Anyhow…I’m sure we’ve all been through states of depression from time to time: feelings of worthlessness, as though no one cared about your existence, that you’d be better off dead, yada yada…Recommendations include doing esteem-able things and hanging with more positive people.
But enough of the fluff. That’s not the point of this thread.
While depression can leads to thoughts of wanting to die, I have this dilemma concerning a not so voluntary departure from the world. To be more specific, the thoughts that your life is meaningless because at any point in time, anyone who wants to kill you can most certainly kill you. Now the obvious response would probably be "why would anyone want to kill me? Well, that’s besides the point, since people can just feel like killing you for the sake of wanting to kill you.
So uh…what’s this called? It’s not paranoia, since it’s true, isn’t it? :dubious:
Its ‘true’ but what isnt true is that its likely or even a reasonable concern unless you’re in prison or whatever. The issue here isnt really the thought, but the emotional response to the thought, and its origins.
Its also ‘true’ that planes crash for instance, but some people have major anxiety attacks about that remote possibility, while others barely think about it. Similarly, someone ‘could’ be listening to all your phone calls, but unless you’re a criminal or whatever, its not a very likely probability either.
Depending on what that is, it could be an anxiety/trauma response, or some level of paranoia.
I don’t know, the suggestions given don’t quite hit the mark:
Payback - That’s based on revenge, and being killed because someone just doesn’t like you (for whatever reason) doesn’t really seem like a good catalyst. For the sane person, at least.
Anxiety - Seems too general. You can be fearful or worried of pretty much ANYTHING.
The key difference being that plane crashes are more of an uncontrollable accident, where this scenario bases the fear off the fact that people have the utmost control over ending your life if they wanted to. Sure it isn’t REASONABLE, but you never know.
And again, is it paranoia if it’s true? Am I paranoid if I keep thinking I’m going to die in the future?
Existential crisis/depression - Hmm, definitely interesting and something that I haven’t heard of yet (yay new term for me today!), and definitely pretty close on the mark, but…what if I took the " life is meaningless" portion out of my statement? Just I know that anyone can kill me right now if they wanted to. I guess that’s just considered a “morbid fact of reality”?
This sounds like me in my late 30s. Before that I knew intellectually that I would die but one day it hit me – I am going to die someday. What will that be like? And it was this feeling of helplessness that I don’t know what it will be like, nor can I do anything about it. As soon as you are created, you are doomed to die. I freaked out for a while and then the feeling passed.
The life is meaningless part comes after an event occurs that shows how fragile the things we are utterly dependent on for peace of mind, security, identity, etc. are. A natural disaster, a freak accident resulting in death, etc. Life can lose meaning because you realize the concepts you use and the assumptions you make about your own and other’s invincibility, security, stability, etc to give life meaning aren’t stable or secure at all and never were. It is like being asked to build a house on a foundation of sand.
People who go through natural disasters, school shootings, freak accidents, unexpected deaths of loved ones, etc. deal with this issue. It sounds fairly similar to what you are describing.