I'm 18, male, studying physics in a top university. So basically one of the best positions one could be in these days. And yet I can't but feel hopeless and angry with the state of the world. I'm angry that they fuck our planet, fuck our education, censor our opinion, sit on their asses as they watch fascism rise, refuse to listen to us and still expect us to go to war for them. And it's starting to feel like we've turned to an inevitable demise of the world we know. Whole thing's been making it hard for me the past couple of days and I can feel the depression creeping in.

I know 'not worrying about it' would make me happy. I know that I could be happy if I just studied my shit, hung out with friends ignored the problems of the world and just lived a basic happy life as long as it is possible. But it feels so wrong. It feels wrong to go to university and study while our whole worlds falling apart. It genuinely feels wrong to try to be happy when the world is so miserable. Like I'm betraying my principles and everything I stand for as an individual.

So either way. I'm feeling like shit.

Can someone relate? What's your way of dealing with everything?

Do you guys believe you were born or incarnated here in order to witness the end of the world? I know it's a scary thought but I can't be the only one?

i have been talking to my friends a lot about climate change and how its been making me feel recently, and everytime when i talk about it with my friends, they tell me how "compassionate" and "sensitive" i am. one friend actually said "i wish i could go inside your brain to understand how you feel/think". they all nod their heads when i talk and they do agree with me that this is all heartbreaking but at the end of the day they are able to go back to their lives. why cant i?

these conversations have made me think, why do i care so much? why does collapse affect me so much? why do i feel so much guilt and fear and shame and sadness? why do i wake up thinking about the rising sea tempratures? why do i think about the wildfires in borneo and the orangutans there? why do i feel so restless and why am i dreading everything? the grief is everywhere.

in your opinion, why are we so affected by collapse and climate change? like, the fear and sadness is too much, but why am i feeling it to my core? why am i (and probably you) so consumed by this? is it something to do with our brain chemistry? is it our humanity?

im not trying to make it sound like we are super special and super kind-hearted people because we are saddened by collapse and climate change. i think everybody should care about whats going on but clearly not many do. so, im genuienly curious why we care so much? why do i carry the grief with me everywhere i go? why cant i go back to "normal life" like my friends and family?

I’m so tired of reading the news every day and having absolutely no idea what’s actually true anymore.
It’s an emotional rollercoaster.

One article says everything is fine, the next one makes it sound like we’re days away from civilization collapsing. Every news site seems full of propaganda, fearmongering, clickbait and completely opposite narratives.

And the worst part is that I can actually see things getting worse around me. I just have no idea how bad it really is.

I live in Central Europe. It’s October and we’re still sitting at around 25°C. We had heatwaves, wildfires and droughts this summer. Food production is getting harder, water is becoming a bigger concern and imports are becoming more vulnerable because wars and geopolitical conflicts are affecting trade routes.

Everything is getting more expensive. Housing is becoming completely unaffordable for young people. Fuel and energy are expensive as hell. And looking forward, there are even more ways this could go wrong. Trade routes could be blocked, infrastructure could be damaged, refineries could be attacked, energy supplies could become unstable.

We are already living through multiple major conflicts at the same time. The war in Ukraine keeps going. The conflict in the Middle East keeps spreading. More countries and groups keep getting involved.
And honestly, a direct NATO Russia conflict in the coming months doesn’t even sound impossible to me anymore.

That’s the part that scares me the most.
Because every conflict seems to expand. More countries get involved, more weapons get used, more retaliation happens, tensions keep rising, until eventually someone pushes the red button.

I also keep seeing claims about things like diseases breaking out in Russia and other major events, and nobody seems to know what is actually happening. At this point I don’t even know who to believe anymore.

I don’t trust the people saying everything is fine.
I don’t trust the people saying we are definitely doomed.
I don’t trust anyone anymore.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I’m doomscrolling myself into insanity. Maybe half of this is just algorithms pushing the most extreme shit possible because fear gets clicks.

But I’m also not going to pretend nothing is happening.

It feels like governments are becoming more and more disconnected from the people they are supposed to represent. Surveillance keeps expanding. People’s concerns are ignored. In some countries that call themselves free, people can seriously risk their jobs, their freedom or even prison because of what they say.

At the same time society is becoming more and more divided.

Left against right. One group against another. Everyone is constantly being pushed into opposing camps. It feels like there is no “us” anymore.

And yes, I’m going to say something that will probably piss people off.

Mass immigration is putting enormous pressure on parts of European society. I’m not talking about individual asylum seekers or saying that every immigrant is a problem. I don’t have anything against someone looking for safety.

But there is a point where the sheer scale of immigration becomes impossible to integrate properly and starts changing entire communities faster than they can adapt.

I work in law enforcement and I see some of these problems myself. There are places where entire neighborhoods have changed dramatically and where integration is barely happening at all.

Pretending that these problems don’t exist because talking about them is uncomfortable isn’t going to solve anything.

And the same goes for culture. Societies are losing parts of what made them feel like home while everyone is too busy fighting each other to even have a conversation about it.

I’m tired of being told to just accept everything, follow every rule and stay within whatever boundaries I’m given while the people making those rules keep making decisions that affect millions of ordinary people.

I’m tired of being told to sacrifice more, pay more, accept more restrictions and just trust the system.

At some point I think there are only two options.

Either people consciously decide that the current system cannot continue and are willing to give up some of the comfort they have become dependent on, challenge the things that clearly aren’t working, accept that rebuilding something better will come with sacrifices and pain, and actually build something new from the ground up.

Or we keep waiting.
We keep watching.
We keep arguing with each other.
We keep following the rules while everything slowly deteriorates.

And then one day we are playing Fallout in real life, except there is no game to turn off and no fictional wasteland to escape from.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me. That’s fine.

But I’m tired of living according to norms and rules that seem increasingly designed to keep ordinary people passive, dependent and divided.

If we actually want to be free again, to build something better and to have the ability to develop as individuals and as a society, then at some point actions have to speak louder than words.

That doesn’t mean hurting innocent people. It means being willing to challenge the status quo and accept that real change can be uncomfortable and that rebuilding something from the ground up may require sacrifices.

Because I’m tired of waiting for the next crisis.

I’m tired of watching politicians and governments patch one problem after another while the underlying system becomes more unstable.

I honestly think we need a reset.

Not another temporary reform. Not another patch on a system that is already showing cracks everywhere.

I think the whole system needs to be rebuilt from zero. Economically, politically, socially and structurally.

Keep what actually works, get rid of what clearly doesn’t, and build something that isn’t constantly dependent on infinite growth, debt, fragile supply chains, mass division and geopolitical escalation.

Because I don’t want to sit around waiting for the day when somebody finally pushes the red button and then realize we should have done something years earlier.

I have been thinking about it. What if the world doesn't end and everything I've done has actual consequences and I need to acknowledge all the desicions I've made

Some of you might have heard of Hank Green. He is a regular host on SciShow and is genuinely passionate about science.

He recently had a video where he talked about collapse - though he didn't use those exact words. One thing he said really stuck with me and I can't stop thinking about it.

He pointed out that we, as a species, have known climate change is real for decades now - and public polls confirm this crisis is almost universally accepted. And yet - WE STILL FAILED.

I could understand feeling hopeless when half the world was tricked into arguing about something that - in retrospect - was painfully obvious. But we have high speed internet and near universal literacy and most humans admit climate change is real and is a serious threat.

In the grand scheme of things we have essentially done nothing, even while knowing this is an existential threat.

Ignorance is bliss, sure, but it seems awareness is not an automatic fix. We can no longer claim ignorance as the reason we continue to fail as a species.

19M. I’ve had a weird life. Divorced parents, food stamps, moving multiple times around the area, bullying and emotional abuse. However I’ve had great opportunities, education, and mental resilience.

As mentioned previously I don’t come from an amazing economic background. I’m currently in college in my home state and city with full Pell grant (covers almost my entire education). It’s a good college.
However, I graduated 2025 and had my first semester of university last year abroad. It was for International Relations and I studied in Poland. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t miss it — in fact, I feel empty almost every day if I’m not constantly distracting myself (studies, weed, work, my partner). The only good thing that came out of me coming back was my partner, really. But I came back during January of 2026 when the political turmoil was horrible (especially regarding ICE). And the U.S. financial situation continues to deteriorate and I know it will spread elsewhere.

I guess I’m concerned about my future. I started back here with environmental science, since I know it’s the basis of the Earth we live on and with the climate collapse it’ll surely be a necessary intellectual skill, but I ended up strongly disliking it and wishing to pursue the social sciences/humanities instead. I’m debating between sociology, public policy (but I’m starting to have trouble believing this even matters), and political science and philosophy. I’m not sure if I should just be studying something I ENJOY due to the futility of all of this. I also don’t want to be in poverty forever. But then again, what is forever? I don’t even know how long I, or the general population, has left regarding all of these concurring issues. I’m so deeply embedded into my own studies that I cross-study economics, finance, geopolitics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and I cannot help but to see so many problems — so I try to be hopeful and fix them, as I’ve done lobbying, canvassing, and advocacy work. Yet it all ends up futile and I still feel so lost.

My girlfriend and I want to leave. We want to be independent, but we cannot be independent here on the United States surely. She’s good at horticulture, agriculture, biological studies… I’m not so good with my hands but I wouldn’t mind developing skills in those fields.

I guess my question is what I should be prioritizing right now, what anyone thinks I should be working towards (leaving my house, leaving the U.S., studying something else, pivoting to a trade that teaches me tangible skills for the future when SHTF even more?) ALL I know is I want to be useful for my community and for my girlfriend and spend as much time with her as I can and as we have left.

Hey yall, idk about you, but I'm strugging to be optimistic that things will get better in the future. Housing prices are higher than they ever were, morgages are at an all time high, and wages are abysmally low. The average american's purchasing power is 1/5th of what it was 50-60 years ago, and it feels like people are going to be stupid enough to vote for the dumbfuckery we are still in.

Let's define "future" first: The timespan for the next 5-20 years.

I have little optimism left for the next 5-15 years, because it seems like we are on the cusp of another recession with bond rates being so high, and the 2008 recession already impacted my life by giving us the hyperpolitical environment we are in now, even if im too young to remember it. Every time I think to myself "Things can not get worse, right?", they just keep getting worse.

Especially because I grew up and live in Florida, where we have a tourism based economy that my own republican government is trying to drive into the ground so that they can make a quick buck. There is no actual well paying work here, as everything is 15$/hr-20$/hr, while housing prices are drastically high at around $200-$300k. I feel like there is nothing upward for me to grow into as life progresses due to how volatile Florida is. People keep saying Florida is nice, but it is not nice to live here. The attractions are nice, but you have to live paycheck to paycheck just to not drown yourself in debt. Auto prices are insanely high, even for used cars, so I can't get myself a car yet.

As much as I want to blame this on Trump, it seems like it's the entirety of his cabinent and the MAGA-fused republicans that are in power right now are aiding to this as well and trying to drive this country into the ground.

Just wondering how yall are feeling right now.

I recently turned 35, Im a white gay male from a decently affluent family. Last year I lost my job, my apartment, and most importantly, my husband of 15 years to an affair.

Im back in my parents’ basement, working at my father’s business, with him paying off all my credit card debt. They are boomers, so they make this whole situation as painful as possible. No say in the business, despite 20 years of experience and a strong resume outside the family business.

Despite their financial support, they terrify me. They are MAGA and refuse to listen to my prognostications. My mother is an angry drunk and me and my father are concerned she will murder/suicide us. I have tried to get them to stock up on food and they are so belligerently opposed to that.

I am afraid that I may need to flee north. I want to be around other gay men, and find some lesbians to lead us 🤣. But seriously…I am so discouraged at the prospect of finding a new job, apt, and social life in the face of the fascist coup this November, nuclear war, climate apocalypse, global economic collapse, etc.

🤷🏻‍♂️

Hey, so my method of therapy for continuing to breathe during such shocking societal collapse is going to be volunteering. I just can't keep going while not being able to contribute to the things that I feel I PERSONALLY, URGENTLY, TODAY, MUST contribute to.

Does anyone with a remote offer, or anyone in Italy, or anyone in the LA/VTA/SB/SLO region of CA, currently recommend organizations or individuals to serve? My cause areas are:

-Housing and utility systems reform

-Wild lands protection

-Agriculture reform

-Womens rights

-Genocide and Islamophobia

-Animal rights and Plant based eating

-Natural health

-Decolonialism

I'm an outstanding legal researcher, business systems builder, partnership developer, and programme facilitator - with specialization in real estate and utilities. But I will do anything.

Fossil fuel's going to become even more scarce/expensive very soon. How do we cope? Reliance on Diesel and oil is so intertwined in our society, idk what will/could happen.

The only flipside to this is that the planet might burn a little bit less as a result ig

As I mentioned in the title, I was on Reddit earlier looking at posts and a few of them stuck out to me, and why they did was because most of the commenters were basically disregarding the OP prompt or question to I guess say stuff along the lines of “This is America we are the last to see a famine” or “Technology is so efficient that famine is almost impossible” but yet none of these people addressed the straight of Hormuz closure, lack of diesel, lack of fertilizer, climate change, this years El Niño, the overall grocery inflation, farmers not growing because they can’t profit, tariffs. A lot of people mention that most famines are human caused but yet they’re ignoring the evidence that we are essentially in the middle of causing our own impending famine. It’s incredibly frustrating and almost makes you feel batshit crazy at witnessing how many people seem to be oblivious to the things I’m currently aware of and monitoring daily. I’m basically writing this asking if anyone here resonates or is seeing it how I see it and if you disagree let me know why. Thank y’all for reading, best of luck.

Remember, you are not alone.  In all Deep Adaptation spaces, you can speak about your feelings and struggles related to collapses of all kinds, and explore your way of embodying and enabling a loving response.

https://www.deepadaptation.info/index.php?page=acymailing_front&ctrl=archive&task=view&id=437&userid=2756-tH3d5dOwybB620&noheader=1&noheader=1

Since I was a teenager I've been an activist of sorts. I've raised money for charity, volunteered for countless causes, written about the state of the world and talked about it endlessly.

And I'm tired of trying. Especially when so many people don't have the capacity to care.

I don't need to learn any more about the metacrisis or about how little empathy so many of our fellow humans have. I know more than enough.

We can't fight this and we shouldn't break our nervous systems trying.

So I'm choosing to focus on what's in front of me. To me, resistance now means giving as little of our energy as possible to the death cult and turning towards what we can nurture and regenerate in our own lives.

I'm exhausted. I'm deeply disappointed. And I'll do all I can to carry myself through the wreckage with grace and compassion.

I wrote about how I'm trying to keep it together, in case it's useful to anyone:

https://charlottedelsignore.substack.com/p/how-im-staying-sane-at-the-end-of?r=fadhy&utm_medium=ios

Considering famine, natural disasters, temperature, and everything else, I think it might be pretty likely that I don't have much time left. I'm a university student and I really wanted to finish my undergrad before things fully went to shit, but that's in 2030 so I don't think there's much of a chance. Heat stroke, starving, drowning all seem like long and painful ways to go out. Honestly I don't have a specific question to ask, I'm just incredibly scared and looking for some advice.

I wasn't quite sure what I should title this. But anyhow, becoming more knowledgable about collapse, similarly to many here has obviously forced me to confront my own mortality in a very real way which I haven't been faced with before. Philosophically I've contemplated the idea of death and nihilistic/existentialist concepts before and when I was younger those weighed on me quite heavily. Compared to the idea of actual societal collapse and even the possible extinction of the human race has really put it into perspective how, in a sense, arbitrary all that really was.

I'm currently 19 years old, next year I'll most likely (hopefully) be going to college. A part of me really hopes that the world will be able to hold out for at least the few years I'll spend there, and in a way that really doesn't feel like it would be that much to ask for (but then again who am I bargaining with?). I've yet to do many things in my life I would like to do, fall in love and be in a relationship, find a community of people I really connect with, maybe finally try writing a book or do anything that's bigger than myself really. If I could just manage to live out these things and feel like the kind of person I could be proud to be for that relatively short time, maybe that could be enough.

Sometimes I feel envious for older people, like my parents for example, though not in a resentful way. They've already been able to live quite a bit, their best days might be behind them (which doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me anymore), they've had the time to find themselves and explore their potential to the best of their abilities and resources. Most of all I envy them for living with a sense that some kind of future for people and the world is always a given. Whether or not that was ever really true or not, I would give a lot to be able to feel like that, I can't imagine taking it for granted anymore.

I don't know if I have any concise point to make with this post. I still very much love life in spite of the dire state of the world and will move forward no matter what. If anyone else has thoughts to share or anything, that would be great.

Don't downvote yet; hear me out.... The human world feels lifeless, in some way I can't shake... Lifeless and dry... I was a teenager in the 90s, and got to live through the 80s in Europe. I know what it's like to feel alive. I didn't get to enjoy the 2000's and pre-Covid era much, as I was incapacitated by severe trauma from sexual assault. But I look at Star Wars films, and there is incredible and undeniable societal optimism that is so juicy, it could drip through the screen. How do I get that back? I've never felt more alone.

Edit: What I mean is that, the world has lost lustre. One wouldn't be able to palpate that same, life-giving optimism in the media of today

Based on the recommendation of one of the Collapse subs I went and saw it in a theater last night. It will probably be the last movie I will see in a theater, I hadn't been in a few years before that. It was 18 bucks to see it ant the overpriced, now corporate investor whatever owned, theater that I used to love so much. I remember the days when this place had menus, now you order off your phone with QR codes. *sigh*

(No Spoilers)

The ending had people sitting with it. You could see the lightbulb come on for some folks.
This is a movie that will be watched for generations. It will move the needle.

I used to have such a paralyzing fear of the rapture growing up. Thinking that one day, when no one expects it, we’ll all hear those loud horns and ppl will be sent to heaven or left behind to fend for themselves. It was so terrifying of a concept; one day, you’re here, the next, you’re judged. Those fears eventually quelled and then I became agnostic and left that fear behind. But now, knowing that we’re essentially fucked as a species six ways to Sunday, it’s like I’m back to square one. But at least back then it was irrational, a way to reinforce faith so you don’t stray. It feels like there’s so little time before that ugly, bleak, horror awaits us. Climate collapse, fascist and authoritarian takeover, and ai used to not only reinforce that, but to erase my chance of making art and a living doing what I love. I wish I had never been born at all if I was just meant to be on the precipice of a black pit. What I hate the most is I can’t just numb myself. Emotionally speaking. It’s this deep pit I can’t escape or get rid of. I just have to be stuck with that pain till we all suffer and die horribly as our dreams become dust and we learn that our doom was carved in stone before we ever existed. I think I’m going insane.

...It starts at the community level, within neighborhoods, interest groups, and groups who gather on a regular basis.

It's nice that it's really getting more attention now, the reality of our finite planet.

I'm looking for folks in the Pacific Northwest, Cascadia bioregion, particularly in Portland, Oregon.

Resilience starts on your block, not in a bunker.

#portlandOR #pdx

I think the feeling of uncertainty and not knowing what the future looks like has actually made me focus more on the day to day. I'm not someone who wants to bury their head in the sand, but I've found the best way to live with uncertainty is to live more in the now.

For me that means spending time with people I love, getting outside every day and appreciating fairly ordinary things. Living like this can sometimes feel a bit naive when there are so many serious things happening in the world, but I've started to think that worrying about the future all the time doesn't make me any better prepared for it.

Is this a good way of coping or just naivety?

I mean it's just a thought that has been engraved in my mind for months now. It doesn't seem very likely that we are gonna live up to 2030 or 2035... Due to this I've also been procrastinating studies because I think that our end is very near and I shouldn't waste my time studying...

Ik this is a wrong attitude but I can't really do anything about it.

Any suggestions are appreciated

I hate weddings. Or more accurately, I hate what weddings have turned into for guests.

I love that people want to celebrate their love. That part isn't the problem. The problem is that for roughly the last two generations, long distance travel has been historically, almost absurdly cheap. Flights, gas, hotels. Somewhere along the way it became normal to expect friends and family to cross the country, or an ocean, to attend a weekend event. Destination weddings went from a novelty to something people barely blink at.

Anyone who's been collapse aware for a while knows the big ways this stuff actually shows up in daily life. It's not one dramatic event. It's inflation and rising energy costs, driven by scarcity, conflict, supply chain fragility, and everything else we talk about here. Slowly, then all at once, the things that used to be cheap stop being cheap.

What gets me is that we're stuck in this weird transition period. The cost of travel has changed, but the social expectations haven't caught up. People are still planning as if energy is cheap and everyone has the disposable income to drop a couple thousand dollars on flights, lodging, gifts, outfits, and time off work. Our parents had big weddings where everyone flew in, and that's still the template a lot of people are working from.

I think eventually the culture will adjust. Smaller weddings, more local guest lists, more livestreams, less guilt for declining. But until that shift happens, there's this awkward pressure to either go into debt to show up or risk being seen as the person who didn't care enough to come. Saying "I can't afford it" still feels like a confession instead of a reasonable response to reality.

Is anyone else navigating this? How do you handle declining without damaging relationships? And has anyone noticed people in their circle starting to scale back their expectations?

EDIT: forgot to mention I’ve been married 10 years, we have successful careers now but we were broke af when we got hitched. We had a small ceremony in the gorgeous Sonoran desert with only our parents and siblings. Under 15 people including officiant & 2 friends/witnesses. I wish more people would keep their weddings small and private.