Death anxiety and morbid depression.

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Hello. I'm new here, and I'm sorry if I posted in the wrong place - I couldn't find anything more relevant.

First, some background information. I am 18 years old and am currently attending college at UA. I am enrolled in UA-ACTS, which is a program for their asperger's students, and am medicated and am undergoing therapy. My asperger's seems to be quite abnormal, as I am well known for being outgoing and friendly, as well as for my moral side and etc. I have social issues, but my primary give-away is my restricted interest. I sit on the computer and play games. A lot. D:

Basically, ever since I was maybe....9 or 10 I have had a terrible fear of dying. I haven't had a near death experience. I haven't had relatives die. I've just been afraid. It always hit me when I laid down at night in bed, alone...I'd imagine black. Just black. Nothing else. The thought that I wouldn't be conscious, but even worse, that I wouldn't be conscious OF my lack of consciousness scared the s**t out of me. I've never really believed in god because I can't just BELIEVE in something...I need reason to. Not proof, but I'd think that if a true loving god existed, he'd realize that with 82490874309823 religions, noone can just PICK one and really mean it. I WANT god to exist, and I've BEGGED him to make himself real to me and to show me truth. Nothing. I don't expect to SEE god or anything, but I just want...SOMETHING.

Anyways, for a while it disappeared. I was abused up until 15 or so, when DHR finally pulled me out of the house and I saught medication, therapy, and etc. I finally started trying in school and turned my entire life around. My IQ is 147, so I'm one of teh smartiez. When I was finally taken out of the house, I decided that all I wanted in life was love - to find a girl and make all of her dreams come true, and all of that cheesy stuff :3. I wanted to have a family and do it all RIGHT, unlike what happened to me. I was miserable because noone really liked me in high school, but finally, just as college started, I met someone. We're in a long distance relationship atm, (I know, I know, but I've been in others and this one is different), and she plans on attending UA as soon as she gets out of high school next year. I have never met anyone like her...she is the exact person of my dreams. I know she has flaws too, but I love her for every part of her. She truly is the girl of my dreams.

As you can imagine, such heavy focus on finding a mate coupled with aspie level obsession leads to clinginess (which she LOVES an reciprocates!). She had to leave for a week to go on vacation, and about two days in I started to get depressed. I was finally happy with her, and I started to remember how miserable I had been alone and how much I appreciated her. Suddenly, the panic attacks returned when I was in bed. I saw blackness.....and now I'm terrified. Ever since, i have been depersonalized. I feel like the real me is in the back of my head in fetal position, scared s**tless of the one thing that can take her away from me. I know I'm heavily rooted in her, but that's not what I want to hear. I don't want to hear "You won't care that you're dead when you're dead." I don't want to hear to talk to my therapist - I've done that and am doing that, and that's way too obvious, but I'm MORBIDLY depressed. For the first time, I have something to lose by dying. I want god to be there. I want an afterlife. ANYTHING but black. I am so depersonalized...I feel like I have been on autopilot forever now. It's been a week or two since she returned and I have never felt so miserable in my life. I thought I would get better when she got back, at least after a while, but it hasn't changed. I feel like life is a journey in which we are but a train, careening over the tracks towards the edge of a cliff. I see advertisements on TV and think "Why do they even bother trying to profit? We're all just going to die." I know this sounds so emo....and it is. I just want help. My antidepressant medication isn't making me feel any better, and I normally feel HIGH off of the stuff. I have been out of it for a few days, and I can see that as contributing, but even so, I have never been so depressed. I try to tell myself that I have a lot of time left, but A)One never knows when death will come, and B) SOME DAY it will happen.

Lately I have felt so ALONE. Even when I am SURROUNDED by people, some part of me feels isolated and alone. I feel like the depersonalization is a defense mechanism against my death anxiety. I have looked up everything I can online and seen other people's problems. I have looked up "evidence" of afterlife, god, etc....I have done everything to seek comfort, but I keep thinking about black. I have played games and etc to "get my mind off of it", but without fail, when I lay down at night and feel alone...when the room is dark and my mind is clear...it all goes black.

I don't know what to do. I'm so afraid and I told my girlfriend last night and CRIED MY EYES out, I was so scared. She tried to comfort me, and I felt better because I cried. But today, my fear returned. I want so badly to know that god exists or that an afterlife exists. Please don't tell me that "I'm too obsessed with my girlfriend" or "I need my medicine", I KNOW those things. I KNOW the obvious. Please...I just want to feel better.

I feel like I am living just to die. Like my entire purpose is to end....and I'm only EIGHTEEN!! ! That's RIDICULOUS. Logic isn't the problem. Logically I will not mind after I die. Logically if I live oblivious to when I will die and don't care, it won't therefore bother me. Logically I have lots of time. Logically, logically, logically. But emotionally....I have panic attacks and the past week and a half has been utter hell. Emotionally.....I am fulminant. (Neologisms <3).

Reincarnation scares me because I have no memory of a "past life", and if that is the case, I therefore would not remember THIS life. In that regard, I would STILL be immersed in blackness....I would no longer remember myself and in a sense would have died. I've always had an awareness of that....amnesia in a sense is death in every sense, since ourselves are composed not of the physical or the spiritual, but of our memories...without memory we do not exist. At least not to ourselves.

I read that depersonalization can be cleared by increasing seratonin levels, but I feel like since it is a defense mechanism against death anxiety, it won't go away until my fear does. Please....please, I'm BEGGING you, someone, PLEASE help me!! I feel miserable...I just want to be happy like I was before she left. Please help me...I'm going insane.

I can kind of related to what your saying, when I was 4 years old, I was watching a program about the human heart and they went into the details of what happens during a heart attack. For some reason, I drifted to the idea that someday everyone I know is going to die, including me, and the next thing I thought of was going to heaven to live forever and ever and ever, etc. It worked like a nasty thought loop in my head, giving me my first taste of existential dread. I started having panic attacks at that point, and it had a good part of who I am today. It was a neurosis that clipped my wings before I could take off.

Because you don't do much besides playing video games, you mind is probably going to wander to death a lot. You need to get some hobbies. Since your in college, take something you might like, like a photoshop class. Once you learn the basics, you can try out the thousands of tutorials that are online...It might be a bad example for you, but it keeps me occupied.

I didn't really feel to great about myself until I was 21, when I started taking an SNRI, I'm not saying it's for you, but if your depression is really dark, then you might want to check it out, AFTER you try an SSRI. SNRI's can be physically addicting.

FYI, this really isn't in the right forum, so, your probably not going to get the attention you wanted for your question.

Thank you. Where should this be located? Is there any way that it can be moved? :3

Put it in the general discussion forum, just copy and paste it. Just say that you want this one deleted, and it should be eventually!

Thank you very much :3

Erm, unless i am totally missing a button or something, could a mod please delete this post? Please and thank you!

When I was around 5, I went through some serious depersonalization, asking my mother if I was real. I'm not sure, but it seems to have been the first time I recognized my reflection in the mirror for what it was. Nothing like having to deal with nihilism before you hit grade school! Anyway, these feelings kept coming back periodically through high school and it absolutely terrified me, like my very self was disintegrating.

Fortunately, I discovered existential philosophy and found it quite therapeutic. It was comforting to read the words of others who had gone through the same thing--their voices were more real than the people around me.