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?

@Luckyelephant1 again, I do the same thing. Try to squash joy about something so precious in case it is taken away from me. Every single reply on this thread really resonates with me. Maybe there's no solution and it really is just what being human is like

I think that these feelings are just part of being human .mine tend towards death ,now I'm older I've come to realise that death comes to us all in whatever way , I find myself looking at really old photos and thinking that everyone in the photo is dead .
My recent one is that with all the pollution and rubbish we bring to the planet that if we all were made infertile the world over,in 120 years the planet would be free from our destruction and would begin to heal itself .
It's going to be a shock to me when my mum dies,I know that at 85 it's inevitable that she does but when she does I'll be an orphan as my dad died 6 years ago , I know it's irrational but the 2 people that have always loved me won't be here anymore.
It doesn't matter that other people do love me it's just dwelling on loss all the time .
I live in a beautiful part of the country and when I drive to work in the morning sometimes I get so overwhelmed by the sunrise I can cry on the way to work , I do my own head in sometimes lol .
Sorry for the rambling 😂

@Starbonnet123 I think you've put it better than I did. I know exactly what you mean

@Malaisecartes it is good to know we are not alone in these thoughts, that they are normal and we don't have to be upbeat and happy all the time .
I know my thoughts are to do with the passing of time and my age and the realisation I'm not immortal and I haven't got all the time in the world to waste any more but sometimes I can't be arsed to do anything with the time I have 😂

Yes, mine are coming from the same thing which is no doubt why it suddenly feels so intense. It's like our eyes are opening and we were walking around with them half closed before

Hi @Malaisecartes this is a brilliant thread. It is nice to know there are lots of empathetic/sympathetic people out there and I like to tell myself we outnumber the hard hearted.
Whilst I do think it is a perfectly normal part of the human condition we have to take care that the feelings aren't ruining our day to day existence. If you can manage them and still have a perfectly good day then all good.
Psychologists/behaviour specialists say that worry/anxiety/ negativity exist to help us eg. if we had never worried about lions etc when were cavemen then we wouldn't have existed for long! In the present day we worry about many different things that could harm us and our loved ones but the secret is to manage them. You gave an example of rabbit holing on the internet. Not good. This tends to turn something from a small or risk into a huge risk. I have started to try and understand why I worry and get anxious then do what I can to manage it, it is a pretty good strategy. I know it's not easy though and my DC are young adults now and I still worry plenty. Hope you are getting help here, it has been good to read others who feel same

Completely normal, what is not normal are the constant images and videos on social media of how perfect other people's lives apparently are because they want to gain some kudos or money. Don't even get me started on all the self help books podcasts etc... I went down that rabbit hole a few years ago. Sometimes it's ok to not feel ok with the world and fuck the happy clappy parade.

Op, I could have written your post 💐