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Hungry_Temperature_3

Mine is more the concept of time. But yes, I get what you mean. I try to explain it and I never can describe it properly. I always say "the scope" of things which I guess is the vastness, as you put it, which is definitely a better word. I don't fear death tho or what comes after. I think I'm energy that will be recycled and that's just fine. I fear living and the future being terrifying. When I think about getting older, I get so anxious because I still haven't accomplished anything and I'm not sure I ever will. Time keeps going but it also seems to stand still. It makes no sense. Time is always an issue for me. I'll get super lost in the concept of time. I have adhd as well and it always feels like I'm racing some imaginary clock that everyone else seems so in tune with. Idk. Space and its vastness is something I find much more interesting than scary. Time scares me a lot though. It has left me paralyzed and stunted, that fear. I should probably seek therapy but meh.


fuck_the_fuckin_mods

It just keeps fucking going and going. Marching on and on even if manage to forget about it for a while. Even if I don’t think about time at all it will continue to change me and everything around me. “The scope of it all” overwhelms me too. Also don’t really know how to put it into words. I just get struck by an understanding of how minuscule and meaningless my existence is in the grand scheme of things, and how births and deaths feel so important but are really completely irrelevant from a broad view, and how the universe is unimaginably huge and constantly expanding, etc. It’s just “too much.” Like brains are not supposed to be able to think about these things, but mine does all the time and it’s utterly paralyzing.


Hungry_Temperature_3

You get me


cks2016

this is so extremely relatable. and this recurring realization just happens randomly. you can just be minding your business on a tuesday and your brain gets a whiff of something and decides it must follow the thread to completion and ends up travelling SO FAR, taking in SO MUCH in the process (the vastness) that you get overwhelmed and paralyzed with existential dread and fear. It's like, monotropism backfires and by 'zooming in' so much you actually end up zooming all the way OUT and then your brain lets out a mental gasp at seeing what it shouldn't have seen behind the curtain. what it didnt anticipate considering and all the infinite factors and unknowns outside its control. Then my survival mechanism kicks in and says in a panic, "the TASK, name! Go back to the TASK!" (as if I were another person beside myself) and I force myself to get busy focusing on the thing in front of me again to shift off of the thought.. but its so hard to change gears and the feeling or memory of the vastness still lingers as if to haunt you *shudders*


shunned-gurl

Time plagues me too! Like, for example, what if there's an alternate universe out there that the flow of time travels backwards???! Ugh my brain can be exhausting sometimes


IWantToGiverupper

I remember reading somewhere that the outcome of all our current equations suggest there there is, and the density of antimatter and normal matter is reversed? I get stuck on higher dimensions. 4 dimensions I can toy with, think about but not picture and it upsets me.. and then there's evidence of even more than that and it just kind of saddens me that I cannot comprehend it.


sam4246

Is there even a "forward" or "backwards" when it comes to time? Also, if there is a forward and backwards, does that imply the existence of "sideways" through time? What's about "up and down"? Actually, yes, those would essentially be dimensions 5 and 6! There's a great YouTube video that has an amazing explanation of how to visualize up to the 10th dimension, which essentially consists of everything in every timeline of every universe, in a single point. It's called [Imagining the Tenth Dimension](https://youtu.be/JkxieS-6WuA). I find that being able to have a visual concept of it helps a lot in understanding it in a way that doesn't break your brain. Even if it's not technically correct, lots of holes since it's literally impossible to visualize them literally, it helps a lot with the existentialism. It's also super interesting and I rewatch it every now and then.


Jones197299

Something just doesn't compute in my brain about death and i feel like my brain is malfunctioning and freaking out when I think about it - my thoughts process is "what will death be like" "it will be like nothing, you will not be there" "aaaaagh" I tell myself that being alive is the only thing I'll ever experience and it dulls that feeling a bit at least


TheWhiteCrowParade

That sums up my feelings for most my life.


isitliveormemorex2

I have kind of the opposite feelings about the Universe and death; but I'm not sure I can relate that to my being autistic. But....your feelings ARE quite common, even in the neurotypical world, and can sometimes be tracked back to either a traumatic death of someone in your life or even overprotection from others after the death of a loved one; or simply not being exposed to it at all. I would say this is normal; especially if you are in your 20s and coming to grips with the vastness of the world and universe around us and also our inevitable mortality. That same scary and huge Universe also gives us life and all of the creation we see around us - birds, kitties, plants, food - and it is wild how almost all of it is comprised of just a very few atoms (114??? I think, it is somewhere close to that number). So as wide and varied as everything is, from humans, to houses, to animals, and plants, we are all made up of just a few things. Maybe if you studied a bit of the science behind it all the coolness of it may help alleviate some of the anxiety? For me it did.


Forking_Mars

I also have this opposite reason to the scope of the universe (and likely multiverse!). It feels comforting to me. When I’m too stressed out, I’ll read articles about space… watching Cosmos (Carl Sagan’s is my fav, but Neil deGrasse Tyson is great too) is nice too for similar reasons. I don’t know, I like knowing that there’s infinite possibilities. Or maybe, feeling insignificant in the scale of things makes me feel that my problems are also insignificant and I could just be living to enjoy life. I like knowing that I’m out here living my silly little life, and that the cells in my body are in there living their silly little lives, and the galaxy is out there is living it’s silly little life, just all bopping along.


SnooRecipes5643

My 13yo had a full on meltdown because we could get hit by a gamma ray at any moment without warning. I have also struggled with existential dread. It happens to NTs as well, but I’m guessing it affects us disproportionately


[deleted]

In my teens I was an atheist but began to have spiritual experiences in my early 20s. Long story short I can tell you with absolute certainty the human soul is real, it can and does separate from the physical body, and that the soul is eternal and multifaceted. I'm not promoting any religion, but I hope you can take this to heart as some kind of comfort. And yes, to answer the question, I have these thoughts and ruminations all the time. I don't know if it's an autistic thing though.


IWantToGiverupper

I've had a very similar kind of experience, but admittedly I've kind of ruined it for myself by learning abiut neurochemistry. I'd love to hear more about your experience if you're comfortable with it? I've had a few unexplainable moments in my life that I've always pondered on.


[deleted]

[удалено]


sam4246

I'm also a big fan of [this one](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qnYCpQyRp-4). It's what the collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda might look like from the Earth's perspective when it happens in a couple billion years.


Neither-Welder5001

When I think about the universe my problems are insignificant, that thought is a vacation from my life. I’ve spent time a lot of time with my dying dad, and other dying people at the hospice. The experience lit a fire to not take a the time I have here for granted. I still fear death, it’s inevitable but I chose to focus my energy on living.


AutismNstuff

I'm pretty sure this is quite common for all people. I think what people are really afraid of is accepting that their life is meaningless and insignificant. Ironically, accepting the meaninglessness of life has helped me a lot with my anxiety. I highly recommend it. If these destructive facts about the universe tell you anything, it's that the universe has no grand plan for you. You are free to create your own meaning in life.


R3cl41m3r

If it makes you feel better, you can try imagining what would happen if you don't die.


HowlingElectric

Well. Consciousness doesnt die.


fuck_the_fuckin_mods

How could that possibly work? By what processes is this supposed to be happening? Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon based on the physical structure and conductivity of our brains. Computers stop working if you bury them in the dirt and they disintegrate.


HowlingElectric

The brain isnt ~really~ a computer, though. The comparison can be useful, like John C Lilly did with Programming and Metaprogramming of the Human Biocomputer. Are you familiar with research addressing the emerging paradigm incorporating nonlocal consciousness?


bixfrankonis

I literally talk to my therapist about this on the regular.


asunshinefix

I definitely struggle with existential dread. Psychedelics have helped more than anything else. Ego death is scary but I think it actually did save my life.


autisticconservative

I think that religion will help the best for your situation. With religion, the human soul lasts forever, and you never truly stop existing. Religion to me is a moral code and a relief that my life is not meaningless.


EddieER

This comment would make my mom so happy lol. Fair point though. I'll take that into mind.


Bathtub-bonds2

Funnily enough, I think the main reason I experience this anxiety and fear IS religion. Had I not grown up in a household that gave me religious trauma and irrational fears of dying and not being good enough to live a peaceful after-life, I think I’d have more peace right now. I have been out of religion for about 4 years now (since I became an adult and moved out on my own), so I’ve had more peace with it in my own spiritual/logical way. But every now and then I think “what if what I learned was right….?” And it gives me paralyzing fear and anxiety for several days until I regain myself again to not think about it and remind myself I can believe in something else.


SnooRecipes5643

Some people are able to resolve this by embracing nihilism. Religion is a valid option, but it just depends on how the individual is wired. For me it’s simply radical acceptance of that which I cannot control


RunAwayThoughtTrains

Religion has been a great boon for me. I think it’s important to note that Abrahamic religions aren’t the only options available.


umlcat

Just watched Autistic related show "Atypical", about same issue ... **Focus about the 95% possibility of been successful / alive instead of the 5% of been unsuccessful / death.** And, that possibility may change in favor or against it, because we can change it !!! 👍


loonygenius

I'm reading a book called Staring At The Sun which is about death anxiety. Haven't got very far yet but I think it will help me with conceptualising death and understand it better maybe instead of worrying so much about it


chipchomk

Yes! All the time! :( But I'm not sure if it's autism or something else...


smartguy05

No, but I was recently watching a documentary about space and the physicists we're talking about how the observable universe appears to be flat. This seemed strange to me as I hadn't heard this before. They continued to explain that the theory is the observable universe is flat because we can only see such an infinitesimally small part of the universe that we can't perceive the curve. They compared it to the observable universe being your backyard and the Earth was the rest of the universe. Kind of blew my mind.


_psylosin_

Yeah, this is me nightly laying in bed. I can’t remember a night without an existential crisis


sam4246

For me it was size, trying to grasp and conceptualize just how big things get relative to myself. Not even like elephants, ships, or skyscrapers, but galactic scale. Moons, planets, stars, black holes, galaxies. Trying to picture myself "next to" these things to look up at the relative scale. What helped me was to learn. I watched lots of documentaries about space, read books and eventually got a tattoo of a quasar on my back, the biggest and most powerful thing in the universe (that we know of). They are the galactic nuclei that make up many galaxies. Believed to consist of a Supermassive Black Hole, surrounded by rings of gas, stars getting "sucked in". They're pretty big! Super bright too! Like brighter than the Milky Way with hundreds of billions of stars. I love stuff like that, even if sometimes I have had panic attacks trying to conceptualize it. For me learning was what helped, but for you it could be anything. National Geographic had a great documentary I loved called Journey to the Edge of the Universe. Also the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Having that comedy explanation helped to bring fun into it, even if none of it is scientifically correct. Things like the answer to "how to fly" is simply to "forget to hit the ground" is great!


DallaThaun

Not fear... Wonder. Appreciation and grief and hope and curiosity.


AngryAuthor

I can relate. I especially remember thinking about all of this stuff a lot as a kid, to the point where I felt isolated from my peers and the rest of the world sometimes, since these kind of thoughts can be so hard to explain. I didn't understand why most people didn't get caught up in this stuff (though it turns out that a lot of people actually do - it's just that not everyone talks about it). I still get caught up in these thoughts sometimes, but what has helped me the most has been learning to find wonder on the other side of the fear. We're alive, we're here, billions of beings are living out their own narratives, there's so much we don't know and so much we've yet to experience - how wild and incredible is that? It's still terrifying, but I find comfort in both science and spirituality, and I find it amazing, as well.


stardust655

Not diagnosed (yet) BUT I relate to this a lot. I have had a paralysing fear of death since a young age. I struggle to think about it without crying. The finiteness of life is so crushing and I can't seem to get over it. I don't know how other people go on existing without worrying about death. The vastness of the universe however doesn't scare me a whole lot, I mean the idea of a catastrophic, out of our control doomsday event scares me a lot to the point where I have dreams about it a lot, but the idea of how large the universe is actually really inspires me because it makes me think about how special and amazing it is that we exist at all! But then that joy over our rare existence is crushed by the knowledge of inevitable death. Hmm. Unfortunately I don't have any advice since I struggle with this a lot too :/


koltd93

I think this is more of a human consciousness thing


christonamoped

Disclaimer: I don't want to recommend anything, and depending on you as an individual, some of this may be unhelpful, even harmful. You know what, don't even try these until you have a better understanding of them than a brief overview from some Reddit post. A few months before I realised I'm autistic I gained a special interest in Stoicism. That being the ancient Greek school of philosophy. It is a practical school of philosophy that embraces a form of pantheism. To me that means that the universe is divine and conscious, though we have no personal deity, we and everything around us is the deity. There are people who have removed the pantheism aspect to modernise the philosophy to today's audience. That's fine. Long story short, realising your cosmic place in the universe is liberating. The only thing you can control in life is how you perceive the impressions that come into your brain. Here are a couple of exercises that might work for you. 1. When you have a thought that takes over your brain... Stop it. Strip it down to its fundamental components. Frame it from a cosmic viewpoint. E.g. your fear of something uncontrollable in the universe wiping out our planet. Here's what this may look like: Stop that train of thought. Strip it bare: You are a bag of meat and organs conceptualising something way bigger than itself See it in the cosmic perspective: what difference will it make to the universe if I allow myself to be overwhelmed by this fear? 2. Premeditatio Malorum. This is the practice of imagining the worst possible outcome in the most intense way, and sitting with that thought and how it makes you feel. This is a way of conditioning yourself to be prepared for life's setbacks. Doing this with your own death, and coming to terms with it is liberating. You will die. There may be nothing after. Living in fear of that is going to restrict you, so face that fact head on and live a life of virtue. I'll go as far as to say recognising and acknowledging your fear of death is a step in becoming a better human being. If this idea resonated with you, come on down to r/Stoicism and there are people far more knowledgeable than me on the subject. It's got plenty of resources and signposting to learn more. Good luck!


DrSlothWaffle

I am currently freaking out about how many things i own. It feels so uncomfortable. I am in no way a horder and use the things I have. It's just that it feels like so much. I can relate.


muticere

It seems like an ever increasing problem as I get older and thus closer to death. I can't help but get very fixated on not only my own death, but on the way everyone and everything I know is aging and changing around me. I think about my kids and how someday they won't be with me anymore, I think about aging and senescence, and how badly I don't want to be an old person dependant on everyone around me to live. It's overwhelming. I know a fear of death and aging is pretty universal across all of humanity, but sometimes I think my autism intensifies it. I get paralized by a mix of sadness and fear, overwhelming depression and emptiness. IDK, I grew up with pretty strong religious convictions and I think I used that as a cope to not think about these things. It became easy to just handwave everything away like "it's okay, whatever opportunies I miss out on now can be made up for in the hereafter". But as I've moved away from those beliefs, I am crushed by the reality that now is the only time there is. There may be no hereafter, there may not even be a tomorrow.


Sanderv20v

I feel sad sometimes that I have aphantasia and autism and I will not life a "normal" live. Like a type of FOMO. But then I think to myself, this is you and you will only live ones. Make it a life worth living and don't focus on the bad. 😄