To ask, if you’ve struggled with a fear of death, how did you overcome it?

[TeamTom22]

I’ve name changed for this. I know it’s not really an AIBU, but I’ve posted in chat and response is slow.

I’m so scared of dying, my children dying, my husband dying or anyone that matters to me dying.

Sometimes the feelings are so intense that I just wish my life would all be over and done with so that I don’t have to live in fear anymore.

I’m definitely not suicidal, I would never take my own life and don’t have any suicidal thoughts, but when the thought crosses my mind of death, it is just an absolute overwhelming fear.

Has anyone experienced this? Please, please help. I can’t go on like this.

Is this a new fear? Or ongoing since childhood? When I was around five and first understood mortality, I had an awful realisation about how I will some day just cease to be. I still occasionally have this now, but it is very very infrequent and I can control it.

I have severe death anxiety. My anxiety is about the fear of the nothingness after death, the void.

Even writing that down makes me start to feel like a blanket of overwhelming something is lying over me.

I'm 35, I've suffered from this anxiety as long as I can ever remember.

I nearly died in birth a year ago and that didn't make it worse or better. It can come over me st the most innocuous of times.

It's horrendous!

I know how you feel, OP - I suffered with this for years. It was part of my health anxiety.

A few things helped. First of all, I was prescribed citalopram. It has helped enormously by calming me down and helping me to think rationally about the end of life.

I have a children's book called 'Duck, Death and the Tulip' which helped me to understand that death is a natural and often welcome part of life. I really recommend it.

My children reaching adulthood has helped massively too. I know that if I died soon they would be horrifically upset, but they would be ok. When they were little I was terrified of leaving them.

I would urge you to go to your GP. You are suffering from Health Anxiety, which robs you of a normal happy life - the very thing you're afraid of. I can't tell you the difference it's made to me.

Now and then i get a sudden terror over the fact that I am going to die! What I do is to think about how it was for me before I was born - how it felt to be nothing. I won't know I am dead, just as I don't know when I am asleep until I wake up.

I had this, quite severely a couple of years ago.

I believe now it was because I felt a lose of control in my life, and the focus on death (and illness) was part of this. Are there things in your life that are causing you stress? For me it was something pretty insignificant, but it triggered something huge.

The only thing I have to say that helped me was fluoxetine (prozac.) I was reluctant to take it at first, but what it will do is change your thought processes. I took it for a year which allowed me to "see the light".

I still have my moments, but I now recognise the thoughts about death for what they are - so they are fleeting.

People are against medication, but for me they were life-changing.

Sounds like this fear, has got out of control and it must be affecting your life so much. Definitely, seek help from your GP, and perhaps have counselling. Have you tried mindfulness to help you? I have found mindfulness very helpful and yoga.

I come from a long line of world class worriers btw, OP.

I have chosen not to waste my life worrying, because so many things are out of our control such as people getting ill, dying etc it’s part of life and learning.

A huge turning point for me was being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis a few years back and having to accept how my life has changed. I could worry myself sick with what the future may bring, but what’s the point, it won’t change anything.

All we can do is look after ourselves and our families and enjoy every day for what it is. Life is for living OP you must feel so sad if this fear is out of control, your life doesn’t have to be like this. I hope you feel better very soon.

Existential angst hit me in primary school.

I decided then that, given a choice, if I was going to die of disease, I'd kill myself on terms of my own choosing.

Obviously, I have no choice about rubbish drivers, acts of God and such.