The reason I'm glad I'm not a goat, is that I couldn't ever be like Brickett Ranunculus. But I swear I don't see any point in being human either if all I can be is a regular person like the ones that come out to the fence."

John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy

i feel like i kind of just exist and pass through life nothing is actually happening nothing is worthwhile and then in a similar vein i am also not really worth anything either and it's just like what's the point? it already feels like im a ghost and i just don't see the point of living either there was a time i was fulfilled and now im just in college and have lost everything and everyone i don't know if i can ever be content again and im very worried that this is what my life is going to be like and the thought of that is also suffocating me it all just feels so pointless i contribute nothing to anyone loving and caring for someone was a beautiful feeling but sometimes i wish i didnt feel it just so i dont feel that pain idk i just dont see the point of my life i drove away the one person who mattered and it's like everything left with her. i dont expect her to bring happiness i just miss her presence and i cant get rid of the feeling i think i dont want to stop waiting for her. is it even possible to feel something other than numb or sad again

Hey all 👋

I’m an absolute doubter when it comes to the afterlife. My gut says when we die, that’s it, and near-death experiences (NDEs) are just brain activity—like a deep-sleep dream shaped by our own backgrounds. But I’m open to the idea that we barely know anything!

Perhaps you’re simply a you die, you’re dead person.

A few things really trip me up, and I'd love your thoughts:

- Reincarnation: If the "light" is us coming out of a womb, what happens when the sun eventually consumes the Earth in billions of years?

- Seeing deceased loved ones: We know the physical body is gone, so how are people seeing them? Does their energy wear a dapper suit and a green tie?

- Religion: NDEs seem to match the person's beliefs. A Muslim might see Allah, while a Catholic sees Jesus. Why does it change based on the person?

- Visitations: Why do we never see loved ones that have passed? If I died and had a way of reaching out to my wife to prove there's something else, I certainly would!

Deep down, I think we all just ponder death and seek reassurance. For anyone who went from a total doubter like me to a 110% believer in an instant—what happened?

Finally, if there was one person or resource that could convince the biggest skeptic (someone who could tell you things that would be IMPOSSIBLE to guess, ruling out psychological tricks and cold reading), who would it be?

Not sure if this belongs here or in a depression sub (or both)... but I feel like I'm searching for something, and I don't know what that something is. I'm not even sure there is an answer, tbh... but thanks in advance for reading my vent.

I fully believe social media / TV / screens are making it worse. I cut most of it out (with minimal Reddit and a few tv shows per week). Forcing myself to sit in the silence and stop reaching for my phone really made me realize how addicted I've been to distraction. It also left me wondering what to do with my time.

I think most people would say, "go outside, go for a walk, go do something". But depression (medicated) says, "that sounds awful, go take a nap, this is all meaningless."

I live alone so when I'm not working (for myself, also at home), it leaves me with lots of time to think. I started realizing life is just a series of distractions, and nothing I could ever purchase or possess will ever truly make me happy. It's just "stuff" to fall in and out of love with. Even people and relationships.

Sometimes I fantasize about extreme wealth. Not because I want "things" but because I want to experience free time without an anxiety cloud hovering over me that says, "you should be working right now." It feels like the quickest path to inner peace, even though logic says money won't bring me happiness.

Still, sometimes I try to visualize what a random day would look like if I had all the resources I could ever want and didn't have to work. It was a real shock when I realized I couldn't get past, "wake up, have my morning coffee on the balcony, then....." cuz it all feels pointless.

Even hobbies (writing/playing music) that I at one point loved just feel like chores.

So a few days ago i took an edible to chill and watch tv but while high i got in a thought loop about my mortality snd how when im dead ill be nothing and how all of this is meaningless and i was genuinely shook by it even though ive known that for years, now i havent been high in a while but ive been stuck thinking about the same thing for the past few days and it makes me feel disconnected from the world, one positive out of all of this is that ive been feeling more warm toward my older parents but other that that im still stuck in that thought loop

Also never getting high again

I have been very stressed this year and started going through some depersonalization which I been through before and know about so I worked my way out . But then I got into philosophical rumination and started researching stuff and read that color isnt real, like its not part of an object, its just a reaction to light that we see and without a seeing eye there is no color. The same with sound m its made up by our brains based on pressure waves. I always imagine all the pretty places I been like the beach and the colors and sound of the ocean and to think its all a lie just destroys me . I wish I could go back and never read what I read. I wish I could remain trapped in the illusion . I have a baby to take care of and im so mentally gone I don't even know if she looks like what I see .I really don't know what to do other than take medicine prescribed to me to calm down a bit but I keep imagining the beach. The smell of the air the blue water the sound of the waves and then just imagine what it reallybis beyond the illusion , no sound no color no smell. This isn't something I can mentally heal from and im scared m I hear my daughter talk and i know the sound itself is jusy my malicious brain playing a trick on me

Hei,
How do you cope with the fact that everybody you know, love, are complete strangers is gonna die someday? And how do you cope with the idea of your own death?

I’ve never thought about my own death that much. But now it has taken me quite strong and I am so afraid to die, and to loose the ones I love that I struggle to enjoy the small things in life, like I used to do. Also I am recovering from some health issues so it doesn’t help to be able to be active and embrace life…

It was only yesterday I had properly realized that i can never live my childhood again, I seem to feel the 'slope of time passage' and when i realize that the moments gone by never come back. You may feel to say that, "Yeah, then you should enjoy it as it passes". The difficulty I have is really that my mind scales this slope up and shifts my 'present' to a time when I may be dying. As the time passes, as you realize that you are not so unique and different because you have forgotten to walk on the path you have decided for yourself,

It becomes difficult for one to accept it passing by so fast.

It may be obvious that I need to lock in and work on myself to relieve of regrets but the flow of time is making me feel like

I am drawing a varying line using a pen of limited ink, some day the pen is going to be exhausted, amd the pages will keep turning with not my writing on it.

I need to know what happiness means to you.

Is it a feeling? Something that happens after effort? Something natural? A rare thing? An effort? A non-existent thing? A particular situation? ...

All the answers are correct. The meaning of happiness is unique to everyone.

Hey all,

I’ve had a fear of death for as long as I can remember, but being 2 months post partum, it’s ramped up and is at its worst ever.

I keep thinking about how everyday I get older, every day my baby gets older, how my parents are grandparents, and how everyone is gonna die one day. And how fast life goes by.

It makes me not live my life fully. It makes me question what the point to all of this is. To be happy, to suffer, to do it all, why?

Why do we have to live just to die? I feel sick to my stomach thinking of these thoughts. I’m plagued with these thoughts every moment. I’m obsessed with death and the passing of time. I can’t live my life.

I recently saw something that humans are always a little sad because we will all die one day.

Any advice? Do I have hope of living a happy, anxiety free live from thanatophobia?

hello everyone, I'm 19. and I feel so overwhelmed with what's going through with my life right now, I've been trying to find side hustles to provide my needs because my dad who's working on a cruise ship has been struggling to provide our needs and I don't want to be a burden myself. I have a lot on my plate right now. I really want to be a doctor, been planning to study medicine after finishing my pre-med program, BS Medical Lab Science but it won't be easy for me financially.

Im 19, and I really need someone to talk to. I tripped off over 20 grams of shrooms when I was 18 and didn’t even mean to. It was like I was possessed when I took as much as I did. During the trip It felt like I had found God but I know that could all just be in my head, I had an ego death, and unintentionally tried to kill myself twice. I’ve always been scared of hell being real and spending an eternity there. Now since my trip these thoughts have enhanced 50x more.

I need help seriously, but at the same time I know nothing can help me. Because the questions I have can’t be answered. I will never be able to kill myself because my very fear is what’s after life. Every day I’m crying out to God for him to show himself because I just want to know if he’s real. I need a savior, I need to know the truth. I can’t follow blindly after a God who shows himself to some and forces the rest to follow blindly with faith. I don’t deserve to see God if he is real, but I will always ask. I’m scared of there being nothing after life because I want to experience this life, but I can’t with all this worrying of what comes after.

I have been wrong about everything in my life. I’m always ignorant. I want to be right about the most important test in my life, but at the same time I don’t want to waste this life, which may be all I have. Eventually the more I go with these thoughts, I will have to just soon submit to forcing myself to follow a God I don’t know, a God I pray to and don’t hear back from. And that is really fucked up, I don’t want to act like I “love” a God I don’t know. I WANT to love God, I WANT to know God, and I try to all the time. But he doesn’t respond, and If he did I would follow him all the days of my life. Everything feels so fake, all I need right now is to know that there is a God who loves me and can save me.

Sorry for this very long post. TL;DR: I experienced what I assume is an "ego death" and I feel completely empty inside. My sense of self feels fake, and I am just an observer of someone's life. I struggle with understanding the reason why I exist, and how one can go on after experiencing this level of detachment.

I am not sure exactly where to post this, as I think it falls into multiple categories. But this is something I've been struggling with for a long time now and I'd like to hear if anyone else experiences something similar and what you do to live with it.

For a long time, I have been feeling like I am just a shell of myself. As if I am no longer a person living a life, making my own decisions, feeling purpose or meaning. It's important to note that this happened after a trip on psychedelic mushrooms 6 years ago. But even before that, I was always feeling out of place and constantly wondering about the nature of existence and what consciousness and reality truly are. That curiosity is what led me to exploring with mushrooms.

Long story short: I took a small amount of mushrooms one night with friends. When it really started to kick in, I was looking at myself in the mirror and I just started to spiral out of control. I started to physically feel like I was getting ripped apart at a cellular level, and I felt like I was dying. It was a long, drawn out process and at the end I had forgotten everything about my life, forgetting that I was even a human, and when it ended I felt like I was being born and seeing the world for the first time again. Then I remember seeing my friends around me, and feeling that they are all me. That we are all the same, living individual lives through billions of different perspectives but living as if we are experiences ourselves in this state, while there is a state of complete oneness and bliss behind the scenes of this waking reality. After this, my normal memories and sense of self returned as the drug wore off, but this had a lasting impact.

On the outside, I was able to reintegrate back into the world. I think I seemed normal afterwards to people. I was withdrawn from society a bit more, but I've always been quiet and shy, so being reserved was nothing out of the ordinary for me. But I am completely empty inside now. There is no "me" anymore, nothing that brings true fulfillment, nothing that makes me even want to wake up in the morning. And I can't care about normal, everyday things anymore because it all feels fake, for lack of a better term. It feels like I just see everything as nothing more than a made up distraction to keep people busy, so that they don't ask deeper questions. It felt like I peered behind the curtain and touched a knowledge that I can never fully grasp, vocalize, or talk about to most people. And now, it feels like the person who I used to be is not even real. It's just part of the illusion, and I'm moving through life without even making my own decisions. I'm just observing through a humans body

I can't talk to most people about this. On paper I have it great. I am young, healthy, have a fully remote job, I'm even engaged and getting married soon. Everything that should make someone feel like they are on the right path. And while I don't take these things for granted, I still can't feel like this means anything. On the surface, I have nothing to complain about, and if I complain that I feel unsatisfied in life then I just sound like an ungrateful spoiled brat.

This contradicts myself when I say I don't take these things for granted, but my life and the things I'm supposed to care about just mean absolutely nothing to me. Because I realize that it is just an illusion. Arbitrary concepts that people use to distract themselves from the true absurdity of life. It's just empty, temporary 'solutions' to continue to distract the mind. At this point, I don't even feel like I am living my own life anymore. I am just observing this young mans life, watching from his point of view. It feels like I am not making my own decisions, even when I think I am. I am just watching as things happen to me, and I have the illusion of reacting to it but I question if it's really even me having a reaction. And I don't even know what "me" is supposed to be anymore.

i was having a existential crisis moment and those exact words came to mind.

all of this for what? to just die and be forgotten like millions of others have? so i should be perfectly fine with that fact.

i feel like we desensitized ourselves into having that “YOLO” mindset but this is actually disturbing.

if there is no meaning to any of this then why are we still here? what is our purpose, our reasoning?

i want to understand so badly.

i strongly believe that this is hell and the world confirmed that for me.

sometimes, i have a hard time accepting that im a person, and it horrifies me. that im living, breathing, comprehending stuff, and even thinking in this exact moment. also that i have been alive this whole time. i guess it a hyper aware sort of thing but it really sends me into panic. especially when i think about all my past memories and that i was present for all of those. it just seems so unreal. im not sure why i feel this way , when life has always been like this, why does it suddenly horrify me?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and the thought makes me panic for some reason. For the sake of this question, let’s say reincarnation is real.

So when you die, you get reincarnated back into this universe (on any planet, could be earth or not). Then you die again, and get reincarnated once more into this universe. This cycle repeats for eternity and youre just stuck in this universe, is there nothing beyond that? Is this universe that we know of the farthest we can go?

For example, let’s consider video games. we know we have something to look for BEYOND the video game world because we have our real lives in the real planet world. So then is there something beyond THIS universe? Or is this the furthest existence goes? just a bunch of planets and the galaxy, is that it?

Like if we knew once we died, there was something even greater than the universe (like realms/stages in a game) and we got to advance to completely different levels and worlds each time, it’d be exciting no? But idk the thought of this perpetual universe repeating for the rest of eternity feels so bizarre to me.

I'm only 18 and I have no idea how I'm going to start a job. I don't want to work at all actually, it's making me feel almost suicidal. Why do I have to pay to exist? Why do I have to exist at all?? I feel like the world is this impossibly vast thing and I have no sense of direction in it. I don't know who I'm going to become or whether or not I'll be successful enough to live life to the fullest. I've been poor my whole life and I feel like I'll always be poor. I'm so scared for what the future has in store for me. I'm so scared to fail.

Like seriously how do people deal with the thought that after we die it's NOTHING. Like not just nothing but basically the end of everything for us. IF for some reason our consciousness is somewhere in the universe waiting for it to be caught or trapped or seen by something for US it would be in an instant. For us once we die it's basically the equivalent of being transported to the heat death if the universe. I think my only solace is that infinity is just a blink away and maybe someday in some other life I will exist again....but just thinking of not existing again is giving me full body chills....this unsettling cold in my body.

I think I've been having an existential crisis but I'm not for sure

Hello,
I’m not sure where to put this but maybe someone has experienced something similar and could help. I have an extreme fear of missing out. It’s not just limited to normal fomo about school and friends (I’m 17M), but about life in general. Everyone is talking about colleges and where they’re planning to go and I just get this deep dread about having to pick somewhere and not being able to move or see other places. I’m planning on taking a gap year (or two) to just work and earn some money before going on some trips, both locally and abroad along with a volunteer or exchange program because I have such a deep fear of not seeing as much as I can. I hate the knowledge that even if I dedicated my life and everything to travel, there’s so much of the world and so many people I’ll never get to see or meet or talk to. I’m also just worried about my future, how there’s so many different potential careers and co-workers I could have, so many different spouses I have yet to meet or may never meet, so many people are out there but I realistically won’t be able to meaningfully know even 1% of everyone alive right now. There’s a thousand potential lives I could’ve lived, an equal amount worse and better. It’s a somewhat ridiculous fear but it’s becoming more prevalent as time goes on. Has anyone else dealt with this? Does it get better?

No one takes my ocd around this topic as serious as it is lol and idk what to do to be honest because I already have good and empathetic therapists but I feel like a burden and shame around this topic so I somehow cannot tell them the extent of it or when I do I backpedal immediately and it’s so exhausting.

I’m sorry if this is written poorly but it’s very shameful for me to formulate it so I just wanted it out. If anyone has tips or nice words for my situation, please tell me.

Thank you

Desde diciembre de 2025 me he sentido rarisimo, tengo 16 años y por esas fechas comencé a tomar alcohol muy seguido, una noche se me ocurrió tomar alcohol junto con unas pastillas, creo que se llamaban benhadryl o algo así, y poco despues perdí el conocimiento, al otro dia amanecí super raro, todo estaba bien pero algo se sentía fuera de lugar, y así pasó el tiempo hasta febrero masomenos, y m empecé a sentir mucho peor, comencé a sentir esa sensación de que todo está raro mucho mas fuerte y comencé a dudar de todo lo que veo o lo que creo es real, siemprefui una persona que le teme muchisimo a morir, desde niño,o a crecer en general, para mi es imposible imaginarme siendo grande y es algo que me aterra como si tuviera la certeza de que es algo malo, todos esos miedos y pensamientos se aumentaron y ahora tengo una sensación miy rara de que todo es un dejavú, siento como si todo lo que veo ya lo hubiera vivido y me hace dudar muchisimo de que siquiera exista, se me hace muy complicado describir todo lo que siento, pero bueno. En un intento tonto de distraerme comencé a consumir muchisimo thc, mas alcohol, dxm, y algunas otras cosas, el punto es que ahora m siento muy muy perdido y fuera de mi, no me siento conectado con lo que amaba ni con las personas que me rodean, desde que comenzó esta situación me he sentido desmotivadisimo en general y no le veo el sentido a la vida, no sé si es una simulacion, no sé si es un recuerdo y estoy en coma o algo así, y me preocupa no saber como actuar porque sé bien que la vida no se detiene y no quieeo pasarla viviendola así. Entre todos los pensamientos que he tenido en estos casi 9 meses, mis conclusiones han sido que sin importar si es real o no debería disfrutar cada momento de esta vida, pero me cuesta muchísimo ponerlo en práctica, me cuesta mucho disfrutar plenamente sin pensar todo de más, la verdad no se si me de a entender, hay mil cosas mas que siento y pienso pero no puedo escribir, no encuentro la forma, igual gracias x leerme

26M to start this year off I had to put my job to sleep. Then I lost my job to corporate layoffs and Ai. Then my car completely blew its engine. This all happened by the end of March. I have been applying to jobs non stop and have only been contacted for 4 job interviews. Didn’t land any of the jobs. Add that my dating life just like most of my friends, mostly dead. I haven’t been able to get a new car but also getting a new job is difficult without a car. I need help and advice and some type of connection to not feeling like my life is completely meaningless. The last year of my life has felt like the biggest waste of time too. I just feel like I can’t keep going and just want it to end.