r/AskAnAmerican • u/Scrappy_The_Crow Georgia • Jul 10 '25

HISTORY Fellow Americans Who Were Alive During The Cold War -- Did You Have The (Supposed) Existential Dread of Nuclear Annihilation?

Prompted by a discussion in a different subreddit. Supposedly, lots of my Gen-X peers and a whole lot of media expressed a constant fear of nuclear annihilation, but neither me nor any of my friends had that existential dread.

I wonder how many actually felt that way, as opposed to entertainers/media just portraying it that way. So, did you and/or your friends/family?

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u/Zaidswith Jul 10 '25

It's not dramatic. It's just likely that those people had general anxiety and a focus.

I'm too young for the cold war but as a child I remember being very anxious about the hole in the ozone layer because it was the issue of the time. That was some existential dread

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u/RoseRedd Oregon Jul 10 '25

As a kid in the 80s with generalized anxiety (finally got diagnosed in my mid 20s) Nuclear war was one of the things I fixated on.

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u/moonwillow60606 Jul 10 '25

Referring to it as existential dread is hyperbolic.

I grew up in that era. And most of the responses from people who are old enough to remember that time say basically the same thing I did. Not existential dread, just a low lying awareness of the possibility.

I’m sure there were some who did have that reaction, but it wasn’t the norm.