To think that those people who seem genuinely concerned about the apocalypse need to get a grip?

[wannaBe]

Seriously. No-one really believes this, do they? Not really? it's up there with Santa and the tooth fairy - it's not real. And yet I've seen posts from people on here saying they are genuinely worried!

Even if it were real, you won't know about it because... ... ... you'll be dead!

"it's kinder to say anyone who is finding an imaginary impending apocalypse a stress trigger, needs to be getting the correct support,

it is actually quite frightening that there are so many people that give this a moments thought, let alone stress about it, our mental health support clearly isn't up to scratch or being accessed enough"

Absolutely.

"I do think that anyone indulging any worries about impending apocalypse has to be very clearly ridiculed and condemned because it is such a dangerous thing to do anything else, if you indulge someone in anyway about imaginary impending doom you are corroborating with their imagination"

Again, I agree. No need to indulge the worries, and in fact that would be far from helpful. Anyone who indulges these worries is very irresponsible. But it is totally possible to not indulge without calling people "loons" etc.

Mental illness is hardly something people can help. Point out the worries have no basis in fact and that there seems to be a predicted apocalypse every other week. Attack the views not the people.

I agree with attacking the people who are deliberately scaremongering, as they are being malicious and often have monetary reasons for doing so.

But this OP specifically mentions other threads where people have said they are scared despite knowing it makes no sense. People who have readily admitted to suffering with mental illness.

Calling them "loons" and poking fun at them doesn't help them. It just makes the name caller feel superior.

I don't think societal collapse is totally beyond the bounds of possibility- maybe after some sort of viral pandemic which cant be controlled (something like "The Stand" but minus the creepy guy). However, I hope the virus gets me because I don't fancy eking out an existance "The Road" style, living on tinned peaches and waiting to get gang raped. No ta. If that happens, you dont need tinned food. You need a gun.

Exactly, Ifyoulike. I understand that the immediate, complete destruction of our planet is very unlikely, and why people ridicule the idea.

What I don't understand is how people can be so stupid and in denial as to believe that this life, this very delicately balanced life that humans have created for themselves, will carry on forever as it is. There is evidence all over the world, underwater and underground of massive civilizations that crumbled without leaving any marker of their existence apart from scattered ruins, with no clues as to how they were destroyed or how they lived, or how advanced they were.

This could easily be us, and likely will be with the rate we're abusing the planet. Societal breakdown is a very real possibility. I always get the feeling that as a society we're hurtling towards something but don't know what. That fear is very real for me.

Theicingontop You hit the nail on the head as to how exactly I feel: "I always get the feeling that as a society we're hurtling towards something but don't know what."

I do think its ok to feel wary or even anxious about potential drastic changes in the world, as long as that anxiety is channeled into something productive done about it.

In my case, thats by keeping a watchful eye on the world, educating myself a bit about basic survival skills (likely places to get water, fire-starting, etc), and eventually when I get some money and room stockpiling a set amount of food and water.

I think those things would become unhealthy if they became the overriding focus of my life, and I'm always watchful for that, but I consider it reasonably basic safety planning the same way I keep an eye on my fire alarm batteries, and keep a fire blanket around.

It's very possible to support someone with anxiety without indulging their worries and without ridiculing them.

My pyschologist and GP manage it without difficulty.

Calling a person with mental illness a loon, telling them they need to get a grip etc only isolates the sufferer further.

Noone openly chooses to worry about such things. It's just something that happens - it's a response to a stimuli, in the same way that some people are frightened of heights, spiders, clowns, tight spaces..

Theicing and ifyou, what civilizations do you mean? We do know a lot about the way most states/powers have collapsed. It's usually about the small stuff. Jared Diamond is good on this.

Nobody is saying that human life will carry on exactly as it is. Most changes are small and incremental, and also local.

The worst pandemic we know of still only killed something under 50% of the population, and the rest were fine.

The fact that you feel as if we are hurtling towards something doesn't mean that we are. Your feelings are real but the event isn't.

EVERYONE has irrational fears

I hate to break it to you, they don't, some people aren't superstitious in any way .

I certainly have not called anyone a "loon'

I worry about the realities in life,

I find it particularly worrying the outcome of human's behaviour towards one another, a lot of which is based on superstitious thinking, people who are superstitious are easily manipulated.

Amillionyears

just caught your post, I have a lot of contact with people with MH issues, family, friends, and co workers, I'm very aware at how people anxieties affect their lives and the people alongside them, I know it very dangerous to indulge these things, it does no long term good, and a lot of damage.

I am autistic(different but makes you aware of alternative types of thinking), as are my children, sister and father, my brother is schizophrenic, I have people in my life with depression issues, I have worked in support, I could endless list things, I very much doubt there is anyone who does not experience of MH issues.

Apparently, the Mayan calendar doesn't take into account leap years, so if true, the world should have ended a few years ago. (That's what my sister says!)

A bit of education seemes to be required regarding anxiety. I was wrongly sent to MH services for Anxiety, turned out the cause was physical. Please stop piss taking those with MH issues and stop labelling all with anxiety as having MH issues.

sieglinde I think you mean Theicing's comment about civilisations, my own thought processes don't really include what's happened to other civilisations (nor can I pretend to know much about them).

I'm just a very 'what if' kind of person, and I agree with you that my feelings don't actually mean something is going to happen.

However, I do think anxiety in itself is a kind of survival tool if used properly. We all calculate the risks of things happening all the time. Its why we do keep fire alarms (even if the chance of our particular house catching on fire is pretty small). Its why I take out travel insurance when I go traveling, etc.

I do happen to think some sort of societal/financial collapse is a small but possible event... small enough to not chronically worry about it all the time (which I do try and stop myself from doing if I catch it), but possible enough to justify having a few productive precautionary measures.

quote, unfortunately superstition isn't the only source of unreason. Your fear of organised religion in this country seems to me pretty far-fetched too.

My point was that there is evidence with some of these sites that the people living there were very advanced and yet weren't immune to either climate change, natural disasters (the sunken cities) or the downfalls in their society (take the Maya for example). I think this should teach us that neither are we. People seem to believe that we're infallible, when in fact we're just as temporary as the people before us. In fact we're especially vulnerable given just how much we depend on fuel to live. I wouldn't know how to irrigate a farm or kill an animal if I had to, I'd starve within weeks.

Which is why I need a Daryl. No other reason.

Your fear of organised religion in this country seems to me pretty far-fetched too

what fear would that be?

We're not infallible and neither is our planet. Life is extremely fragile, as evidenced by the fact that 99% of all the species that have ever existed are now extinct - as we will be one day. And we know that our planet will end at some point - in nothing nasty happens before then, then we at least know that the sun is going to expand in abut 5bn years, and Earth will be toast.

But what we also are is clever - and we are cleverer now than we have ever been. The knowledge available to us is quite extraordinary. There's zero chance that the Mayans somehow had knowledge then that eludes us today.

We could get hit by an asteroid on Friday - we could get hit by an asteroid at any time. Never mind films like Deep Impact, the reality is that we'd probably know about that kind of event & die of it in the same instance.

But the point is, if that were to happen on Friday, the Mayan calendar thing would be complete coincidence. If we can't & don't know about an event like this then how would the Mayans? It makes no sense.

Not a single time in history have spooky predictions based on the position of the stars/sun/runes/tarot cards (or whatever) turned out to be true. Not once.

What does generally turn out to be true is predictions made by science - and science is universally predicting that fuck all is going to happen on Friday.

I do feel for people with anxiety who are worried about this. But most of the people sounding off about this crap are not anxiety sufferers, they are conspiracy theorists - the "Well science doesn't know everything" brigade. Yeah? Well it knows considerably more than you do.

Please, please - those of you worrying, it simply isn't going to happen. Seriously.

:)

Quote, I meant this sentence

I find it particularly worrying the outcome of human's behaviour towards one another, a lot of which is based on superstitious thinking, people who are superstitious are easily manipulated.

Sorry if I misunderstood you. What did you mean?

What sunken cities? What climate change? Not keeping up, me!

I think actually that it's far more worrying that every little concern, every little anxiety, and every hint of, to be frank, idiocy, is dressed up under the banner of "mental illness" or "mental health issues."

If people genuinely have mental health issues to the point they are incapable of rational thinking, then they should be encouraged to seekk professional help from either a gp or a psychiatrist.

But people who take time to worry about, and tell those who are not worried that they are unreasonable to not worry about things such as the impending apocalypse which we all know is not actually going to happen should IMO not be pandered to, and unless someone is under medical treatment for said issues they should be told in no uncertain terms to get a fucking grip.

I think the very fact that Ron Hubbard is using this as an opportunity to gain publicity says it all really. Let's hope his cult of nutter scientologists follow him into oblivion.

erm isnt the evil Hubbard dead? I think using anything for publicity is probably beyond him now...

wannaBe I was once accused on here of being an alcoholic () by someone for pointing out that that it was statistically trillions of times more likely that her eyes were playing tricks on her than that the souls of dead children were following her down a dark corridor at night. I then got the "There are more things in Heaven & Earth, Horatio....." treatment from her and her mates.

People are very precious about the nonsense they believe. And the more nonsensical, the more precious they are!

Thought Ron Hubbard was dead? Is Tom Cruise going to bury himself in a tin can too? I like the sound of that

"But people who take time to worry about, and tell those who are not worried that they are unreasonable to not worry about things such as the impending apocalypse"

So which threads has this happened on?

Because all the threads I've seen about people being worried about it have been threads by people who've said they suffer with mental health problems/anxiety disorders. People who know it isn't rational, but cannot help the fear. Do you think telling them to get a grip will help?

Jared Diamond is an environmental determinist. Nothing wrong with that, but it's only one point of view in archaeology. Societies in historical times have gone through great cultural cataclysms and emerged much changed - even ravaged - so it is reasonable to suppose that some prehistoric societies went through similar things. Prehistory isn't some scary otherworld where everything is decided by great flaming balls of death from the sky.

The "mysterious destroyed civilisation" thing is also hyperbole to a certain extent, the stuff of voiceovers. We know plenty about civilisations that a hundred years ago would have been called "mysterious" and "lost", and there's no reason to think that learning process won't continue. "Destroyed" is also a relative term. It's pretty difficult to prove that any given region or city was abruptly depopulated and culturally arrested except in very extreme cases like Easter Island - and most of that we know because it happened under the gaze of modern Europeans. A lot of the time, there must be some cultural transference or population movement happening when old settlements or lifeways are abandoned - as indeed is the case with the Mayans.

"I think the very fact that Ron Hubbard is using this as an opportunity to gain publicity says it all really. Let's hope his cult of nutter scientologists follow him into oblivion"

The Ron Hubbard in the Daily Mail article is not THE Ron Hubbard of Scientology. He was L. Ron Hubbard and died over 20 years ago. Although you are correct in the notion that nutter Scientologists should somehow find their way to oblivion!

I don't think having anxiety about the world ending is necessarily a case of a little anxiety. It's clearly a big issue for some. And the trouble is I might think it's completely ridiculous worrying that the world will end, but so will the person worrying about that, in all likelihood (on one level anyway). The times my anxiety gets out of control I know what I'm scared of is ridiculous, but that knowledge doesn't help one bit in getting rid of pounding heart, my sweaty palms or the sitting up all night in a tizz. There's not pandering to an irrational belief and there's being rude.

Mental health services aren't always that great, there isn't always much in the way of support, or people are scared of accessing them. MH issues aren't like breaking a leg and going to A and E. If you have what you know to be an irrational fear there is a degre of shame in reaching out and asking for help. I have always been dismissed when I've asked for help. Not that my anxiety is that bad generally, nowadays.

I think telling anyone to 'get a fucking grip' is vile. What do you know about the person on the receiving end of that message and what kind of state they are in? I could honestly never bring myself to say that to another human being, or write it on an internet forum, because you don't know the end result. Would you have told Jacintha Saldhana to 'get a fucking grip?'

La Queen when you say 'I think it just highlights the distressingly high number of people who just aren't very good at thinking' you know that very intelligent people are capable of suffering from anxiety? Lots of people have said it's not rational, but they still can't help it. Having anxiety is not an issue of intelligence.

I'd forgotten all about it till I read this thread. I must say I felt a tiny frisson of what mind be called dread!! I can see why it scares folk.