#if anyone actually read all this im gonna buy you some virtual ice cream

[ratlesshonret]

Semi-related to my last post about how I get panic attacks from thinking about what happens after death. So ig... don’t read this if talk of death, loss, references to suicide, or panic attacks makes you feel uncomfortable.

I feel like I basically spend most of my life somewhere between an existential, solipsistic, and just a general crisis. I often think about why I’m alive, why everything exists, and the idea that I don’t actually exist. Or even better, the idea that I am the only thing that exists and everything else is actually fake and made up by my brain.

But the main point of this post is like... when I think about what happens after dying, I feel a deep, primal fear. The thought of dying itself doesn’t scare me. Even if it’s painful, it probably won’t last very long unless something truly fucked up happens to me. The real fear is after death, and it’s the real reason dying terrifies me.

When I try and conceptualize the idea of “after” death, I just can’t handle it. The only real frame of reference I have is before I was born, but that was just nothing. With no physical brain, there’s no way to experience sensation or existence at all. When you have a lack of consciousness, what does that feel like? What does it mean to not feel anything? These thoughts make me scared.

And this is why I understand why people are so drawn to religions that describe an afterlife. The idea that after death, we inexplicably regain consciousness in some other place is incredibly appealing. The idea that experiencing true death can’t happen is super nice. Reincarnation is also an appealing idea. Being certain of the fact that after I die, I’ll just... do it again? That would be incredible.

But I can’t. I can’t believe in that. I’m a naturally skeptical person, and with no evidence of an afterlife or reincarnation, I can never convince my brain to shut up. I do, actively, choose to believe in these concepts anyway. But subconsciously, I know I only believe those things because it’s easier to imagine than the concept of nothing.

I’m not religious, and I never have been. However, believing in some kind of afterlife or second chance is the only thing that even somewhat causes the fear to abate for even a moment. And honestly, maybe it’s good I feel this fear, because several times that cowardice has kept me from ending my own life.

To go on a tangent in this already long post, my first panic attack fucked me up deeply. I think I have never been the same since then. I was unable to feel “normal” in any meaningful way for almost a month, and I think the effects that deep fear had on my brain have lasted even now.

What was that panic attack caused by? It was two things.

The fear of after death, and the fear of permanent loss.

I already explained the former in depth, but the latter is almost just as painful to think about for me. The idea that something or someone I care about can just... not be there. And yet again, this gives me insight into why people lean so heavily into religion. The idea that even after those near you die, they’re happy somewhere else... it’s nice to think about.

I have trouble even parting with sentimental objects. The idea that a plush, or a figure, or even a blanket I like may one day not be with me makes me feel deeply depressed. And when it comes to people, that deep depression turns into outright panic. A... panic attack.

All of this is probably the reason I’m so resistant to change. When I envision my life in five, or ten, or twenty years, I’m doing the exact same thing I do today. The idea that the future will be completely different from the present fills me with a feeling I can’t even describe.

This post has been long and rambly, but I needed to say this all somewhere. My fear of “after” death, loss, and everything in between has been a fundamental part of my worldview, and the cause of all of my panic attacks. It’s responsible for my questioning of if existence is even real, of how perceiving reality even works. Of if reality is even... real.

And this, my friends, is why I have insomnia.