still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?

[cimorene]

I’m pretty much always feeling existential - and this has been the case going back to childhood - but recently I was reading something that suggested this (existential contemplation) is anxiety-linked and is actually the mildest form of dissociation, and WHOA.

I mean, I don’t know if that is true, but at least the link to dissociation feels plausible. I certainly experience stronger dissociation as similar to existential moments. (I don’t dissociate in the dramatic and exciting way though - I’ve never felt like I was seeing my body from outside it, for example, despite always thinking it sounded cool and wishing I could. So my dissociation is perhaps still mild, or at least moderate.)

Other things I was shocked to learn are anxiety linked: deja vu... and I can’t think of any others right now. Maybe it will come to me.

Comments

[niqaeli]

I usually experience feeling existential as losing my frame of self in the context of the vastness of the universe, so uh... yeah, I can see how it gets identified as a mild form of dissociation! I hadn't ever made that connection myself, though. Huh.