Is it normal to feel like this?

[Malaisecartes]

Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed and grateful about life, how beautiful it is, how intensely I love my children. I suppose this is happiness. But at the same time I experience this overwhelming crushing despair about how awful the world can be, the bad things that happen, that people do. I experience terror about these things, especially that they might happen to my children and I can over empathise I suppose and imagine them in ways that feel real, like it will happen to me or my little ones. And also life itself. The sadness that we will leave, that my children will. I feel like I’m too emotional and I just want to weep.

There are times when I’m ok and then it all just hits me and it feels like a crushing weight. Is it normal to feel like this? Is this just what being alive is like? I’m not depressed because I have these waves of intense gratefulness and happiness too. Part of me thinks it’s getting older : I’m waiting for bad things to happen (sickness, elderly parents) and that feeling of waiting for the world to come crushing down on me is just always there. I feel better for getting that off my chest. Is it just the human condition?

I can totally relate to this. I was always very empathetic but since having my daughter it's SO much worse, I have awful vivid thoughts of something happening to her, or someone hurting her in the future, or even just how much awful stuff is happening in the world, and I feel real despair and panic. It's like I've had a few layers of skin removed, I'm so much more emotional than I ever was before.

What helps me is saying to myself "she is safe right now. Nothing is happening to her right now" over and over - even better if I can actually see her while I'm saying it, or lay my hand on her while she's peacefully sleeping (the thoughts come at night for me, a lot of the time). The other time they tend to come is in the car, and the 'fix' for that one (for me) is to start singing out loud to whatever is playing on the stereo. I've found that I literally can't retain the horrid thoughts in my mind when I'm physically singing. It does make me feel a little better that I'm not the only one who feels this way!

Gosh that phrase about having layers of skin removed really strikes home!

Sounds like anxiety to me.

Lately I feel like something truly awful is going to happen. Something already did four years ago - my friend was murdered. Beaten to death by a stranger. This horrific event is part of my reality now, and while I can reason to myself that it's incredibly unlikely that something similar will happen to someone else I love, another part of me says well, it shouldn't have even happened once, so now we know there are no rules - why shouldn't it happen again? And if not murder then why not a awful accident or disease? Life is full of horrible, horrible things... Sorry. I'm not being helpful in the slightest!

But medication and therapy would likely help with anxiety so it's worth seeing your doctor. And it's really positive that you also appreciate all the good things.

Oh @Notgettingbetter I'm so sorry about your friend

I also purposefully make myself think the opposite. So if I start wirrying that something awful will happen I switch it and imagine something amazing happening instead. Maybe equally unlikely but far more fun to occupy your thoughts with!

It's funny, when I started this thread I half expected to be told I needed to see the GP, that this level of feeling wasn't normal. Maybe I was hoping for that because it suggests a solution. But there's something in the solidarity of feeling here, the acknowledgment and 'let it be' that's kind of comforting. Thank you all

I'm so sorry Notgettingbetter

I think understand what you're describing Malaisecartes I find great great joy in some fairly mundane things but also get an overpowering worry about awful things happening (if I can't see/hear my kids/DH I try to not think about them because if I do I usually start to worry that they are dead & I just don't know yet). In my case I lost a parent very suddenly as an older child & as such have never felt that life was safe or easy since then BUT having experienced real traumatic grief I think it allows me to appreciate the mundane but nice things.

I think I'm rambling but this by Kahlil Gibran sums it up quite well - Joy is sorrow unmasked.

Oh that is very apt @2319inprogress , thank you for sharing, beautiful

@2319inprogress that must have been so awful to go through, I'm sorry to hear that and I hope you had immense support when it happened.

I have lost my dad (after 4 months of knowing he had cancer) but I was well into my 30s by that point. I've been through a lot in my life. It's just so hard to imagine my child going out into this big bad world but perhaps because she's just 3 and so curious and innocent. I had her quite late so just want to make sure I'm around until she's well into middle age. My grandma stuck around until 90 and my mum is almost 70 so I'm hopeful!

I’ve found my people! Thanks OP.
I feel exactly the same.
Terrified of awful things happening to my DD, or DH, especially, and always anxious, can never truly relax.

Welcome @tigerbear Yes, exhausting isn't it? But you're not alone

@Malaisecartes thank you.
Yes, totally exhausting!
Even when life is good on paper, my mind is on constant overdrive and can’t enjoy anything.
It doesn’t help that my DD doesn’t live with me all the time. I just can’t relax properly when she’s not with me.

Life is short, regrets a few, nearly 60, felt more positive since losing my parents 6 years ago.
Family very important, tho single, and some abroad, great friends, good life and early retirement.
No dress rehearsal life!

That's interesting @Nsky - do you think your increased positivity after your parents passed is linked to any worry you might have had about them before? My parents dying is one of the things i dread and that I feel looms over me as one of these future disasters that I'm constantly aware of

No, just a sense of being surrounded by love, and being more connected to my brothers!
Their deaths being ‘straightforward’ as such killed together, rta, and no one else involved, wouldn’t have been aware hardly.
Helps knowing they didn’t suffer

I'm so sorry @Nsky what a shock that must have been

I feel like this

Not both at the same time but I experience both

I've had periods when these feelings have been very intense and other times when they haven't. For me, it's a sign that this are emotionally quite intense and I'm vulnerable to low mood. But I wouldn't want to never feel like this as it does seem an important part of being human.

Thank you @itsacovidxmasone that's really such a kind message I haven't know how to respond as I wish I could say I did but I think it wasn't really the done thing in the 80s.

My mum cried with me when she told me but never again after, I went straight back to school (& had to make my friend go to the office to be told as the message on the blackboard just said first one in had to go & we walked in together- my friend was then given the job of telling each person as they arrived even as a child I felt bad for her!), I was sent to stay over at a classmate's house after the funeral (so we wouldn't be in the way of the wake) but this was someone whose house I hadn't even had played in before so much weird stuff! partly 80s parenting, partly my mother's shock, partly that she has never liked me I think.

Sadly I have a friend who is living almost the same experience after her husband's death but the way she is caring for & supporting her children fills my heart with joy & hope.

Stood on the ikea queue mid distancing madness, holding my little boy's hand, him gazing round in wonder at everything and everyone, and suddenly had the most horrendous feeling of compassion for the poor families with young children waiting on queues at Auschwitz and the like.

To need completely honest, I think there's something wrong with people who don't feel the emotions you're describing, even if it's just occasionally.

But yes, as pp's have said, it can be overwhelming since I've had kids, painfully so.

Sorry you feel this way.

You

Apologies for typos

Yes often

Yeah I feel like this especially since having my daughter. Also I sometimes feel like I need to reign in how happy she makes me/how much I love her and life with her because I'm so scared I'll somehow jinx everything if that makes sense. We have this thing called the evil eye in our culture where if something is too perfect or if you have something that constantly gets compliments (eg if you have great hair that always gets compliments) it's almost like a curse and ends up causing that thing to go downhill, eg your hair ends up shit. I know it's just silly superstition but it does stick in my head.

@2319inprogress I wish we could all hug your child self, what a horrible thing to go through on multiple levels.

@Vintagecreamandcottagepie I have the exact same kind of sudden thoughts, it's unbearable to imagine and it can feel so real.