So many individuals fantasize about living forever or being young forever. Others believe that after death, they will either go to an “everlasting paradise of happiness” or be reincarnated into a new body because they believe the soul to be immortal.
However, there is a subset of individuals who find the whole concept of infinity to be repulsive, regardless of whether it refers to existence in a physical body or in the hereafter. In fact, it is so frightening that it has a direct impact on the quality of life they lead.
Apeirophobia is a disorder that is not well understood and much less often addressed. These individuals suffer from this ailment.
Even on the internet, there is very little information regarding this ailment; in fact, there is not even a Wikipedia page dedicated to it, much alone information on the more prominent medical websites. However, the dread of infinity often surfaces throughout people’s routine, day-to-day interactions as well as during discussions on online discussion boards.
It is probably rare to find even one person who, at some point in their lives, has not been shocked by the realization of how small a single person is in comparison to the vastness and infinity of the cosmos. However, after being terrified by this, a typical person goes back to his regular existence, in which the terror of infinity is minor in comparison to the worry of developing cancer.
But for those who suffer from genuine apeirophobia, this fear never fully disappears; it may at most be repressed for a short period. It is possible for individuals to develop sleeplessness, sadness, and even impulses toward suicide as a result of this dread. People in this situation also have a hard time explaining their condition to others, and as a result, they tend to bottle up their emotions and keep everything to themselves.
Fear of infinity, on the other hand, is very nebulous to the average person, in contrast to, say, a fear of heights or of spiders, which are straightforward to describe and grasp. On the other hand, people who suffer from apeirophobia are often extremely articulate and are able to articulate fairly well the reasons why they are scared of an everlasting and continuous life that does not have any prospect of coming to an end.
Paul comments on the website Phobia Fear Release, which is dedicated to a variety of phobias, “I’m simply terrified that at some point in endless life I will know, see, and feel everything conceivable and be locked in; what for me would be dull torment.” “And there will be no way for me to make any changes at all; I will just be trapped in eternity forever.”
“I know that for most Christians, the idea of an eternal afterlife is something inspiring, but to me, it sounds like agony,” says another user named Tom. “I was lying in bed one day thinking about eternal existence, and I got really scared,” says Tom. “When I attempted to tell my wife about it, I’m certain she thought I was completely off my rocker. Even though I have a wonderful family and a fulfilling work, I can’t shake the feeling that something terrible is about to happen to me.” Although they may not have an issue with the concept of everlasting existence, some persons who suffer from apeirophobia are afraid of infinity in general.
“When I start thinking about what kind of an infinite world exists beyond our solar system, my thoughts automatically stop to protect me from going into a panic-like state,” Jane Adkins once wrote on her Facebook page. “I feel that we are all completely insignificant crumbs compared to the universe,” Jane Adkins once wrote on her Facebook page. “After I found out that there are such things as black holes in the universe, I spent many nights having nightmares about them. In addition to that, the concept of the immense distances that exist between galaxies gives me the creeps.”
On the internet, you may find hundreds of other people’s thoughts that are similar to yours. There are really quite a few people who suffer from apeirophobia to varying degrees. The majority of individuals who are diagnosed with this ailment immediately begin searching for information on it wherever and everywhere they possibly can. However, as we said before, there is not a lot of information available on this sort of phobia. As a result, the majority of the time, individuals need to focus on trying to keep everything inside themselves lest they completely lose their minds.
The underlying factors that might lead to severe apeirophobia are not yet fully understood by the medical professionals who are researching this disorder. It is quite probable that this is related in some way to the functioning of the brain.
Martin Wiener, an assistant professor of cognitive and behavioral neurobiology at George Mason University, suggested to The Atlantic two years ago that the cause may be concealed in the frontal lobe of the brain. The frontal lobe is one of the last parts of the brain to develop as a person grows older.
After about the age of 15, the frontal lobes have completed the primary stage of their development, which is followed by the quick onset of the secondary stage of frontal lobe growth, which is the release of new nerve material. This phenomenon was just identified not too long ago, in the latter half of the 1980s.
“When you are a teenager, you start to become aware of the fact that you are maturing into an adult. I have a sneaking suspicion that apeirophobia starts to set in about that time; the concerns and worries associated with it aren’t all that unlike those associated with dread of becoming older, fear of dying, or fear of getting older.”
