The story of my existential crisis

When I chose to live abroad after graduation, part of me was torn between living near my family and friends in Quebec and continuing my adventures around the world. Every time I came back home, I felt like I was falling further and further behind my friends who, as the years went by, were starting to settle down, buy houses, have a dog, have children… all things that I eventually want to have. I began to feel that living abroad was delaying the moment when I was going to have all of that. If I was in Quebec I would regret not being abroad, and if I was abroad I would be sad about the things I was missing in Quebec and anxious about being “late”. Neither alternative gave me peace of mind.

Then, in 2018, while living on a small island in the Maldives, I took the time to reflect on my life. I realized that, in fact, when I was in Quebec, I was living in anticipation of my next adventure, without really taking the time to create a life that I could enjoy. I had never really given Quebec a chance to make me happy since I left right after finishing school, without trying to experience what adult life would look like in Montreal. At that moment, I made the decision not to fly to another destination, but rather to come home and give a real chance to a life there. I thought that by trying this option for real this time, it might help me in my dilemma by making the choice easy.

So I came back to Montreal in September 2018 and started working for a network of not-for-profit hostels. The change in clientele was very much welcomed after working for luxury resorts in the Maldives. Also, working in a backpacking environment, I felt like I was connecting with that part of me that still only dreamed of leaving again.

I took an apartment on my own, because I felt I needed independence and privacy after sharing a small room with three people in the Maldives. Slowly I returned to a routine I already knew well in places I was already familiar with too. I also quickly resumed going out with my friends that I had missed so much. In the beginning, I was really happy to resume a life that was not new to me for once. It felt good to be back in something familiar.

Then, time passed and the joy of being back as well, and a few months later, it hit me. I was in the subway on my way to work during rush hour and I was watching all these people going to work in silence. I felt that my mind totally disconnected from reality. All of a sudden, I felt like I was in a Sims game where you live without really knowing why. Moreover, the usual conversations with my friends seemed so strange to me now. We would talk about cars, curtains, going to this or that restaurant, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I felt like a little bird watching what was going on and wondering what the purpose of these conversations was, which I was beginning to find insignificant.

It all started to lack sense. I could no longer see the point of asking the most banal everyday questions. I remember thinking that no matter what we do with our lives, we all end up dead, so what difference does it make? What difference does it make if I do this or that? I felt like our life decisions didn’t matter anymore, because we were all going to end up in the same place one day anyway.

Then, if nothing had any meaning and importance anymore, it made me wonder if life itself actually has meaning. Because if no decisions matter in the end, why do we live at all? Does human existence have a purpose? What are we doing on earth? What is the meaning of my life? I began to ask myself existential questions that I would never have thought I would ask myself one day. And not only was I asking myself these questions, but I could not think of anything else. I became so obsessed with it that I couldn’t sleep well anymore and I felt in a constant state of depression. I could no longer see the point of doing anything, because everything was now insignificant. I felt so disconnected that my days often seemed like dreams. I needed to find meaning in my life and to understand what was suddenly happening. The situation began to really scare me. I couldn’t see the end of the tunnel anymore and I didn’t know how to get out of this whirlwind of strange questions.

I started doing some research. I needed answers. The results I found were all pointing in the same direction: religion. I was never very religious and my research did not change anything about it, except that I understood why so many people are. I understood this need to feel that we are part of something bigger. But then, in my case, that didn’t solve my problem. So, after months and months of mental torture and of feeling completely disconnected from my life, I made the decision to start therapy with a social worker who specializes in anxiety and personal growth.

From my first meetings, we worked mainly on my life in Quebec, without ever talking about my existential questions. Because in fact, I had come back from my adventures around the world to the same mould that I had left here when I had gone abroad. I had returned to the same habits and nothing was different from before I left. But I had forgotten one thing… I had forgotten that I had changed and that I was different from when I had left the country. I was trying to live a life here that no longer suited me. I was trying so hard to fit in with the social pressures I was surrounded by that I hadn’t noticed that they were suffocating me.

So, little by little, I made changes to my habits to try to adapt my life to the person I now was, including, among other things, things I liked from my life in other parts of the world. I limited myself to thinking that these things were part of a life elsewhere and I didn’t allow myself to include them in my life here, as if I couldn’t have the best of both worlds. And without even realizing it, the questions magically disappeared. I no longer questioned the purpose of human existence, nor the meaning of my life, nor anything else. Suddenly, I felt lighter and more at peace of mind. Having worked on the cause of this crisis, I didn’t even need to deal with the crisis itself, since it dissipated on its own as I was making changes in my life. In retrospect, I even thought it was a bit comical just to have had these questions. I thought, wow, coming back home gave me an existential crisis at 25 years old.

A year later, the questions still haven’t come up again, but I continue to be careful not to let myself be influenced by the standards of society nor my surroundings and to live in a way that suits me and reflects my experiences and learnings from abroad. This crisis took me by surprise, but taught me a lot. I put limitations on myself based on who I was before, as if I didn’t give myself the right to have changed, because then I would no longer be compatible with the societal mould that was still very much present around me. And this existential crisis, it was my head saying stop, that’s enough.

I decided to share this story because when it happened to me, I had never felt so alone in my life. I felt like no one understood and I couldn’t find testimonies on the web that resembled my reality. Sometimes, we don’t realize how much we change through our travels and how much coming home can be a real shock and have consequences like these. But the important thing is to know that there are ways to get through it and that you’re going to be okay.