To be bloody scared about death, dying, and oblivion?

[NooNooHead1981]

Sorry for the morbid subject matter, but I have been thinking a lot more about this since my DB passed away last year from bowel cancer at 34.

I know there is absolutely nothing that can be done about death/dying, but the more I think deeply about the actual reality of oblivion and dying, the more freaked out I feel.

There was a great reply that was posted in response to someone on Reddit's similar fears:
'Non-existence is an unimaginable concept. There are two things the mind can't truly comprehend. The first is the infinite. The second is its inverse, the null. And to try to imagine the null, especially in context to your "self", is fucking daunting. It's like standing at the edge of a fathomless dark pit and looking over it and feeling like you may loose your balance and fall in.

This is the existential dread. It is an empty yawning cave. And there is no examination of it that you will find solace in. There is no empty quip that can fix it, not if you've really hit the deep examined thanatophobia. And the more you think about it the worse it will become. In this sense it is anti-intellectual. I've always felt this was what Nietzche was talking about when he mentioned staring into the abyss and having it stare back.'

I totally get the 'staring into the abyss and having it stare back.' It is unfathomable, and not the best thing to be worrying about on a Tuesday lunchtime...

I guess there is nothing to comprehend or fear in a way, as death is just that: nothingness. I don't need to worry about something I won't experience, and as the infamous Monty Python song say: 'You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!'

So AIBU in worrying about nothing..?!

NooNooHead1981 I understand exactly what you're going through.

I lost my brother to cancer when he was 28. About 6 months after he died I had a massive existential crisis and went into a pretty extreme depression.

My DS1 was only 14 months and I could barely lift a smile. I thought I was coping well with the grief but it really caught up with me. I became obsessed with trying to find out where he was, reading about life after death, and near death experiences, in an effort to know "that he was ok" - he was an atheist and I was terrified that he might be somewhere not being loved.
I then became absolutely terrified of death, of leaving my baby, or worse, him getting sick and having to watch him suffer like I watched my brother.

I went back to my grief counsellor and she helped me through it. Whenever I started to go down the road of "death/dying/oblivion" I was to distract myself with something small but nice, like a piece of chocolate, a cup of tea, a trashy magazine. I had no concentration but each time I distracted myself it helped to not be overwhelmed with anxiety about it and slowly but surely I came out of it.

I found the following sayings really comforting and the bereavement pages here really helped me too.

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

The caterpillar dies so the butterfly could be born. And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one. So, when I die, it will be that I have been transformed from the caterpillar of earth to the butterfly of the universe

Missing someone gets easier every day because even though it's one day further from the last time you saw each other, it's one day closer to the next time you will.

I hope some of these help you

Yanbu. The older I get, and the more people I know who die, the worse the fear is.

I’m an atheist and feel much like beyondthepage , I had a very close call last year , I was in resus at a local A&E and my only concern was that my husband and children , who hadn’t arrived because the ambulance was diverted to a different hospital , knew that I loved them . I asked one of the nurses to tell them if I died before they arrived , I actually wasn’t concerned about me at all .

My 16 year old son, who has ASD, is really struggling with this at the moment. He has told me that his fear of death comes from the concept of never having another experience, ever. Ceasing to exist is terrifying for him. Although, in his case I do think the literal, black and white thinking, as in ‘you either exist or you don’t’ that comes with ASD has made it harder for him to get past it.

As a result he is developing more and more phobias to do with health, poison and contamination with things that couldn’t/may/might cause him ill health or death at a later time. It’s causing him huge problems day to day and seriously affecting the whole family, as he will go to extreme lengths to avoid contact with things he’s worried about and if someone else is ill, he becomes downright nasty in his demands that they take all sorts of extreme measures so that he doesn’t become infected with whatever they’ve got.

I have tried to talk to him and say this is all the more reason to not worry about when or how it will happen, but to make the most of every second, but instead he is withdrawing from the world to keep himself safe. To be honest, I don’t know what else to say to reassure him.

He is under CAMHS, but is a low priority because his fear of death and injury makes him low risk for suicide or self-harm. The fact he has little or no life and is seriously negatively affecting the rest of his family’s lives is apparently irrelevant.

I would say, if you are really struggling with it to the point that it is inducing genuine anxiety and affecting your choices and decisions, then definitely seek help. If not, I think to some extent it’s something we all go through and hopefully find ways to accept and/or live with it in their own way.

I am very sorry for your loss.

I’m not scared of death. I’m a Christian and am convinced there’s a heaven. When my lovely MIL was on her death bed (she was only 50 and had gotten ill on the Friday, we were told that evening that she had a few hours to live and she died the following morning), she had such peace. She had an incredible faith and prayed for all the nurses and chatted about God’s goodness even though she was in pain and dying. When she couldn’t speak anymore she had such a peaceful joy about her. DH sat with her in the early morning hours and told her that we’d be okay, we loved her and that she’ll be with Jesus. She smiled, took one last breath and died.

When DH and I went in to her hospital room to see her one last time before she was taken away there was a little white dove perched on the windowsill peering in at us.

It was so painful for us as a family, we were all very close but even in the midst of all that pain there was peace.

It sounds weird, but finding a quote which sums up exactly how I feel seems to take the sting off ...

It's not that I'm afraid of dying. I'd just rather not be there when it happens.

@moosemama I am struggling with the same issue with my ASD teen daughter at the moment. CAMHS are being similarly helpful I actually don't have anything I can say to reassure her anymore

Very poignant words, Strokethefurrywall (love your username btw!) I do take comfort from words like these, especially as I'm an atheist/leaning more towards agnostic and so am always thinking about how my poor DB is if there really isn't anything after this life.

I also take comfort from the fact he is no longer in such pain and suffering, and that he very much lived his life exactly as he wanted to for the 34 years he was on this Earth. (I overlook the fact that this way of living probably contributed to his cancer...)

moosemama I hope your DS gets all the help he needs, and finds some kind of peace. I totally get the whole black and white way of thinking and never having another experience again, ever. But I also realise how much of a relief it would be not to have to suffer pain or indignity again and why death would be so welcome in old age.

@IAmLucy it’s awful isn’t it. I feel so utterly unable to help him with this one and it’s having such a drastic effect on him and everyone around him, not to mention school (just about to take his GCSE’s). Sadly CAMHS are not very good with ASD in many areas. I really hope you can get some help for your dd soon.

NooNooHead1981 Thank you.

For me, my feelings changed when I lost my Dad 15 years ago. I had all the worries and anxiety about it before then, but being there with him when he went and knowing he would be out of the terrible pain he was in and never have to suffer again, helped change my perspective. I now want to be around as long as possible for my family, as I do worry about leaving them behind, but am more concerned about the potential for health issues and loss of congitive function than I am of actually dying.

I’m not scared of death. I’m a Christian and am convinced there’s a heaven.

Whay makes you convinced of it? How can you know what happens after you die? All the evidence suggests death is the end of consciousness.

I think it's because death is so random. We are scared that it could be at any time. If we had an 'expiration date', then think of what we could achieve when free of fear.