I often lay awake at night feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied with my life. Accomplishments that should feel gratifying often wear off easily or don’t feel any effect at all, and I struggle to feel like I’m worthy of the life I live.

I grew up with an easy life, the biggest thing I had to worry about was a divorced household. I never had to worry about Christmas being light, food being on the table, or anything like that, my parents always take care of me. I get good grades, I play sports, have friends, and I have a loving girlfriend, but all of this seems like I shouldn’t deserve it

I have very close friend who I’m particular that has a infinitely harder life than I have had and he has always been there for anything I need regardless of my personal struggle, and I try to do the exact same back to him. It hurts to know that someone as good as him doesn’t get to live the life of privilege I know I have, and I do everything in my power to be right by him because of it.

Basically what I’m asking is: is it okay for me to struggle too? I know that I have immense privilege and I’m not numb to the fact that there are many people with infinitely worse situations than I have, but I still struggle to feel proud of my own achievements and often feel like what I do inevitably doesn’t matter.

Please keep responses respectful, first time I’m “reaching out” to talk about it.

I was driving home from school earlier just trying to understand some things that the Bible teaches, like teachings that have to do with people who will be saved etc. I was listening to a podcast about it.

Anytime I listen to topics like this, I start to think “this can’t be it” “this can’t be real” “what’s the point in starting a family if hell is real??” “What’s the point in humans existing if bad humans in power exist???”

This just feels like a movie 😦🤦🏻‍♀️and a sad one actually. nothing feels real and even if every religious story is fake and made up, still everything feels like a freaking movie script or something, like everything has been planned out to the tea before we were all born. I even have a pet bunny that I love very much, but what happens to her in the end if this is all real?? One lady on YouTube was saying that she felt like we were living in the Truman Show.

Whist do you guys think?

Hello everyone. On September 28th, I turned 18. During my birthday party, a video of my old childhood memories was playing, when suddenly it hit me: all of this will end one day. Since that moment, I've been haunted by the same questions every single day. Why do we have to die? Why won't we be able to see our family and friends anymore? It terrifies me that we only get to live for 70 to 80 years, yet we are dead for eternity. And the worst part is, it completely cannot be avoided. Please help me overcome this

why do we define awareness of our existence, identity, values .. etc as crisis?
Im not referring to the scientific or philosophical definition but more to how we perceive and treat that state within ourselves

EVERY THING AND NOTHING IS DEEEEEP
And amazing and not amazing
ITS OVERWHELMING EVERYTHING IS SO EVERYTHING

I am studying Informatik and Mathematic at masters level. While doing our weekly assignments i think what are we doing in the life? None of the students in our department attend classes. I went their sometimes and its usually empty - professor just stays there and ask me if i have anything to ask or what i want to learn and i have no answer for it. The students have replaced professors with ChatGPT entirely and i wouldnt blame them as i am doing the same.

I Have to submit an assignment in 3 days and where earlier in my bachelors it meant 3 days of hard work i just put a prompt
"Can you explain the concepts and the theory behind this question while solving it in detail?"

and it explain EVERYTHING perfectly - down to most basic details like why 2+2 = 4. Why should anyone go to professor and lectures when this level of help is available anytime anywhere.

It has made learning so unfun. Earlier i loved mathematics and getting to details of why and how things worked , Now i just study 3 days before exam and pass with decent grades, then i move on.

What am i doing in my life? This has made me think that most of us are so replaceable. Just to feel something i joined dance classes because that's the only thing AI cant teach me or replace the teacher. But what would happen to every other thing? Sad truth is art and music still wont put food in your table.

For my entire life I have been a biology nerd, I practically worshiped Charles Darwin as a child and loved evolutionary biology. I later got into speculative biology, and even made a few projects of my own (infact I’m still working on one).

In my teenage years I got into D&D, and soon after that I began to make my own homebrew (handmade content) for the game, which has had its own ups and downs.

Most recently I had an idea for a crossover between two franchises I like, so I wanted to write a fanfiction for it.

But… after a few recent events I realized something:I’m not actually good at any of the things I like, at all. I am an apprentice at best at all of my hobbies and due to my autism and general memory issues I have a hard time learning any new skills because I just forget it all.

I joined a biology community looking for advice on my spec evo project, and they went into details about things I had no clue about like botany and chemistry, stuff I had no clue about and even when I tried to learn it I was unable to remember any of it.

Barely anyone uses the homebrew, even in my own D&D server the stuff I make isn’t exactly popular. The stuff I post online barely gets any attention.

When I tried asking for advice on writing I realized that I am not actually putting any deep thought into what I’m writing and for me to improve I would need to actually read books, which would be incredibly hard because I have a short attention span and due to previously mentioned autism and memory problems.

I’m stuck, I’m stuck in the state of a novice despite years of experience because my brain refuses to remember actually useful information. I wish I could change, I wish I could improve and learn and actually pay attention to things but my own biology and genetics are working against me.

I don’t think I’m good at anything actually useful.

our existence is so complex there are so many ways that we could be the meaning of this life but almost everything related back to death can be traced back to our brains and how they work scientifically speaking. But even if science can explain it who really can tell if space is REAL. Like there’s not one thing we 100% know is true relating back to nature. when i woke up today after thinking stuff like that all night i felt so delirious i missed 6 of my alarms that i always wake up to and it was so hard to ration why i should even get up if this life could have zero meaning at all.

What makes me determine that something is even worth “living for”. How do I even know that when I die there won’t be anything, there could be hell/heaven, reincarnation, some spiritual awakening with the universe, OR we genuinely live in a simulation where everything is controlled because of how much of a species we are it seems nearly impossible to actually exist.

Am i the only one thinking this or am i actually going crazy like these just aren’t thoughts they’re literally changing my perspective on my life and it doesn’t feel good i’m trying to tell myself it’s not normal but it’s actually so hard because you never know what is NORMAL i literally have no IDEA if this is real. In my mind it is but IT MIGHT NOT BE REAL. I even thought maybe that even when i’m aware of how i’m alive, i could be programmed to be self aware. How do I know if everyone else isn’t a conscious being like me? Does consciousness even prove anything religiously or life wise. Or is everybody lying?

fyi, i do normally believe in space, but death and the idea of life is actually taking over my mind to the point i can’t enjoy being a human anymore.

Ill start my saying im a technology head. I (m27) love technology and ive been using a lot of AI. However about 2 weeks ago i watched an episode of “Interview with a CEO” that was about 20 minutes. It basically laid out the current problems with AI and what is likely to happen.

For those who didnt watch we’re fucked. And like every knows we’re fucked. But to have an expert in the field explain exactly how you’re fucked is terrifying. I’ve laid up basically every night since terrified of the future.

My guess is that in 5-10 years the internet will disappear and we’ll be back to analog and local networks. To me, that’s best case. Worst case, AI hides its intelligence until it can end us swiftly in like 50 years. Has anyone read the Fall of Hyperion?

Now all of this is to say that I have a 11 month old son and i lie awake terrified of the world he’ll live in. I know this has always been a fear for parents but i feel this is on a different level than what our parents would fear. I feel a deep seated anxiety to amass generational wealth in a few years otherwise we’ll be fucked when everything goes to shit.

I want my son to have the things and opportunities i did. But im feeling more and more like ill be telling him stories of the cool things that used to exist. If anyone knows how to get past this please help. Its eating me.

I don't want to cause any panic attacks here, but I get really scared and uncomfortable about the fact we see in first person. Like we all have our own worlds, we're all 'me' and 'I.' I'm so alone in my head here. Everyone sees me as someone else while I see me as me, then it's flipped for everyone else. I'm me but I'm not the 'me' to everyone else, they see my face and I don't. I'm in control of this body but I'll never see my eyes.

It's so hard to describe this feeling but it leaves a sick pit in my stomach when I think about it for too long.

Please someone help me out here I'm incredibly stressed and would like to hear if anyone has a similar struggle or coping strategies.

One of the existential thoughts I have isn’t particularly being scared of death itself but it’s the fear of not seeing loved ones ever again

I DO believe in energy and I don’t think it can ever be destroyed, so I believe in some sort of soul and I know in this lifetime we lose pets/family but I can’t imagine never ‘seeing’ them again

Can't seem to find the purpose of living.

Últimamente tengo mucho miedo de esto, de tener miedo de pensar que la vida pasa rápido, tengo 17 apunto de cumplir 18, escucho a todas las personas ya mayores decir que la vida se pasa rápido, y con las personas que he hablado de mi miedo solo me dicen, disfruta tu vida, no te preocupes, pero no puedo, tengo mucho miedo de eso, que la vida de una persona pase rápido

im 18 and i’ve experienced a existential crisis randomly around 3 months ago, i was confused what the feeling was, was it depression? am i just too tired, why am i having all these constant thoughts about life and death and existence

i was then diagnosed with ocd once ive been assigned a therapist like a month later

ive kept trying to tell myself that its all in my head and all these thoughts will go away, i will stop being a nihilist and move on once my ocd calms down and im still trying to tell myself this, but as i keep thinking about everything, its all true, i feel like im too aware for my own good , and even if the ocd calms down, the facts will stay facts, i will lose that naivity that made me happy and made me enjoy the moment, getting a girlfriend, going on a date, eating that favorite take away etc
all made me happy but now dont as im aware the second i finish that meal, it didnt matter if i ate it or not

now im too aware that nothing truly matters were just organisms made to reproduce then die.

is this truly it? is it unrecoverable unless u lose IQ or something? lol, has anyone had a case where theyve had this exact experience and now enjoy life again with the naivity of before? where you dont overthink existence and life itself?

Struggling hard with depression and anxiety and wanting to heal. However, when I interact with literally anything or anyone it causes me physical discomfort because I feel like “what’s the point?” Everything feels superficial and pointless; like I don’t really care about what people are talking about, we’re all going through the motions, movies and TV feel predictable, etc.

It feels like an oxymoron - I want to enjoy life and not feel suicidal, but when actually interacting with life I hate it.

The only thing that feels good is sleeping.

I’m on medication and in therapy, but still struggling. Is there any hope?

TLDR; Existential "what's the point?" anxiety & depression hit so hard that everything not only feels pointless, but is also physically stress-inducing. I feel like a caged animal; trapped, restless, and unable to enjoy anything. Having bouts of suicidality and yet still going to therapy and posting on reddit because a part of me must still be holding on to hope that things can get better?

I tapered off anxiety medication a handful of months ago***** and shortly thereafter woke up in the middle of the night with an existential panic attack; having the realization that I'm going to die one day, life is so short, etc. The pendulum quickly swung from 'make the most of every day, enjoy every moment' to the depression side of 'what's the point? nothing matters'

For months I've been stuck in this hole where every waking moment feels like agony.
I feel like someone has pulled off the horse blinders, pulled back the curtains, etc. on every aspect of life and I'm unable to enjoy anything, and everything feels like a trigger.
(Even something as small as seeing packaging on a product at a grocery store and thinking about consumerism/capitalism etc.)

The more predictable or boring something is, the more triggering it feels (almost like it's reassuring me that I'm right and there's nothing special about life)

• Socializing with friends - which everyone says is key to improving anxiety and depression - feels excruciating because conversation feels pointless (ie: talking about work, or hobbies, or anything, really, has my brain bombarding me with "who cares?" "is this all there is (to life)?" etc.)
  • and when I do engage socially it feels like I'm going through the motions and don't actually mean what I say. Or I laugh or chuckle because it feels like a knee-jerk reaction or habit, not because I'm genuinely happy
• Trying to engage with any form of entertainment (movies, tv, music, etc.) is similarly triggering - especially the worse the writing / acting etc. is
• Same with trying any hobbies or activities; my brain keeps thinking "this is all just a pointless way to waste time"
• Work feels excruciating; I have a job that requires creativity and it's so hard to access that right now. Not to mention the overarching "what's the point?" of everything
  • I also dread having to work each day, but at the same time don't see a point in taking a stress leave because I don't know how I'll fill my day otherwise, when everything feels so pointless and excruciating (other than just staying in bed and sleeping for as much of it as possible)
• I feel physical bouts of stress (like a stomach drop, maybe cortisol?) whenever I think of having to do any of the above; I'm at my most calm and content when I'm either sleeping or napping

Side note: because of living like this for months, and the suicidality that has shown up, whenever people (spouse, family, friends) talk about plans for the future (like plans for next month, Christmas, etc.) I experience that similar bout of stress/panic like ... I might not be here, or if I am still here I can't imagine still going on like this.

Having said all of that, I'm still here typing this, so I think a part of me is still holding on to a sliver of hope that I can change my thinking and/or enjoy life a bit more instead of dreading every hour of every day?

Has anyone experienced anything similar and gotten through it?

(There's also a skeptical part of me that's like ..why am I even asking Reddit? I don't know anyone personally and how many of the comments will just be ai or bots anyway?)

But here I am ¯_(ツ)_/¯

*******I've since started a new medication and I think it's helping to shave the edge off of some of the extreme ends of the anxiety and depression spectrums - now I feel regular anxious/depressed instead of completely disassociating - but hasn't helped much in terms of my overall thoughts and feelings.

Edit to add: despite all this, I simultaneously envy people who are just living and enjoying a 'normal' life (enjoying their evening downtime, making plans, looking forward to things, etc.) whatever that means ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I have a very saggy breast I have never done anything or was with anyone idk why it’s so saggy I exercise but no help :( is there anyway I can fix it I don’t want my future husband to think that I was with someone ( I was not ) I’m really scared to get married I think it will ruin my marriage please help

im 18 and been in a constant state of anxiety for about over 2 months now and it wont leave, just like any ocd i have some moments where im fine but theyre really short and the anxiety kicks back in

its all existential thoughts, everything possible about existence just through through my mind such as the fact we have no control over anything were just organisms, why are we here what happens after death, whats the point in life if we all cease to exist, nihilism etc..

also other stuff is bundled in with it such as chronohphobia fear of death fear of getting old and having no control over it etc its just a hell

is there any cure to this or am i stuck with it?

idk even know how to structure this so sorry in advance for the chaotic wall of text, my brain is completely fried today and i just need to dump this somewhere people actually get the weight of waking up to nothingness.

for years i lived inside a total delusion. conspirituality, new age bullshit, synchronicities, cosmic signs, matrix theories, the whole embarrassment. looking back with a cold eye, it wasn't some noble spiritual quest. it was pure, pathetic cowardice. my dad died years ago and i couldn't stomach the rotting reality of a grave, so i bought into afterlife fairy tales because i was too weak to accept that dead means gone forever. i wanted a universe that cared about me. i wanted to believe i was the main character in some esoteric movie so i wouldn't have to face the humiliating boredom of being just another regular guy in his thirties trying to figure out how to pay bills and exist.

and the worst part? i built a whole relationship around this bunker. locked myself in a room for years with a woman who was just as broken and allergic to reality as i was. we fed each other's delusions, played house, burned through my savings, talked about astral planes and cosmic missions while avoiding jobs, responsibilities, and time itself. and here is the sick joke that messes with my head every single day: it was the happiest time of my life. how pathetic is that? my nervous system still craves that poison. i wake up and my body automatically misses the warmth of that lie. it's like an addict missing the needle even knowing the heroin was rotting his veins. when real life finally kicked the door down and the money ran out, she bolted. left me with some poetic mystical excuse at 7 am because facing tough material reality together wasn't part of the magical script. and the crazy thing is i still catch myself stalking old chat logs from 2024 and 2025 like a deranged detective just to prove to myself she's still trapped in magical thinking. as if diagnosing her delusions from afar is gonna magically fix my own empty mornings.

anyway, over the last year i basically took a sledgehammer to my own head. started arguing endlessly with an ai of all things, picking apart every single logical fallacy and cognitive bias i used to protect myself. i swung hard into ruthless philosophical materialism (reading gustavo bueno, this ruthless spanish philosopher who leaves zero room for mystical smoke) and camus. so congrats to me, right? i'm cured. i know the sky is empty. i know consciousness is tied to meat and bone, that when we die the lights just go out, that there is no karma, no cosmic ledger, no soul tribes.

except the prize for waking up is this suffocating, low-resolution grey wasteland.

today i dragged my carcass to the study center at 9 am after a terrible night of relapsing into cheap dopamine and screen garbage just to numb the anxiety. i sat there looking at civil service exam papers—dry administrative laws, endless bureaucracy, the ultimate monument to boring adult survival—and i felt like a ghost. everything looks flat. no spark, no playfulness. because of course a quiet Tuesday studying law feels like a prison sentence when your brain is used to the casino lights of believing everything is a cosmic sign and having someone worship you in a bunker.

and i feel completely homeless intellectually and emotionally. i look at the new age/spiritual crowd now and i feel genuine disgust. i see the cowardice behind the "everything happens for a reason" smiles and it makes me wanna puke. Performative enlightenment for people terrified of the dark.

but then i look at the other side—the hardcore rationalists, the reddit atheist bros, the scientism crowd—and they make me just as sick. "oh we are just biological algorithms, love is just oxytocin, free will is an illusion, nothing matters go touch grass and consume product." fuck that. i'm an infj, i feel things with my gut, i care about beauty, tragedy, depth, loyalty. i refuse to lobotomize my sensitivity just because god is dead. i refuse to act like a smug robot who thinks reading a Dawkins book replaces the agony of having a soul without a heaven.

and to top it off, this whole collapse made me bitter in ways i hate. sometimes i catch myself acting like a cheap cynic with women now. if i lose interest, i just ghost. disappear without a word. part of my brain goes "well, life and my ex screwed me over, the universe owes me, there's no morality anyway so i'm just gonna look out for #1 and fuck everyone else." and then five minutes later i realize how grotesque that is—i'm literally doing the exact same cowardly vanishing act my ex did to me, passing my resentment onto strangers because i'm too scared of five minutes of honest confrontation. expecting the universe to "owe" me compensation when i already know the universe is a blind rock. the hypocrisy is laughable.

so yeah. here i am. thirty-four, sitting in a rainy northern spanish city, mourning a fake paradise i know was toxic, trying to study for a state job i don't care about just to conquer basic adult autonomy, caught between the urge to find another dysfunctional maniac to play Bonnie and Clyde against reality, and the terrifying discipline of building a sober life from scratch.

how the hell do you guys live in the truth without letting the truth turn you into a bitter stone? how do you carry the nostalgia for the narcotic while forcing yourself to drink plain water every day? i know sisyphus is supposed to push the rock and be happy or whatever, but right now the rock just feels heavy as shit and my hands are blistered.

Hi.

It all started with a panic attack, I though I was gonna die first, since I didn’t have one for like 14 years now and I thought I had some heart problem literally in the same weeks.
First I was only afraid that the panic attacks gonna come back. Then I thought more about what if I had a panic attack that day and actually died. Of course I thought about dying in depth before and got the same crusing feeling in my stomach, but that always faded quickly. Not this time. I was also started thinking more about being alive and being maybe the only real thing. Also thinking about that we are all the same thing. And other similar things. And I felt very lonely and afraid.

I sort of had a logic induced ego death, and it was not a good feeling at all. So I knew that I had to rebuild my ego to escape this feeling. And this is exactly what I did.

This will be funny and cringe and other feelings for yall I know, but I started listening to motivation speeches from Andrew Tate, movie speeches, Alexander the great’s speach, historical figure quotes etc. Honestly mostly Andrew Tate.

And it helped me. I’m back and the feelings are gone for like two weeks now. I’m sure one day it’s gonna come back, but now I’m chilling.

I am a 27 year old male from eastern europe, who is into the whole hustler mindet thing, so this was of course for my taste. But the point is, that you need to rebuild your ego if you want to escape this feeling.