To be terrified of dying

[Myheartbelongsto]

There is nothing I can do about this but I am petrified!

Anyone else feel the same?

Petrified. Always have been. Made much worse after seeing my DM die a very non-peaceful death.

Yes. Pombear if you were aware of it being nothing then your awareness was there, iyswim. So not what it would be like probably unless your awareness of nothingness just continued on and on... Who knows. But yes, OP. It's shit. I feel like it means whatever good stuff happens, the worst case scenario is always how it ends and there's no escaping it. I like Stephen King's idea that our brains run an automatic 'end program' when we die.

I find it are strange that in around 120 years time every single person on this earth won't exist. Makes me wonder what it's all for.

I’ve read about 5posts and all the people trying to make you feel better just make me feel like I have a tight chest. I am absolutely terrified. I’m an intelligent woman, I know I “won’t know” and there’s is “nothing I can do” but that makes me feel even worse. Just awful. I cannot imagine not being here.

I have always feared death for lots of reasons.

The fact that i won’t be here anymore.

The fact you don’t know what happens after you die.

The fact that those you leave behind are upset.

I just can’t get my head around it all. Nobody questions it, we all run on autopilot.

The other one besides death is how are we all here and why? We are intelligent as human beings but not know all that? It all frightens me.

Talked about this a lot with my dad. He says it gets a hell of a lot less scary as you get older. Your brain wants you to be terrified of dying when you are young- self preservation. When you're getting upto 75 or whenever it changes.

Also I think nowadays we're told we can and should do and see everything, go everywhere, have an amazing career, be famous. I look back into my family to peple who hardly left their small village their whole lives, married somebody up the road who never expected anywhere near so much from life as we do now. Death was also always around them, they would have been far more comfortabe with it than we are.

Yes, I’m absolutely terrified and reading this thread hasn’t helped

I'm scared of dying before my children are adults but just because they need me, not scared of death itself. Otherwise I'm quite looking forward to it, I'm pretty tired.

It never bothered me until I had kids. Now I'm terrified. I just try not to think about it.

The process of dying scares me, because of the possible pain. The idea of no longer existing doesn't bother me in the slightest though. We are all tiny, brief flickers in the hugeness of eternity. I actuality find the insignificance and shortness of my existence comforting, because it reminds me that anything I might be worrying about is really not important in the grand scheme of things.

Here the other day we had 2 people throw themselves off the humber bridge within ten minutes. I sometimes feel ashamed because I cant face death with that same bravery. I hope they got the release they wanted, despite the tragedy.

I admire and have deep sympathy for everyone who manages to carry on once their partner has passed away - it must be the hardest thing ever and it makes me desperately sad thinking about it. I also don’t think I’d personally be strong enough to do so.

The thing is, though, that no one knows how they would cope in situations they haven't yet faced. People have said to me that I'm a strong person because I survived childhood SA and am now living a new life as a wife and mum to 2 adopted DDs. I have felt suicidal at times but the reality is that I'm a survivor and get through it.

But the truth is that you find that you can survive when it comes down to it. The human survival instinct is very strong indeed. You say you wouldn't be able to survive without your DH. But you survived before he came into your life and you will cope if you lose him.

My MIL felt like you describe when my FIL died in a car accident; she spoke several times of throwing herself Into the road. But she's still with us 15 years on, enjoying being a Grandma to our DDs and nieces and nephews.

Life really does go on.

To the people who are terrified of dying and that think about it a lot. Are you very risk averse? Are you actually imagining ways to die or is it just a general sense of dying?

I think about dying sometimes, but only because I'm doing something that might make me die

Before the dc came along I feared other people dying - parents, sisters etc. Now I fear dying and leaving my children without a mum, and not seeing them at least reach adulthood. It's not something that hinders my life, but I do sometimes have dark thoughts and might feel a bit tearful on occasions if I dwell for too long. I try not to dwell and will distract myself with something else instead.

Not terrified about dying, just dying before DD dsnt need me anymore

it'll be fine

Dunno why this amused me. Also terrified of dying. I usually think about it when I'm going to sleep and j get so freaked out I have to get up and walk around to take my mind off it.

I've seen a lot of deaths. Most are vey peaceful, some not so peaceful. None of us know what will happen but yes I do sometimes worry a lot about it.

I’m not afraid of death for myself. My greatest fear is losing one of my children. The horror of that gives me great anxiety.

I'm not afraid of dying. I don't want to die in a painful way but I won't know whether that will happen until I am dying so don't dwell on it. I do sometimes think about how my DH will cope and that makes me sad.

It doesn't bother me as I think life can be hard and I don't want to live to be really old.
But I do want to see my dd happy and settled before I go.

oh gosh me too.

I worry about me dying. I worry about my parents dying. I worry about my DS dying.

But not really about being dead itself. There were eons during which I was unborn so I imagine being dead is like that.

It is entrirely natural to worry about death and dying. But it is also futile because it is inevitable.

Dying isn't like sleep - it's more like a general anaesthetic that you don't wake up from. You don't know anything about it or the passage of time. I am terrified of GA as well!!

Yes. But not naturally, of old age. I am terrified of dying unexpectedly - of having a heart attack or something & leaving behind my 3 year old. It's not the fact that I would die that I am scared of, it's the pain I would be leaving behind when it happens. I don't want to die before my parents, and I don't want to die before my daughter has a family of her own or I've helped her set up a life, just not when she's still so young

I worry that I will go the doctors one day for some kind of menial check-up, and find out I have incurable cancer or something else I can't do anything about. Again, of course the medical stuff horrified me, the thought of what's going on inside my body, but it's still my daughter I am scared for.

I'm not worried/frightened/upset about dying at all. I'm far more worried/frightened/upset of the fact that my husband will probably die before me and I'll be alone. He has cancer so the odds are on that happening unless I get run over first etc.
I suppose a painful death concerns me more, but not dying itself.