Anxiety and Depression involving human extinction.

[Civilised_Biscuit]

Hi everyone, 

A little over a year ago, I started to have nervous quarrels with myself over human mass extinction and the destruction of our planet. It was a dark time for me, my grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer recently, so the anxiety gradually got worse as she got more sick. When she passed, I felt better for a while while and I got back into the groove of school life. Now, a year later these worries are starting to come back. I constantly have very dark thoughts, which make me feel very uncomfortable and I am always feeling exhausted from constant panic attacks which seem to come randomly in the middle of class. 

My friends are great people, and I want to stay friends with them but they are at the roots of the problem, since they talk about nuclear war, climate change and viruses wiping out the earth in the next 10/20 years. I have tried talking to them about stopping this talk but in doing so I always get caught up in an argument with them about the subject, which makes me more depressed in the long run.

 I have been to doctors and Physciatrists about this. They always tell me to "accept I cant change the future" which to be honest, doesn't help at all. I cant stop thinkning about the death of the me and the people I love and accepting that that is going to happen only makes me think about it more. My anxiety has become a white noise, something I cant get out of my head like TV static. I've talked to my family, who are very supportive but its an uncomfortable area to talk about to people so close.

 Ive been told this is natural, and that all pubescent boys feel this way. Looking over personal stories, what I am experiencing seems very different to most. It's constant, tiring and frustrating and I want to be done with it so I can continue enjoying my life.

Thanks guys.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Civilised Biscuit,

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the forums.

That's a pretty odd situation that you're in, and I'm hoping more people can answer that are better equipped than I am.  I tend to stay away from news like that because a) we can't control it and b) it's mass media.  Things such as climate change are bigger problems than even scientists can understand, but yet it's like more information is found everyday and broadcast across the news.  I tried to look up stuff about climate change and nuclear war and human extinction and couldn't find any single source that was credible.  (By credible I mean a Government site such as CSIRO or NASA rather than news.com.au) 

The fact that we don't have credible information about nuclear war/climate change/viruses and human extinction shows us that there's just not enough information there.  There is information saying that climate change is causing us to get hotter summers and colder winters and also more storms/natural disasters but not to the extent that you're friends are saying.

I'm telling you all this because I think your concerns are totally valid, but I also think that the info you are getting is incorrect - the information just doesn't seem to be true.

I hope this helps a little and puts more things into perspective. It's very easy to believe things that we read or hear but assumptions about the end of the world are big assumptions.  

Also, as your friends, they need to respect that sometimes you just want to talk about something else.  That's what friends are for.

Take care,

[Civilised_Biscuit]

Thank's for replying, you've helped a lot.

It's nice to talk to someone about it.