Apeirophobia & My Latest Existential Crisis

I have apeirophobia.

I've had it pretty much my entire life. My first memory relating to this happened when I was no older than 4.

There's a lot of interesting stuff to be found on the internet now in regards to apeirophobia. Different people's experiences, or even people with no experience with this phobia at all simply speculating on why other people might have it.

Apeirophobia is simply the fear of infinity.

Some say this is often connected to thanatophobia (the fear of dying), but that's not always true. I know too well this isn't always true, as dying is the least scary part of life ending for me.

It's the what comes next or lack thereof that keeps me up at night. The concept of time in itself, moving forward indefinitely. My husband snoozes next to me, I look over at him and thank God that he can't read my mind.

When I was 12 years old my neighbors found a baby kitten in their boat. They brought it to our doorstep thinking maybe it belonged to one of our cats, or maybe we'd know what to do with it.

It was a tiny black kitten, no more than 2 weeks old. I knew immediately he was meant for me.

I didn't grow up religious. I didn't grow up not religious either. It was weird in my house sometimes. My dad seemed to not care one way or another, and my mom was always a spiritual person so she shared but she never really tried to convince us one way or another. We went to church with my grandma sometimes on Christmas Eve but that was really it for a long time.

My apeirophobia started when I was around 4.

I used to sit on the floor of the bathroom while my mom got ready in the morning. We had one of those mirrors that hangs on the back of a door and at the bottom there was a beveled edge. I'd sit with my face right up to it and line my eyes up just so, so that it would double them. I'd look like I had spider eyes for a minute and scare myself on purpose. I liked the tingles that kind of scare gave me.

One day as I was doing this I couldn't quite get my eyes to line up and I got distracted looking at myself and I just kept staring. I stared into my own eyes so long I got lost in there and I realized. Not thought. Realized. I was so sure that there was something else in there that wasn't the form I was looking at.

I'd tapped into consciousness itself and suddenly it wasn't the good kind of scary that the spider eyes were. There were no tingles. It was terrifying. I'd never thought of myself that way before and I've never been able to shake it since.

My dad had a spiritual awakening around the time I was 12. Not long before the kitten came to the door. I accepted the idea of the Christian church with open arms because it worked with my own desire to be open to a universe of possibility and because it validated my own belief of another consciousness beyond the obvious one.

This new belief system told me that not only was I indeed a being inside this being, but that there was a being who would listen to me and answer my prayers.

I prayed for a black kitten.

I didn't really know why I wanted one so bad. I never liked cats much as a kid. I would pester my mom's cat Dallas and get upset that she didn't want to play with me.

Dallas died less than a year before the kitten came and I felt so guilty when she got sick about how I treated her that I stayed with her everyday until she died. When she died I felt I needed to keep loving cats and I wanted my own.

So I prayed for a black kitten.

And one morning there he was. Literally brought to my door. I named him Raven. He was my best friend.

He was with me all through my teens and then all through my 20s.

Raven died in October 2021 from cancer at 18 years old and I haven't been the same since.

My apeirophobia has followed me all my life. It's hard to talk about with people because it's hard for them to understand and I kind of don't want them to understand. I'm a little relieved honestly, those few times I tried to explain it and people can't follow. Or they insert their own beliefs about life and the universe and state it so matter of factly, as if that should solve everything for me.

I'm not offended, I'm envious. Good for them. I love that they can believe in something or nothing so confidently and find peace with that. I'm not so lucky.

I have these panic attacks, usually at night. It's very common I guess for people with this anxiety, or any anxiety, to have panic attacks at night.

At night the world is quiet and you're alone with your thoughts. When the trigger is your mind itself, you don't feel safe in there without some distractions.

Raven would always find me when I was having a panic attack. He'd crawl up to me and lay with me while I steadied my breathing.

I think the hardest thing for people to get about apeirophobia is why anyone is so obsessed with something completely out of our control anyways.

If there is no master plan of the universe, if we die and that's it, well then that's it. What can you do? Why stress about it?

If there is some master plan of the universe? If we die and a divine being welcomes us with open arms or sends us back to Earth as something else, again that's it. What can you do?

But this is the neverending problem for those of us with apeirophobia. I need to know. I can't let it go.

But then again, even if I did know I wouldn't let that go either. I wouldn't be able to handle either option so there's no scenario where I come out of this cured.

Some people try to link the onset of apeirophobia to religion. I don't think that's quite right. I wasn't even religious until well after mine developed. The thought of nothing after death scares me as much as the thought of everything after death. Believe me, I've tried a million beliefs and the lack thereof on for size to see if any help. They don't help me.

When Raven died, the grief was overwhelming. I know he was a cat. Some of you will get it, some won't. That's okay.

The grief has been with me since, and then the panic attacks started again and now Raven wasn't around to help me. For the first time since I was 12 I truly feel alone in the world.

The little girl who felt so fully connected to the universe that she could just ask for something and receive is so far away.

Maybe it's weird to say a cat was helping me get over an anxiety disorder. I haven't found one person with apeirophobia say they ever fully got over it. I don't know if you really can. Raven just made me more able to focus on the present. I was so happy everyday for my little reminder that whatever existed in the universe or didn't, sometimes life, whether coincidentally or purposely, does bring you something special that your heart wanted.

I'm trying to figure out how to feel normal again since he's gone. How to make the panic attacks stop. How to figure out what I want out of life again. How to accept that whatever is, just is. Whatever will be, will be.

I can't quite figure it out.

And on some level I know that the answer is in accepting that I can never really have an answer. Whatever comes next, or if nothing comes next, it's not until it happens that I will ever stop worrying about it.

But it's figuring out how to live fulfilled in the meantime that's the trick.

Saying goodbye to my childhood companion rocked me in more ways than I ever expected. Losing him brought back all the fears I'd thought I'd found a way to avoid. It's not even my infinity I think I'm afraid of truly. I hope he had a good enough life. I wish I would've been better for him. Not so young, not so broke, not so afraid.

I think a lot of us will never feel like we were enough for those we really loved. How do you ever repay a love so strong it pulled you through all the worst moments of your life?

I push through these fears now and the panic attacks without him because I owe it to the rest of them, those I love, to try and live the best life I can even if I can't really know what meaning there is in it or if there's a meaning at all.