You don’t need me to tell you that the world might feel quite scary. You might be worried about the long term. We’ve just had a record-breaking summer of heatwaves, droughts and fires. Who knows what winter will bring. And then next year. And the year after that. What will the summers be like in 20 years?
Or, perhaps it’s more immediate. You might think it’s safe to be who you are today, but what about tomorrow? It all feels like it could turn so quickly. That group of lads on the street corner might not have said anything a few years ago, but now you’re tensing up, waiting.
Anticipatory anxiety is worry about a specific thing that will happen in the future. Existential dread is a deeper, more general fear of the future. And in my view, it is the most common emotion we don’t talk about.
What existential dread might look like
You might notice yourself ruminating, the same thought going round and around in your brain. It might almost feel enjoyable (I use that word lightly) – your brain might even feel a certain way that might start to feel comforting.
You might notice that this rumination becomes darker, and it gets in the way of your daily life. You might experience cynicism and detachment – a sense that everything you do is pointless and it will all come to nothing. That might make it hard to actually do anything.
This might also feel isolating. You might see your friends and partners planning for their lives ahead, 5, 10 years in the future. Perhaps it feels like you’re going mad – everyone carrying on as normal, and seemingly only you are worried about what is coming. Perhaps the future feels alien to you, like something you cannot access. It is a party that you’re not invited to.
I imagine that must feel quite lonely.
Is existential dread normal?
Therapists often talk about the “climate bubble” to describe the phenomenon in which the seen and felt reality is that the climate is changing, but there is a reluctance to talk about it. I agree with this, and I’d go further. I often hear people (and clients) talk about their sense that the (geo)political environment is destabilising and becoming more hostile or violent. They might also mention AI and its impact on livelihoods. When I hear people mention these things, it is often off-hand, it is often framed as a joke or, “it is what it is”.
I think we are in a ‘dread bubble’. We can see that the world around us is, in many ways, getting less stable, more violent, worse. But we cannot seem to talk about it.
I wonder if talking about it seems pointless because it feels like these are situations we cannot change. I wonder if there’s a sense that talking about it would harshen the mood or bring everyone down.
Whatever is going on outside of the therapy room, inside it comes up again and again. (I even wrote my dissertation on it.) That’s a small sample size, of course. But suffice to say, I don’t think you are alone. Many of my clients feel it. I do too.
Existential dread may or may not be normal, but it is rational.
When you might be feeling existential dread
I don’t think there’s a particular moment, or life stage when existential dread hits. But I’ve seen it often at periods of life transition. Perhaps you’ve ended a relationship and now you’re wondering what’s next. And answering that question leads to 1,000 more that don’t feel great to answer. Perhaps there’s a sadness around an ending and the rest of your life feels empty, and that emptiness might be cruelly echoed back in the world around you.
Or perhaps the life transition is an entering into adulthood. A time of your life that should feel brimming with possibility and energy instead feels flat. The life that you might once have dreamed of is no longer possible. The robots will take all your jobs, climate change will bite harder, the political environment will coarsen. This, the robbing of your future, can feel the most hopeless of all.
It might also not be your future you are worried about. Becoming a parent or a grandparent, you might be thinking of your children and grandchildren. What will life be like for them? Will the world be able to support their ambitions and give them the joy and the love that it has given you?
The cost of existential dread
Existential dread moves you out of the present, which may or may not be great, and into an (imagined) future, which given that you’re reading this, is probably hellish. In this, there’s a sense in which you are short-changing yourself. You are both taking yourself out of your present-day life, and putting yourself into a hellscape. I don’t want you to short-change yourself. I want you to live your life as fully as you can.
But what are the consequences of that for you? What might you be getting from that? I’m not suggesting that this is conscious and deliberate, but it is often interesting to explore what you would be doing if you weren’t doing that.
What can you do with your existential dread
You’re reading this, wanting solutions, and of all the feelings people come to me with, this one is perhaps the hardest to solve. So much of it sits outside of you. I cannot tell you to not worry about what’s coming over the hill. It’s not my place to do so, and in lots of ways I think you probably should worry. But that doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with it forever.
In my experience, what makes existential dread so heavy is the isolation that so often comes with it. The world around you is carrying on as normal as disaster (of whatever flavour) looms on the horizon. That is crazy-making. But you don’t have to be alone in this. Talking to someone, a friend, a therapist, me, can help. It really can. And don’t make a joke about it. (That’s the hard part, especially if you’re British.)
I cannot change the reality of the world outside. I wish I could. In therapy, our work will not be about trying to “fix” your existential dread. I don’t want you to not worry about the future – your worry might be incredibly wise!
The first part of our work together is simply that I will listen to what is worrying you, without judgement. You might feel that your friends tire of hearing about this, or perhaps your worries might feel irrational and you don’t want to share them with others. I don’t want you to think about that here. I will listen to whatever you need to tell me.
And then, we will go deeper. I work with people who have lost themselves, and worry about the future is a form of self-abandonment. Taking yourself out of the present is taking yourself out of your life. Together we will explore all the ways in which that harms you, and underneath that, what you might be getting from it.
This might not be easy work, but it could be helpful. If you’d like to begin, let’s chat. You can schedule a call. It’s free, 15 minutes and no obligation, just a chance to get a sense of me.