Asklemmy

At least once a week. Sometimes almost daily.

Used to get it every time I read an article on the current state of climate change. The dread has kinda just shifted to acceptance. Short of some miracle-tier scientific breakthrough or like literal divine/extraterrestrial intervention, we're just hard fucked and there isn't jack we can do about it.

Kinda adopted the personality of this dude:

It comes in waves for me. I'll feel fine for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, then I'll be deep in the depths for days, weeks straight. Mostly at night, staring out my bedroom window, contemplating the horror of the abyss.

Existential?

More like Exponential Dread.

At 50+, I get it almost daily. I never had it before. Not sure if its the state of the world we live in now, aging, or a combination of both. All I know is I’m glad I’m old and won’t be around to see some of the stuff I’m scared of.

Wait, you guys stop having it?

Every day since I was in junior high about. Knowing that I have nothing to really look forward to except working a job I don't really want to afford to barely keep myself alive right up until the day I die, alone and forgotten.

Hey, it could be worse, you could be a kid whose whole world is in the midst of melting down before they've even had a chance to realize what life could've been like if not for the shitty decisions of the preceeding generations.

As I have gotten older, the frequency of episodes have decreased. In my early 40's now. I would say it occurs at least once every 3-4 months as opposed to weekly in my teens.

Almost never.

I used to have it a fair amount, and medicate myself to avoid it a fair amount as well, and then just about exactly 20 years ago, in the span of about three days, I started feeling sick, got more and more sick, went to the doctor and discovered I had cancer, and had emergency surgery. Then I went through about six months of really awful chemotherapy.

I definitely wouldn't recommend having cancer as a cure for existential dread, but it worked for me.

I accept it as a part of living.

Not worried about being dead, really. I didn’t exist for millennia, I got my time in the sun, I won’t exist for the rest of time. It hasn’t bothered me.

Dying on the other hand sounds like a painful, grief-ridden, stress filled misery. I really don’t want to have anything to do with a drawn-out death. That’s what bothers me.

Weekly. I'm pushing 50yo too. My industry is dying a slow death.

Always. I stopped caring. The world will burn, whatever. Who cares.

I may be relatively young compared to other guys on this thread, but I'm also a victim of something like this. Recently I'm fighting with the company I've worked for over so tiny shit that it astonishes me, and terrifies because of consequences of incorrect actions from my side. I've understood years ago that I'm no one and will achieve nothing, so it hits less. This dread also comes in waves, as I was good for whole 3 months, and now to the same old shit. Sigh.

Not enough of these say “hourly” for me to be comfortable answering.

Are y’all not freaking out every second or-…?

Often, although I suspect that I just feel bad, and need to make up stories to justify the bad feelings. So, it doesn't have to be existential.

Depends on what "existential dread" means.

Everytime i listen minecraft music for a while, i have terrible trougts about the future, all the persons i know dying one by one, and everything i know and use today being forgotten somehow.

In my early twenties it was nearly constant. It's subsided greatly since then. At a certain point I think I just accepted that "there is no meaning, so it's ok".

So once you get there, and you start understanding capitalism, then that takes over as the most all consuming topic.

Errr... daily? To one degree or another, probably not healthy.

I'm glad I'm not alone. Thank you.

Its been years since I've experienced this, thankfully. It used to be pretty much a daily thing when I was in a relationship with an alcoholic though, but I ended that over ten years ago

Depends on how we define it. I've dreaded my existence most of my life.

For me it's probably a once or twice occurrence every month. I usually have an episode as I'm going to sleep, but I have had my moments during the day while I'm meant to be relaxed. I worry about my future, I think about any number of my mistakes. I'll fixate on how I'll never get to enjoy enough as there is simply too many possibilities and so little time and ability to enjoy. There are things I could've experienced today that I'll never be able to experience in the future. In my worst episodes, my heart is pounding so hard in my chest and head that I worry of having a heart attack. The only real solution I've found to calm down is to distract myself with mental stimulation, something enjoyable or contemplative. There have been episodes so powerful I wasn't able to get sleep even after spending hours distracting myself.

Between COVID, climate change, and my own worsening health, pretty much constantly.

I've experienced it since 4th or 5th grade. I began embracing it in my teens with the help of nihilism. Now, I usually have the thought of "nothing matters, and we're all going to die" around 2x a day. It's really more of a mantra at this point though.

I think it’s a natural part of growing/waking up to the fact that, despite what we are all told from birth, there actually is no “point” to any of it. At all.

The challenge is to flip our perception to appreciate how wonderfully liberating this is.

Never. Life's continually shaping and changing; was always going to. It's easy to roll with it and just do whatever. It doesn't matter if things don't work out because I can do other things I want.

Maybe become a travelling food critic. Seems fun, cheap, and relaxing.

Yes

Like 3-7 times a month

mmmm every single day, but i became aware of death really young and have never been able to fully settle in with the thought of oblivion

it's usually not too bad but sometimes it spins up into a panicked frenzy and i won't get to sleep that day