Would you go to the GP for for this niche anxiety?

[Civilsoot]

Try to this brief as just writing about it will send me spiralling.

I'm an atheist so don't believe in any kind of afterlife and it terrifies me. The thought of nothing of not existing scares meet to the point of panic attacks.

It does sound very daft when I say it like that but at least twice a month I have a panic attack. Cold sweat, heart pounding, ears ringing, shaking swooping pit of your stomach all consuming dread - the full works. To keep panic attack levels at bay I have to constantly battle against it. I'll get blindsided at really weird moments like going for a wee and as I'll sitting down I'll just get a flash of "fuck I'm going to die" and have to fight and fight against thinking about it to stop a panic attack.

I don't want to go to the GP about it because otherwise I'm completely fine. I don't have anxiety about day to day life or depression. I don't have dark thoughts or any other mental health issues, it's just this one thing but it's completely dominating my mind.

I just don't know what can be done about it anyway - I am going to die, that terrifies me but it's 100% million percent going to happen. What's CBT going to change about that?

What would you do?

Thanks for reading!

Hi. I understand this exactly. About 8 months ago I started having crippling panic attacks exactly as you describe about dying. The only difference being that my fear was leaving my daughter alone.
Please go and talk to your gp. I have been on 30mg citalopram since and have felt so much better. Sometimes the thoughts still come but I can control it a lot more and stop myself from spiralling.
I also find telling myself what is happening in logical terms helps too. For example, "the reason my heart is racing is because of the imbalance of chemicals in my brain making me feel anxious"
Tell yourself it will pass and nothing bad will happen.
I hope this helps x