am trying to say here is that there is a basis and cause for our fears and anxieties. we just attach these fears to concrete things around us to explain how we feel or what we are afraid of.

Sorry for being long winded but I think explaining how we feel helps everyone sort out issues.