Apeirophobia - Fear of living forever

I have this question. Does anyone here have Apeirophobia? Being Christian, the idea of living forever in heaven actually isn't too appealing to me. Actually I get quite scared of the idea. The idea of never going out of existence is actually quite scary and causes a lot of anxiety in life.

I used to think I was the only one who had this fear - And that I must be crazy (or that the rest of the world was for not having this fear). Recently I have read on the internet about other people having this fear too, and I felt comforted to know I wasn't the only one.

Some people say this fear is a learnt fear - Which really means there is nothing to really be afraid off. I also read about two guys having this fear after doing mushrooms - which indicates it has more to do with abnormal brain chemistry, esp. a lack of androgens (I think it was) than something to really be scared off.

Anyway, I am still trying to deal with this idea. Does anyone else here have Apeirophobia? What are your thoughts on this?

Since I believe you have to keep coming back until you get it right, living forever takes on an entirely different connotation. My spirit is eternal, but I'd like to graduate to the next plane of existence so I can quit coming back here.

Can't say I've ever heard of that one.

I'm not really a Christian myself, but isn't the idea that you're happy in heaven? As in, existence there isn't a burden but a continual blessing?

I dont have that fear. When my body dies I know that I wont be here any longer. If I lived here forever my life would be meaningless. Jesus said I am the alpha and the omega...the beginning and the end. The end will come...until then enjoy this life ..be the best you can and enjoy lifes glory which seems to go past us every day

I've never heard of THAT before. I'm not religious so I certainly don't worry about 'living forever'.

lol there's a phobia for everything...

I actually fear death, funny as it sounds with my past.

But I also fear living forever...

real long time...

you're not alone though.

I have often thought about this. Mostly when lying awake at night, trying to get to sleep, but I've had these thoughts since I was quite young (at about the age of 8 or earlier, I recall sitting in bed crying about it, so much so that my Dad came in to comfort me and tried to distract me by saying things like "Don't think about that stuff. Think about what we're going to do on holidays" hehe. That is such a clear memory in my head). You die, you go to heaven, and there you live forEVER. As in FOREVER. That's such a long time! What do you do forever?! Won't you get bored? FOREVER. I have actually made myself feel quite sick thinking about this, as it's such a daunting thought. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks about it

Yeah, it's like how many hundreds of years is it going to take to do everything there is to do in heaven? Okay, so now it's a thousand years in, you've done everything there is to do, and you've only scratched the surface of the time you're going to spend there. And it's a million years later, and you still only scratched the surface. And it's a billion years later, you get the idea.

My only hope is that if there's an afterlife it's about as incomprehinsible to our biology-based brains such as that it's impossible to apply human emotions to it such as fear and boredom. You know, like it's as impossible for us to comprehend the higher existence as it is for a rock to comprehend our lives.

Or maybe there's nothing and it's pointless to think about it.

I was raised Christian, and our church believes you sleep after you die until Jesus comes back to rule the earth and judge us. At that time, you rise from your sleep and continue to live on the new, improved, earth with Jesus. In other words, Heaven will be here. I am Protestant and this is what I was raised to believe, though I have developed my own beliefs over time.

I don't fear death or living forever.I'm agnostic so I do believe in some sort of deity,but no one actually knows where they are going after death,but we shall all find out someday.

From my Christian friends(and beliefs that I'm leaning towards) they believe that when you die you go immediately to heaven or hell until judgement day when those in hell are sent to the lake of fire. Others believe that when you die, you "sleep" until judgement day. Kinda like when you sleep now and hours go by without you knowing...when you die, apparently years go by until judgement day.

As for the idea of living forever in heaven, i've been told that time does not exist in the afterlife...at least not the way we're used to here on Earth. As someone said above, none of us will know until we die ourselves.

Think of it this way - If there is a heaven, you'll lose your physical body/mind (I'm assuming). Therefore any fears/worries/etc. you have will no longer be an issue.

It's like people who feel like even if they go to heaven they'll still be depressed, whether it's clinical, or whether they'll never be with someone they love (who doesn't love them), etc. You won't have those problems in heaven.

You're a christian who's scared of living eternally, I'm an atheist who's scared of dying. What a world.

I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in eternal life, but I imagine that's a pretty scary prospect. I sure wouldn't want to live forever. Give me a break!

I'm not really christian, i'm agnostic so i am not sure, but i often think about reincarnation, and the idea of becoming a human again scares me, if i could just be a cat or something else in my next life that would be great =) But living forever... I haven't really thought about it. I'm not scared of death, but what i am scared of is dying. Like, dying in a traumatic/painful way. I don't really think about what happens after death much. All i know is that i don't want to die yet, i'm way too young, so i'm just trying to enjoy my life as much as i can.

You know, until reading this thread...I'd never thought about this. However, now that I have, it kind of scares the crap out of me I have a lot more to say on the issue, but it would be considered religious debate so I won't. I'll just leave it at that.

I too have struggled with this since I was about 8. It seems we are thinking too hard on something we don't understand and this phobia tends to occur more often in analytical people.

The problem with analyzing heaven is we can't accurately do it with love. You see love tends to be outside the analytical realm. We can't measure it or accurately create a cause and effect from it. It is not a concrete concept, but an abstract one. So what we end up creating in our minds is more a concept of Hell then Heaven. It is the people in Hell who have to go through eternity without Love.

Scripture says "Perfect love casts out all fear" (1 John 4:18). We fear eternity, because we leave out love. If we can't do a good job analyzing love, how much less can we analyze a perfect love eternity that comes from God. Because we cannot analyze love we can safely conclude that we cannot analyze Heaven. Heaven does not exist without love.

Therefore, we must simply trust God's promises about heaven, such as it being a paradise (Luke 23:43) and simply conclude that we cannot accurately predict heaven, because our minds are incapable. That any heaven we try to create is simply counterfeit. We will find out what heaven is all about only when we reach it.

I believe Heaven is timelessness not time going forever, but that's just my assumption. Once again we will find out when we get there.

I am also a Christian (a Mormon to be exact)! Sometimes I sit in my class after talking about heaven and how I'll live forever and it makes me want to cry! In the sixth grade, I had to read Tuck Everlasting and I knew everyone else was thinking about how awesome living forever would be while I was there thinking about how horrible that would be. I don't really know why I think this way, but it just makes my stomach feel queazy and my eyes feel like an ocean of tears could just pour out at any moment.

Hello 😊 My name is Alex ... I came across your post and it emediately caught my attention because I have that Phobea. What helped me overcome this was Inner Peace/Enlightenment.

Now I'm not claiming I can heal you but I can share with you an exercise I came up with to help me over come the anxiety associate this the topic. In order to do this, I would like you to ask 1 other person to help you with this so that you are able to concentrate solely on yourself.

Once you have your second party you may begin. (Please have the person assisting you read the rest of this message to you and). Be sure to be seated on a chair or stool that supports your lower back. Be sure you're in a quiet environment. Keep a bottle water close to you and every time you notice your mouth is feeling dry or you get thirsty please immediately take a sip of water. Then calmly return to the exercise.

Perform steps when ready:

PHASE 1: Remembering to Breath

1. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Do this 3 times.

2. As you inhale,feel the oxygen flow through your body...

3. As you exhale release any tension you're feeling around your neck, shoulders, lower back, and feet.

4. Do this 2 times

PHASE 2 : Recognizing my Emotions

1.Chose colors such as; light pink, sky blue, or neutral yellow, to label emotions associated with compassion, empathy, or acceptance.

( Pause )

2. Use Darker/Stonger colors (such as; Black, Dark Blue or Maroon) to associate with feelings of being alone, overwhelmed, and exhausted.

(Pause)

3.Lastly use energetic colors (such as; Red, Orange, Electric Blue) to associate with feelings of Love, kindness, And the joy of helping others.

(Pause)

Phase 3: Recognition

1. Take a deep breath and see if you can feel what your body is feeling.

2. Pay attention to areas where there is tension.

3. Focus on each tense area one at a time. Try to identify it's color.

Phase 4: Acceptance

1. Take your last deep inhale and exhale very slowly

2. Open your eyes

3. Notice how you feel

END

I hope this exercise helped you relax and that you may be able to use this technique to help with any and all of your stress as well as anxiety. 😊