Does anyone else struggle with the concept of death?

[CrazyOldMe]

I just don't understand death.

I don't get how a whole personality can just disappear suddenly, leaving nothing material behind.

The fact that I, my loved ones, plus everyone on this planet will die, is just incomprehensible to me!

Anyone else feel like this?

Yes, I used to a lot, but I have dealt with these feelings. I think we all go through this at some stage.

Yes.

I used to, it used to cause me significant anxiety. I’m not sure when that changed but for some reason now it gives me comfort that life is finite and that things are more beautiful because they’re temporary.

I used to. Now I try to enjoy everyday and not think about it.
We aren’t here for that long in the grand scheme of things so why spend it worrying about the inevitable.

I don't believe In a soul.

I didn't exist before I was born. I won't exist after death..

yes

One day, I will wake up and never sleep again. And it will happen on a day that passes me every year. It frightens the shit out of me.

Yep. Less often now but sometimes it rears it's head. I find it absolutely incomprehensible that one day, I will die. And that for the next hundreds/thousands/millions of years, life will just go on. Above my buried body. I also struggle with the fact that (with any luck) ill never know how my children died. Is that weird? God I'm thinking about it again now.

No. I find it very logical and, actually, reassuring. Each of us is just a tiny blip in millions of years of history.

I hate to think that one day I'll die but people will just walk on past the hospital or house where it just happened and carry on with their lives.

I don't struggle with the concept of my own death, but last year I lost someone very dear to me and I can not fully wrap my mind around it. It just does not seem possible that after all those years and all that shared history all that's left is memories.

I accept it and for the most part the deep pain of grief is gone, but it's as if my mind still searches for something tangible. (I hope that makes sense. It's hard to articulate the feeling!)

I grew up in a funeral home. The rest room and business was in the extension joined on to our house. I was always surrounded by death and so I am not frightened of it. I have a very simplistic view of life and death.

We're all here by accident, none of this 'means' anything. We're simply the result of a sperm and egg meeting and nothing more! I live my life knowing that I was nothing before and I'll be nothing after. I don't believe we have souls - I think that's a load of bull personally but I have also been present many many times when family members have come to visit their loved ones in the rest room and I can see that the thought of that brings them some comfort.

Lost my DF almost a year ago. Still can’t understand how we are supposed to live decades of life without the people we love the most. It’s cruel.

Everybody struggles with the concept of death,

This is why humanity invented religions.

Yes - I don’t struggle at all with the fact that there were millions of years when I didn’t exist and the world just went on but I struggle with the idea that I’ll be dead and will just cease to exist and the world will carry on and I won’t get to find out what happens “ in the end” 🤣. I take comfort in the fact that all my GPs lived to old ages and by the end they just seemed a bit bored of being alive so I hope I’ll get to that stage and then I won’t mind dying too much!

I'm asking this sensitivity , but have you ever seen a dead person ?

When you are in a room when a loved one dies , you can see they have died .

By that I mean you can look upon their body as someone you loved and they loved back , but somehow they are not there anymore .
It's like the essence of them has gone .

https://havokjournal.com/culture/family/death/why-you-want-a-physicist-to-speak-at-your-funeral/ this always makes me feel better about death. Especially as a notoriously disorderly person.

"According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly."

Same. I work in a funeral home and find it all quite life affirming. I see every day how death is just a natural step after life, and I find the concept quite a peaceful one.

It utterly freaks me out. And I can spiral thinking about it if I'm not careful.
I just can't imagine everything carrying on and me just ceasing to exist. I'm a controlling person by nature (my job is programme management) and I love order to my life. This just feels like this massive thing I have no control over and I can't comprehend that.

And this from Terry Pratchett:

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence."

Every day we change other people's lives- in ways we probably never even realise (hello the fella that stopped to help 35 odd years ago when my brother collapsed. Never knew your name but you set me the standard for being a Good Person and I teach my kids about you so you'll live on for at least 1 more generation and hopefully beyond)

I live in an area with a very high road death rate.
I can cope with the thought of dying at an old age but not when I hear about people driving off on a trip and never coming back.

I was with my Mum when she died. She was just empty after, smaller. Literally all the life had left her.

I used to, then I realised I had it the wrong way around.

I'm not a human that will fall to bits when dead.
I'm a piece of the universe that has been surprised into consciousness during life.

When death happens, it's a return, not a blank ending.

Yes I think about it regularly..one day you are here then one day you're not. The thought of one day never seeing my children or husband again terrifies me. Even though I'll be dead so won't even be aware of it! I believe in the afterlife because it gives me a bit of hope at least at the possibility there is something after.

It’s terrifying. And I’m annoyed it terrifies me because it’s a complete waste of my time - we can’t get out of it.

Now I am free and with the wind I get to walk the borders of time.

I am the glitter of the stars, the flight of the clouds, the tender drop of the morning dew.

I am not gone, I come back to you in every rising morning.

And in every darkening evening I wish you goodnight