Nihilism after a major life event

Reading Lance Armstrong's biography, I noticed he went through a period of apathy, confusion and nihilism after his cancer diagnosis and recovery. I believe the organization he started was even designed in part to help people cope with that feeling of confusion and nihilism that comes after a major life event like cancer. I guess because you realize the major motivators that guide you in life are far more fallable and unreliable than you previously thought, and it becomes harder to be motivated.

Is there a term for this psychological process, or a book on it?

Edit: I think I also remember reading about war veterans experiencing the same thing. I remember one writing an essay from a returning Iraq war veteran talking about how everyone was motivated by day to day concerns and he just was sitting there thinking 'don't you people realize this shit doesn't matter?'

I've never seen the movie, but the movie 'fearless' with Jeff Bridges is supposed to be about this psychological transformation.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106881/

That I have had long periods of "is this it?" feelings. Like I survived cancer for such a bullshit mundane life.

But then I get grateful. For me, I really need to hold on to gratitude or I have nothing.

It was sudden, and I was young at the time.

I forced myself to do each mundane daily task. At first, I had to talk myself through each thing. If I hadn't done that, I would have sat in one place and stared at nothing.

So life is meaningless. At least you are being honest about it.

It led to a lot of booze, drugs, cigarettes, rich food, and basically a fuck-it-all attitude. I didn't care about anything including myself. It took what seemed like an enormous effort just to keep myself alive. And happiness? That was just a fairy tale. Being in an incredible amount of pain for a very long period of time will make you wish you were dead. Maybe it's just a natural response.

but is a process through which we generally go in major crises in life: death of a loved one, diagnosis of terminal or life-changing illness, long-term illnesses; traumatic events, such as witness accidents, being in a terror attack, being robbed, and so forth; or others things such as infertility, job loss, or house burning down. Sometimes even moving to a new place.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross came up with the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance

Wikipedia's page on this is pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model