Coping with Existential Crisis

In yesterday’s upload, Pewdiepie said in his video, “One day, all our consciousness will cease to exist, but until then…”

It did not bother me so much anymore.

I vaguely remember the night I had a panic attack while contemplating death three to four years ago, but I think I will never forget my fiancé’s confused face at the moment. There’s something about his eyes that always makes me weak inside. I really love my fiancé, Jun Wen. I never want to ever say goodbye. 

My friend, Han, who has two lovely kids, encouraged me to start a family soon. I told him I wasn’t ready as I was struggling with an existential crisis. I could not help feeling that it would be cruel to bring another person into existence. He said, “We started dying the day we were born and it cannot be helped.”

It seems pointless to dwell on the inevitable. Everyone, including the ones we love and us, eventually turns to dust. I confided in some friends about how much such thoughts terrified me (still do), some of their response:

Rei: I do wonder sometimes. Do I shut down like a robot?
Lex: Did something trigger these thoughts?
Des: It is normal to want to know the truth, but you should see a therapist.

Al: I think about it too and it makes me want to live life to the fullest.

I found a guy online who had posted about the same fear, tracked him down and contacted him. He said he felt embarrassed to be approached about an old post which made him cringe. He didn’t think there would be life after death but was no longer struggling with the existential crisis. Perhaps because I had used a rather flattering photo as my profile picture, but he requested a Skype video session (I am not sure why to this day). I declined.

For a few years, my fiancé had to buy food that was easy on the stomach after each panic attack. There were the frantic searches about supernatural encounters and esteemed scientists who were religious. I screamed in the shower after going to the gym. I screamed at home. I screamed at his home. I screamed at the quiet street once when I was jogging. Of course, people stared and my mom asked about it.

I would love to be able to discuss this with my family, but the conversation often got absurd. For example, my mom got very upset and offended when I mentioned that some people did not believe in any kind of afterlife.

The way the Earth supports life is a miracle. Love is glorious. How we receive inspiration is magical. Nonetheless, many wonders in life have scientific explanations. For example, you can kick your nasty decade-old addiction or achieve what is deemed impossible by altering the settings, training your mind systematically using cues and rewards, etc. (rather than assuming that it happens through divine intervention)

The tragedies and disasters that occur every day make me wonder if there is indeed a higher power. For example, we want evil criminals to be brought to justice, but does “eternal condemnation” really solve anything? For this reason, I am losing faith, I concede my mind is limited in perceiving such matters, even for a human I am not particularly intelligent. 

I had supernatural encounters when I was four. My cousin said she saw the same thing at the same place even before I told her what I saw. Other family members could “sense something amiss” too. I was teased a couple of times in school for sharing that story.

More than two decades have expired since those encounters and I have begun to doubt myself. They say that after some time, instead of having a memory of the actual incident, you are remembering the last time you recalled the original memory. My cousin denies seeing anything now. Maybe the so-called encounters were a series of really vivid dreams.

The other day I thought I saw and physically felt the texture on my fingertips and the sensation of a scab on my back, only to wake up from the dream because it did not make sense that I was staring at my own back from a third person POV (I imagined the scab in my dream). It may seem weird to share this but my point is that the perceived reality can be deceiving. Still, that works the other way too – perhaps I am so afraid I have remembered the encounters wrongly that I started believing in the fear, to the extent that I focus on evidence that supports it. While I have perceived something wrongly recently, it doesn’t mean it is something that always happens. If anything, it was an isolated incident.

Everyone is aware that we will all die someday, but most do not let it distract them so much. How do I pursue the truth? Or will my time be better spent on overcoming this fear? My fiancé advised to let the answer unravel itself. That is wise. To end off, I want to share some closing thoughts which I hope can bring you some comfort:

1. It is possible to live a long healthy life. Focus on what you can change and look forward to what the future may bring. 

2. We have the power to provide future generations the life we never had. It is a great purpose. 

3. It is definitely normal to be afraid now, but perhaps in the future, you will be all set to go. Who knows?

“The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side.” Yoda

A few more quotes by Albus Dumbledore:

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

“You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble?”

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.”

https://www.learning-mind.com/existential-crisis/