Hello everyone,

I’m new here, I joined yesterday as I found some relevant posts here, so thought I would share my story to give comfort to others (I know from personal experience that I benefit hugely from knowing I’m “not the only one”) and to ask for your advice and thoughts.

For a several years now I have been thinking, quite obsessively, about the terrible possibility that hell could exist. This is despite me being an atheist (I’m now agnostic as a result of these experiences) and stems from overthinking about living in a computer simulation and from watching dystopian tv shows and films (ie Black Mirror). It used to be much more manageable but about a year ago I was having a particularly anxious day after experiencing a number of coincidences (coincidences have made me feel anxious for some time) and at the end of the day I said to myself “this song playing on the radio will have a meaning for me” and so I looked and it was called “Burn in Hell’. Since then I have been feeling a LOT worse and coincidences have much more significance as I interpret them negatively as reminders of that experience. I have also become unhealthily obsessed with the number 13 which seems to feature so much more often in my life than say 12 and 14.

This whole episode is extremely debilitating and depressing, I am struggling to find joy in life, am terrified something awful is imminent and I struggle to think about anything else.

Any advice you can offer would be wonderful as I have recently been declined a “psychiatric assessment” by the NHS which has been difficult to take considering how I’m feeling.

Thanks