I literally get panic attacks cause I don’t understand how i went from who o used to be to this empty shell. It’s like thinking about eternity it just gives you this wierd feeling and no matter how hard you think about it you can never understand it. I just don’t understand. It’s like the me from 2 yrs ago is a completely different person

At first, it just started as harmless questions, curiously exploring the universe and what life and death mean as a human. Then it became an obsession about death and the afterlife. I’m a Catholic-turned-agnostic who recently took an interest in religion again, trying to redevelop a relationship with God without letting the fear of not being good enough and possibly going to Hell taking over me. Instead, my brain latched onto the possibility that there is no God, that there’s eternal nothingness after the short time we have here on earth and that everything means nothing. My love for my friends and family. My desire to achieve my goals, and to be happy for the people I love achieving theirs. I’m haunted by the feeling that it will all be for nothing, that I will never be reunited with those that I love, that the people I love who have passed on have ceased to exist and one day, so will I and everyone else. I can’t function now. I’ve made myself physically ill over this. I’ve lost my appetite. As someone who once took pride in how much love I have for my job as a daycare teacher, I come into work and feel numb. I go home and feel numb. I’ve obsessively started telling the people in my life how much I love and appreciate them because for the past three days, I’ve been sick thinking about how one day, either I’ll leave them or they’ll leave me. It feels like nothing matters. It feels like everything is in vain. I’ve tried so hard to reframe my mindset, to rewire my brain to not think that way. I’ve tried ERP techniques of allowing myself to sit with the discomfort that the fear brings. To try and desensitize myself to this fear. Nothing seems to work. I’m so lost. I’ve been this way for three days, with yesterday and today being worse than the day it started. It’s like the obsession is morphing into depression in a way. I’m scared I’ll never feel enjoyment in any form again. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I keep thinking about life and death and all that stuff and it’s making me so upset. I keep thinking about how one day im probably going to be old and on my death bed or something and my whole life will be nothing but a memory and im so scared for that day. i wont have my parents and my younger siblings wont have any of us. time feels like its moving too fast like i feel every second pass and think about how i can never get that moment back and i cant slow down time or go back or even just pause it because its always going and theres nothing i can do about it. And then i start thinking about whats after death and get even more scared because if heaven is real then what is eternity? wont i get bored of doing the same things… forever? and if its not real then what happens is it just nothing? because thats even more scary i don’t want to be nothing because that also means the people i love will be nothing and i wont be able to be with them. And if it’s not that then is it reincarnation? will i have to do this all over again? will the souls of the people i love be with me in their new forms? is the sun “God” because the planets revolve around it and the stars are all of the passed souls? what does it feel like to be a star? will i even just know i died? i have so many questions and the fact that none have an answer and i just have to wait to find out drives me insane. i try to remind myself everyone before me and everyone after me will experience death and loss at one point in their life and that I’m not alone but it doesn’t help. nothing helps. ive had “episodes” like this before when i was around 10-14 about once a year always around May-June which is the month my great grandmother died and June is my birth month which i hate because yk… time passing and aging which i assume is why i always get worse around that time. i was able to kind of ignore or turn it off the past like 3 years but this month its just too much i cant even deal with it. maybe because I’m turning 18? idk but its been bothering me so much and its all i can think about. Even when i seem fine the thoughts are always in there somewhere and some days they’re easier to ignore and others it feels impossible. I just wish I was like those people who can just turn their thoughts off if they don’t like them. My mom says she can do that if she thinks about how her mom died or something she can tell herself she doesn’t want to think about that and just… turn it off?? and thats so shocking to me because i’ve begged a god I don’t even know if I believe in to stop my thoughts and she can just turn them off herself? I don’t have another therapy appointment until next week I wish I could talk to them everyday so it could work faster but instead i’m on here. So if anyone has any advice PLEASE give it to me. I’m so tired it’s making me not enjoy anything in life because it makes me feel like theres no point in anything but I want to feel normal and I want to enjoy things. Sorry for writing so much just had to get this out there. Also i’m not trying to seek reassurance btw I just wanna know how other people coped with this or similar issues😭

Idk how to caption it other than that. My whole life I’ve had an issue with memory hoarding and the upside has been that I have a really vivid memories of my childhood and I get to remember my best days, the main downside has always been I have a lot of childhood trauma too and I remember every detail meticulously like I can relive and reanalyze them which has caused issues in my healing. However as much pain as it is to remember bad things so well it’s always been a bit of a comfort bc at least I know for sure even if other people don’t know or don’t believe. But as of lately I I’ve been forgetting things, whether it’s what time I’m supposed to work (and I have compulsions when checking my work schedule bc I’m always scared of reading it wrong so I usually open it up read it close it and open it up again 2-3 times so I usually KNOW) or what day it is, or just small things that I don’t remember saying or doing that other people swear on. I just have always felt like I know at the very least I know and lately I don’t and I’m so scared of going crazy and losing myself like literally my biggest fear. So I hate this. Today is Friday I was convinced yesterday was Friday and I woke up today for my Saturday shift completely convinced today was Saturday. I hate being wrong and making those small mistakes because it’s terrifying to think about what else I’m remembering wrong, or what else do I not “know” that isn’t actually the truth? I’m just so scared of losing myself mind. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?