Do you ever get a sense of impending doom?

[Changing4Best]

I should have asked; I'm sorry.

That is OK, because you gave some info which may well be very valuable to some folks here, that they probably should get their heart checked out if this suddenly comes on, and is not a life long thing!

 

[Gs172003]

I'm glad your heart checked out ok; it was smart to get it checked out. This is a symptom I've hea...

Yes I relate. I know most people feel like they are going to die when they are having a panic attack but I don't . I don't know how to describe mine except close to what you said and the feeling that something bad is about to happen (not death) and sometimes shame

 

[CdnCopper]

Yes, always.

Lying in bed at night listening for "stuff" that's out of place...and waiting for someone to knock on the door or for the phone to ring with bad news. As the saying goes, Nothing good happens after 2 AM.

Again I think I can relate this back to doing countless next of kin notifications at night/early morning.

 

[Freida]

@Florian7051 I went straight to EMD in my brain too!

 

[Gs172003]

@Florian7051 I went straight to EMD in my brain too!

I think alot of medical people do that. My brother and sister in law were ER nurses. At one time they were convinces one of their kids had blood poisoning (whatever the technical term is). Turns out it was just a cold. I think when you are exposed to really really bad all the time that's what you expect.

 

[barefoot]

Yes, I totally get this. I generally have a sense of doom bubbling under the surface all the time. Because it is now so familiar - because I’ve had it so long - and because I can’t generally pin it on anything in particular, I don’t generally pay too much attention to it now unless it is particularly ramped up. It’s just background noise most of the time now.

I remember being on a night out with a friend when I was about 20 and we’d both been drinking and I decided to get a bit sharey and I asked whether she ever had a feeling that something was really wrong...or that something was going to go badly wrong...because you could feel such a powerful sense of doom...and you didn’t know what it was about or why is was but something just felt so wrong...?
And she looked at me like I was nuts, said she didn’t know what I was on about and asked me if I’d taken any drugs that night! So...I kept it to myself for years and years after that.

A couple of years ago I told my therapist that it would be good if I could at some point get rid of this ever present sense of doom I feel. Because I constantly feel that something is wrong or that something bad is going to happen - but I don’t know what and, actually, it never does. She pondered it and said something about the feeling maybe being a response to the fact that something bad already *has* happened. And then I think I dissociated. Ha!

I guess, I recent years, I’ve just put it down to ptsd-related anxiety? It would be nice to shake it off...

 

[Virtues]

I don't know if I misunderstood the original question or if possibly the wrong verbiage was used but from a medical standpoint the term "impending doom" means death so a sense of impending doom means you feel like you're going to die, not like you have a bad feeling that something bad may happen that may cause death, but you actually feel physiological signs within your body that you are actually dying... like right now (not in the near future)...

When I go out, the tapes that play in my head are like the movie "Final Destination" and death is coming for my children around every corner in every possible way imaginable (this isn't impending doom; it's racing thoughts) there is a difference. Impending doom is when you feel like you are dying RIGHT NOW, here in this moment.

 

[Gs172003]

I don't know if I misunderstood the original question or if possibly the wrong verbiage was used bu...

I think in an anxiety/ panic sense impending doom means something bad is going to happen, not right now I'm dying. At least that's the way it works for me.

 

[Sweetleaf]

Sometimes I get in this state where I feel really in danger, if that makes sense. It makes me feel like I need to get the f*ck away. Oftentimes there is some kind of trigger, something sets off my danger alarm too much - which doesn't really take a lot sometimes - and I just have this overwhelming urge to run the f*ck away kick in.

It can happen at home, or in public, wherever. I can even have my logical side screaming at me that I'm fine and there isn't anything wrong and nothing bad is going to happen, but the feeling persists. Sometimes my logical side takes a break and lets the panic take over. When it's bad enough feeling, it can be better to just go with the feeling, and get the f*ck away, and get in my car and drive, because it's too intense to stand there and resist it. Once in a grocery store line, a little kid wasn't respecting my personal space - and like, he repeatedly would violate my personal space, and I just couldn't take it so I left. It made me feel really unsafe, and gave me an overwhelming desire to run away. This is the sort of shit that makes me think that working might go horribly.

Aside from the running away stuff, I constantly am expecting things to go wrong, or bad things to happen. When I am walking downtown (between this one place and my car) it gets pretty strong. I'm constantly expecting that people are going to try f*cking with me. There is a good number of homeless downtown, and when they approach me and say whichever line they have, even if it's just them trying to get my attention to initiate a conversation, I just go "f*ck OFF!!!" automatically, because that's the only reaction I can muster while feeling afraid, in that situation, I guess. I don't even know if I'm saying it to only homeless people. I think I just hear people trying to get my attention when walking on the sidewalks downtown, and I just tell them to f*ck off. It could be lost tourists for all I know. I am too busy powerwalking to my destination or to my car. I notice the people I'm going past but don't take in the details, I just see people and people = potential bad things happening.

The people downtown are also a problem. The tourists are fine, but there are a lot of bars downtown, and the bar crowd - a crowd of people I have a lot of experience with seeing as I spent years in bands, playing live music in bars - is just a bad crowd of people, and I have a lot of bad experiences with them. Only one experience that I'd classify as traumatic (liquor store clerk job, drunk group off of a party bus, me being cornered and one of them threatening to kill me, and beat me up, wait till I got off of work and f*ck my shit up when I left, loads of harassment, etc.). But, that experience, plus just knowing what they're capable of, has really colored my perceptions when I'm walking around, and I see people that are from the bar crowds. I just view them all as walking danger sources even though the majority of them are likely harmless. I reacted pretty hard after that incident working at the liquor store. That did happen in the middle of my abuse, though, so maybe that made it a lot harder for me to handle it and process it.

 

[Gs172003]

I don't know if I misunderstood the original question or if possibly the wrong verbiage was used bu...

I think the thoughts you described are called intrusive.
Maybe the psychology world and the medical world should not share terminology. Makes things confusing ( and scary)

 

[Changing4Best]

Impending doom is when you feel like you are dying RIGHT NOW, here in this moment....

No, that was not what I meant. I meant that I felt that some kind of doomsday thing was about to happen! Or some kind of doom was about to befall me. Something outside of me was about to crash into my world and bring death or disease or great suffering into my life. There are probably several different ways that "impending doom" can be interpreted.

It also makes sense to me that because these kinds of things have already happened in my life, from a very young age, my mind would at times feel that something of the sort was coming my way again. Yes, it may well be dissociation. Or a flashback. However, the particular kind of doom is not in my mind. It is just a general overall feeling that something awful is about to happen. Nothing specific, just deadly or thereabouts!

 

[Virtues]

I notice the people I'm going past but don't take in the details, I just see people and people = potential bad things happening.

I am the opposite... When I am out, everyone and everything has a proverbial threat card floating above them. This is why I recluse (because it is quiet and safe inside my home). Anyway there is so much information to process out in the world, and I can't process it all, that my brain starts to prioritize it. Everything low and mid threat level gets pushed to the back burner everything high threat level gets moved to the front burner to get analyzed. Regardless of what the threat is I pull it apart in my head; I'll remember heights, weights, sex, hair color, eye color, clothing, facial hair, license plate numbers, tattoos, scars, jewelry, make/model of auto, etc...

I remember one time I was in a dollar store in a shady neighborhood with my wife and youngest daughter. It was central Florida in the middle of summer; this one cat was wearing a hoodie and a beanie and shades. He was standing up at the front counter with his hands in his pockets. I immediately located the fire exit and put myself between him and my family giving them a clear run to the exit doors. He went to pull his hands out of his pocket and I grabbed his wrist. We struggled for a minute with him yelling "get the f*ck off me! what the f*ck are you doing!" when his hand cleared his pocket he had his wallet in his hand. I felt like a complete ass, but who wears a hooded sweatshirt and a beanie in 100 degree plus temperature? He was out of place and I noticed it right away.