Hi,

I myself experience symptoms that can be said to be on the psychosis spectrum, and I can relate to what you wrote about feeling scared and having doubts about whether the world, those who share the world with us, and even we ourselves actually exist. Because I think that you're right that we can't really be sure -- not completely sure, anyhow -- about anything in this world. I think that it could very well be the case that the world that we live in is basically just an illusion, but when I started to consider whether or not I'd do anything differently if I somehow knew that it was true that the world is an illusion or if perhaps I was already in the afterlife, the answer that I came up with was that I basically wouldn't do things differently. I'd still try to do things that I find meaning in, which basically involve trying to make the world (whatever it is that it actually consists of) better by being good to those around me (and that includes humans and the other living beings here on this planet), by being good to myself, and by making this planet a good place for the living beings here to inhabit. When we make decisions in life, there's always going to be uncertainty about whether or not the decisions that we make will be the best ones, but I've personally found that believing in something that gives us meaning (which for me includes being good to the other living beings on this planet and to myself) and doing the things that we find to be meaningful to the best of our ability is better than being persistently indecisive because of the uncertainty about how things might turn out or about whether or not the world and all of us who inhabit are actually real.

It sounds like having been rejected for much of your life has probably affected you in a negative way, regardless as to what what other factors might have contributed to the problems with your mental health that you're currently experiencing. Sometimes when other people tell us things that are hurtful and negative for long enough, we eventually end up starting to believe those things, even if we knew that they weren't true when we first heard them. I might be wrong, but I wonder if maybe part of the reason why you believe that you don't exist and don't have feelings is because some others in your life might have told you these things and/or might actually mistakenly believe these things themselves. But I will say that if it is the case that some others in your life might have told you these things, I believe that they're wrong. You're not a nobody, not in a figurative sense, and not in a literal sense either. Maybe it's true that we can't be absolutely 100 percent sure about anything, but if we get too caught up in questioning our actions and even ourselves just because there's always that smallest possibility that we might be wrong about things that we can be very close to certain about, we're going to miss out on doing the things that make our lives meaningful, enjoyable, and worthwhile. And maybe, believing the idea that we don't really exist and other ideas that are extremely unlikely to be true (even though they might technically be possible) might in some ways end up becoming our reality if we spend too much time thinking about them.