Suddenly terrified of the world ending.

[User24689]

I have always suffered with anxiety to some extent and have had bad and good patches, had spells on medication and had a lot of counselling over the years. I've been really quite mentally well since having my kids (eldest is 3) and on the occasion when I've felt it creeping back in I've gone back to counselling and gotten through it.

I've had some quite major life changes recently that have been a struggle to adjust to - I don't know if that is relevant- but for the past month or so I have a constant sense of impending doom. It is always in the background so I never feel completely calm.

I am particularly terrified of climate change and/ or the world suddenly ending. I feel it dwarfs every other concern in my life. I occasionally get caught up thinking about it and feel completely paralysed with panic for my children. I find it hard to understand why other people aren't so frightened but wonder if this points to it being a mental health thing for me and that maybe I am unable to rationalise the risk/ severity of everything.

I have moments where I wish I hadn't had them because I love them so much and I would rather I hadn't inflicted life on them if it will end prematurely and in a frightening way.

It doesn't help that I have a school friend on Facebook who posts constantly about this stuff and in a very flippant way e.g. doesn't understand why we are worrying about brexit when we will all be underwater soon, things like that. I actually had to unfollow him recently because when I posted about a big thing happening in my life he said that everyone was going to be dead within 50 years so there was no point worrying about anything.

I wish I could go back to being placated with the thought that none of my problems were "the end of the world!"

I'm not sure what I want from this thread but I'm exhausted with this debilitating worry at the moment. Does anyone have any advice?

Leave Facebook for a start. Dont spend time with negative people. Dont watch the news. Talk to your GP/Councellor and enjoy your life and children in the moment.

My anxiety is death ,it takes over my thoughts frequently and I'm paranoid about anything unhealthy and only distraction works to keep the thoughts away ... great now thinking of death again.. distraction is my answer

unobtainable That is good advice. Perhaps a social media/ tech break in general would do me good.

Tamzinro I have been there before with the fear of death, though not for a little while. It has kept me awake in the past. Particularly the fear of something happening to me and not being there for my children. But recently it has been taken over by this all consuming fear of everything - like I could cope with the idea of me dying if I knew everything else would carry on because I know that my DC would be ok without me, eventually. It's the fear of nothing existing anymore, and worse the fear of them witnessing it end somehow. It's a very dark feeling

Wasn't the world supposed to end in 2012? OP this planet has been around for billions of years and will likely outlast us all and our great grandchildren. Perhaps not as it is now but when has it ever stayed the same? Humans adapt. Climate change is a real worry, yes but if and when it happens we will adapt. They're now looking at having people living in a habitable structure on Mars. If we can find ways for people to survive on a planet where the atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide, what makes you think we won't find ways to continue living on Earth, whatever it happens to look like?

It sounds to me that your "friend" has planted this seed in your head and you've allowed it to grow into something unhealthy.
I do think this is mental health at play here, a majority of people are not concerned about the world ending.
The best thing you did was unfollow your friend, you need to stay away from triggers like that in order to move on from this.

It's a phase of anxiety that will pass, but only when you're feeling more stable and controlling those intrusive thoughts.
If the counselling works for you then this is something to consider.

upthewolves and tamzinro - I have health anxiety as well. It comes and goes and started after my children were born....again, terrified of leaving them.

Great advice from pp about the logistics of climate change. I would find this reassuring upthewolves.

Ok when this happens to me I hide said persons posts in FB and I do not read the news xx

Your friend is a knob. I get the worrying about climate change/disaster.

I’ve been reading books about astrophysics which has had the unintended side effect of helping with the planetary worries. It makes it clear we are tiny and insignificant in the universe, and humans have only been about for a minuscule time, and we won’t be around forever as the sun won’t be as it is forever (we will, however, be around for much, much, much longer than the 50 years your mate suggested). The universe is operating according to laws we have no control over, we can only observe, and it will carry on without us.

The climate change headlines are such because organisations want governments to do something, because it is possible to make positive change. And we aren’t all going to be dead in 50 years; that is complete and utter unsubstantiated nonsense. Where people live might change, as has happened at various other points in human history, but we will still be about. This summer I think has been a bit of a turning point in that world leaders are actually accepting they have to do something. I thought it was great when Trump said America was pulling out of the Paris agreement, and various states in America said that actually they are going to carry on as if they were still part of it!

The issue is anxiety, not climate change. It is your tired anxious mind finding a subject to obsess about. If it wasn’t this it would be something else. The more you can glimpse this truth, the more you’ll see anxietybfor what it is - a trick your mind is playing on you.

When we are anxious we seek out information that confirms our thinking and beliefs, and this does not help. So how about trying to do the opposite? That’s what I do when I’m in an anxious groove. Stop googling “climate change the end of the world”, or whatever, and immerse yourself in information that counters the prevailing anti-humanist viewpoint that we’re all nothing more than walking carbon footprints and that the planet is melting down. I mean when you think about it for more than 5 seconds, it’s absolutely insane to think that one hot summer, in the planet’s lifetime of billions of years, could possibly be used as evidence for human-caused global warming!! It’s not even the tiniest drop within a drop in the ocean, but people are trying to make political capital out of it!

My main point is that it will calm you down immeasurably simply to get different perspectives. This is true of anything we are anxious about, because anxiety locks us into one way of thinking about something. Other opinions and viewpoints can be enormously freeing for the anxious mind. In this case, the more you delve into the stories behind the headlines the more you’ll understand that the science around climate change is much less “decided” than we’re led to believe - and this is as it should be, because science constantly evolves and anything or anyone who tries to argue that “the science is settle” simply doesn’t understand how scientific research works.

The world ending and death is a pretty common thing to obsess about with anxiety. Stay away from google and get some more help for your anxiety (counselling, exercise, eating better, no drinking or smoking, more sleep etc). I never took medication but got over anxiety by focusing a lot on making these sorts of changes and it worked eventually (and I suffered for 15 years!).

Thanks so much for all the replies, I really appreciate the advice but also the attempts to reassure me and give me some perspective. I've found a lot of the comments very reassuring and will try to remember some of the points made when I feel myself panicking.

I do think maybe I need to seek help again for the anxiety. It's interesting that posters have mentioned sleep, diet etc because my DS has been sleeping really badly for about 6 months now, I'm usually up 3-5 times a night, often for an hour or more at some point, and then up at 6 with both kids every day. I have been craving sugar, probably due to sleep deprivation. This could all be affecting my mindset so will look at what changes can be made and try to at least eat more healthily and get some more exercise to see if it makes a difference.

Oh and I agree the FB friend has definitely planted a seed with all this. I think the problem is he is very educated and articulate so it is easy to take him as some kind of authority when of course he isn't .

Yep anxious minds will find something to worry about and twist everything to fit. Once you realise that it takes the power out of the thoughts a bit
I had to unfriend someone on Facebook because of their incessant doom and gloom political posts even though I agreed with his principles they were giving me nightmares I think you're right you can now just unfollow