Apeirophobia: The Exclusive, Limited-Edition Crazy I Didn't Know I Had
Severance Gave Me a Panic Attack and Reddit Gave Me (and Taylor Tomlinson) a Diagnosis
I was six years old when I had my first apeirophobia-related panic attack. It happened one night right after my grandfather had died and as I tried to fall asleep, I started spiraling out about how he was going to be dead and in the ground forever and someday that was going to happen to me there was no way out of that scenario now that I’d been born. You know, the way totally normal six-year-olds do.
I was 59 years-old when I found out via Reddit that what happened to six-year-old me (and has continued to happen sporadically and without warning for the rest of my life) was called apeirophobia. On the happy side, I’m really glad to know my lifelong terrorist has a name. I always thought I had plain ol’ run of the mill Crazy but now I know I have an exclusive, limited edition kind of Crazy with its very own name and I feel quite special. Also on the happy side, I’m not alone in having it.
On the sad side, I spent my previous 53 years wrongly believing I was the only loon who could ponder the afterlife for a second and wind up in a sweaty, heart racing, gasping for breath, whimpering, hands-flailing-in-the-air, existential meltdown.
Maybe Stop Reading
If that sounds like you too, you may want to stop reading now because I’m going to describe the lead up to that type of panic and I don’t want you to follow me down this particular rabbit hole involuntarily.
First a Definition
From Dr. Google: Apeirophobia is the overwhelming fear of infinity, eternity, and endlessness. We apeirophobes experience severe anxiety, panic, or existential dread when contemplating boundless concepts like the size of the universe or life after death. It feels like:
Intense anxiety or panic when thinking about things that have no end or measurable limit.
Feelings of derealization, where reality feels dreamlike or fake.
Dizziness, rapid heart rate, and an intense urge to escape (only you can’t escape because how are you gonna escape the cycle of life/death??? There’s no way out and that’s the whole fucking problem).
Obsessive thoughts about eternity or the unknown future.
It frequently overlaps with other phobias, such as thanatophobia (the fear of death) or chronophobia (the fear of time passing)
Uhhhm… check, check, check and two more checks.
Dr. Google says there’s a logical explanation for it:
Dr. Google ‘splains WHY: Human brains evolved to solve practical, finite problems within our lifespan — like finding food or avoiding predators. The concept of infinity has no beginning, middle, or end, leaving our frontal lobes with an unsolvable puzzle.
When you realize you cannot mentally simulate or resolve “forever,” your brain triggers a physical fight-or-flight response. You feel trapped because you cannot run away from your own thoughts.
Severence is a lot
Which brings me to my most recent bout with apeirophobia. The other night I’m enjoying a snuggle with my hubby, watching Severence, when a feeling of extreme heat started creeping up from my chest to my face. I thought it might be a hot flash but after a second or two, it became a tightness in my chest and a disorienting sensation of not being able to tell where Severence stopped and our family room began; it was all just really bright white and Adam Scott sounded like the “wah-whanh-wah” teacher from Charlie Brown. It took a bit, but I eventually pulled myself out of it with a Butterfly Hug1 and some vagus nerve reset breathing2.
Afterwards, I was fine, but it shook me because it hasn’t happened in a really long time and for once, the call was NOT coming from inside the house (not caused by my own obsessive thoughts) and I didn’t see it coming at all. Somehow, I didn’t realize a terrifying scene like the one where Helly’s non-work self tells her work-self that she will never let her out of being severed and she is trapped in this loop forever would be terrifying on a whole different level for me. Duh. My whole life, the words “forever” or “eternity” would leap out of a sentence as I heard it; they would sound louder and would appear in bold type across the screen of my brain followed immediately by the same heat/disorientation/panic outlined above. So perhaps I should have known better than to fuck around with a disorienting plot line where people are trapped in an uncontrollable eternity of having their time, memories, identities and humanity sucked away from them. Lesson learned: I should stick to rewatching Shrinking and Schitt’s Creek.
Taylor Tomlinson has it too
Shortly after coming across my apeirophobia diagnosis, I saw a YouTube video of comedian Taylor Tomlinson talking with her friend Dustin about how she doesn’t like outer space.
Taylor: “I don’t fuck with space. I don’t like thinking about it, I don’t like looking at pictures of it.”
Dustin: “I remember a text you sent me once that said, ‘Hey man, I’m really freaking out about that new picture of space.’ The rest of us are like, ‘Wow, that picture’s amazing!’ and you’re like, ‘I’m going to have a panic attack.’”
Taylor: “Yeah, I don’t see me anywhere in that photo. I can’t wrap my brain around space and if I can’t wrap my brain around it… I don’t know, maybe I just need to up my meds so I can look at pictures of space.”
Awww, Taylor’s got one of my mental illnesses — we’re phobia twinsies. I felt so seen. I also felt that upping her meds would not be of any great help, but far be it for me to gatekeep anyone’s meds.
Taylor does a thing before her shows where she has the audience text her the answers to the questions she has in her program (like, ‘What was your queer awakening?’ or ‘Tell me the story of your first sexual experience.’) or you can opt to ask her a question. Then after the show she and her warm-up acts come back on stage, sit on a church pew to read and riff on the funniest texts.
Naturally, I texted that Reddit and I think she probably has apeirophobia because she has a fear of space and the infinite and did she agree? Like me, she was stoked to learn that she had yet another psychiatric diagnosis and she is forever grateful to me for pointing it out. She didn’t say as much, but I could tell. It felt good to spread the apeirophobia awareness — I’m a goddamned informational warrior — even if only to a few thousand people in the Paramount Theater. And now you.
If you enjoyed this, show me some love with a one-time appreciation tip or leave a comment— or both! Thanks!!
Butterfly hug is when you cross your arms over your chest, gently alternate tapping your upper arms or shoulders in rhythm. Gentle tap on the left, gentle tap on the right, continue while breathing slowly as long as you need. Works great in combination with 4-8 Breathing.
4-8 Breathing: Inhale (4 seconds): Breathe in softly through your nose. Exhale (8 seconds): Breathe out slowly through your mouth with slightly pursed lips, making a soft “whooshing” or “ha” sound.