To let my death get in the way of life....

[feedmegin]

I cannot enjoy my life because I’m too afraid of death.

I don’t think there is a day that goes by when I don’t think about death.

I wake in the middle of the night and suddenly become aware that one day, I just won’t be here.
I struggle to accept that my non existence is going to be eternal.
It literally petrifies me.

I try to imagine what it’s going to feel like but it just sends me into panic when I try.

It’s making me feel really miserable and I’m struggling to find enjoyment in life because, well what’s the point if we’re just going to die.

I feel like I’m just waiting for the day that darkness will be my forever. 😭

I’ve felt like this for years now and it’s not going away.

I lost my friend vert suddenly 12 years ago, and I think this triggered my fear.

I have panic attacks if I have to go to funerals and I couldn’t ever imagine seeing someone dead.

I don’t know how I’m ever going to enjoy life because what is there to enjoy when death is just there waiting to take us.

At the root of my crippling health anxiety is the fear of dying. I feel like it's a loss of control.
Really interesting thread and looks like some great advice.
Sorry I've nothing useful to add.

Could you learn to view it the other way? You will die one day - so be happy that you're alive and healthy right now. Enjoy living. Cherish all the time you have with your loved ones.

My theory used to be that it will be as it was before we were born, oblivion. Until something happened in my life that I won't go into because I don't want anyone mocking it, but I believe in a form of life after death now. Maybe you might benefit from reading books about different afterlife theories, you might find something you can reconcile yourself to? I know there's currently a big movement on IG/YT about how we're all here to experience earth life before we move on to something better, maybe you could find comfort in that...

@Ijustknowitstimetogo

I just struggle to understand that something can help me with this fear especially as they can’t take death away.

I’m the same and it’s worse since I’ve come off Sertraline. I also worry about getting old and infirm.

Thing is though most people don’t feel paralysed by this so there is something going on with you (us) that isn’t with most people. If most people don’t feel like this (to the extent it’s ruining their lives) then it must be fixable.

Before we were born we did not exist and we weren’t aware of the fact. That non existence stretches back for infinity. So we are returning to our natural state of non existence and non awareness. We’re all going to the same place together.
What is existence? Why does anything exist anyway?

I think if I get much worse I’m going to have to go back on the Sertraline and that’s probably what I would recommend for you. It stops these sorts of anxious, obsessive, intrusive, negative, circular thoughts.

@Ijustknowitstimetogo

Do you mind sharing why you came off Sertraline?

I do think I need some medication but I’m frightened to take it.

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

I love this quote from Mark Twain.

@iloveeverykindofcat

I used to feel like this - including the fear of eternity and the internal freakout thinking about infinite time - and ironically, what cured of me of this was being in a coma.

You see, what I learned from that experience - or rather, non-experience, that's sort of the point - is that death is nothing to fear, because we won't be there. Of course, I knew that intellectually, but having had my brain 'switched off', for want of a better word, I can't explain to you enough how profoundly we are not there. It's not like sleep. It's not like anything. There is nothing to fear about something you won't experience. The only thing to fear is the process of dying.

@iloveeverykindofcat

Just reading this made my heart pound. Petrifying.

I’m so glad to read you made a recovery!

@Fuckadoodledoooo

I used to be the same.

Until the day I did actually die (I was resuscitated, obviously).

A) I was too ill and in too much pain to care what what happening.
B) the feeling of calm at just slipping away was actually wonderful.

The only thing that scares me now is a long illness leading up to it and leaving my children before they have their own lives.

I wouldn't recommend a very close brush with death, but it cured me.

My Grandpa collapsed in Boots and 'died'. Luckily he was resuscitated by paramedics and lived another 15 years. He said he was perfectly aware that he was dying, but the feeling of immense peace and contentment was wonderful and that he was very happy to 'go' and he certainly didn't want to come 'back'. Just for the record, my Grandpa was the least woo person ever.

When I look at the sky and the stars I realise what an unexplained miracle life is.
Given the enormity of existence I think we cannot assume death is nothingness.
I see no reason not to dismiss there being something beyond the death of our bodies.
I find that thought a comfort.

I get this it makes me feel panicked in my chest I can’t bare thinking about it , scared il die in my sleep aswell. I can’t get my head round the fact I won’t be here anymore like what will I be ? Just nothing....it makes me terrified. I’m also now scared of driving too as I hear of so many deaths from it. It’s a horrible way to live I think it’s getting worse as I’ve hit my 30s I feel like I’m getting old.

Sorry, I meant that to read that I see no reason to dismiss there being something beyond the death of our bodies...

You should watch loads of near death experiences on YouTube, they are very uplifting. They all say the same, I left my body and floated up, then they all have very different experiences but all are filled with pure love, peace, eternal knowledge, knowledge of their past lives, everything is unfolding perfectly. There's nothing to fear - we don't actually die!

@IDontLikeZombies

That sounds horrible, OP. I think your first move should be a call to the GP, it sounds like you have a phobia and there are loads of things that can help.

Secondly maybe some kind of theological study, almost every culture in the world has a concept of the soul and that the soul is a thing that persists eternally in some form or other. I'm not traditionally religious in any way but it's such a deep and basic thing that I think there must be something in it.

Lastly, I'm a nurse. Due to my upbringing and general experience I believe in the soul. I've carried out the last offices of care quite a few times. I think the best way to put it is that there is a feeling of the person still being present. Even when the death has been difficult and we've been fighting to save them the feeling in the room is one of warmth, calm and peace. I know it all sounds a bit woolly and wacky but it's a thing I find quite comforting, that we go to a place that allows us to radiate those feelings. I hope this helps.

Yes this too!

I think something that also comforted me was when an older and very unwoo and sensible friend had been to see a medium and was told something about her LO who had died that there was absolutely no way the medium could have known or guessed.
I can't deal with the idea of nothingness, so I don't believe in that.
There is no proof of nothingness, but plenty of tales of past lives, near death experiences etc that mean there could be something.

I can totally understand how you feel op
I have had this on and off my whole life, it started when my best friend died when we were both 7, we were inseparable and she died very suddenly. I have always had health anxiety since that. Convinced I was going to die when I was 14 as I had chest pains. I honestly went to bed every night thinking I wasn't going to wake up, I can still remember the fear, it consumed me. Eventually I broke down and told my mum and she obviously whipped me straight to hospital. Nothing sinister found at all. I felt better as soon as I was told I was OK.

I can deal with it now, I don't let anything get on top of me, plus having three young children keeps me too busy to worry!
Definitely talk it through with someone op.

The stars were flowers when I posted!

I am sorry to hear your friend died and passed away so suddenly. It must have been a terrible shock and I imagine you have missed them very much. I think if you have not spoken to a counsellor about this then you must have had an incredibly hard 12 years. It may be that you decide counselling is not for you but I speak from experience of losing someone young and it was one of the best things I have ever done. The British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy have a very helpful website. I said I would try one session but within minutes I knew it was finally the help I needed, it's very different than talking to friends, family and others and it really helped.

Hi OP, there was a time where I could've written your exact post. I spent every waking second of my existence for 4 miserable years convinced I was going to die imminently. I spent hours poking and prodding my body from head to toe everyday from the moment I woke. I was convinced I had a cancerous lump somewhere. I diagnosed myself with a new cancer everyday and I saw my Doctors every week for examinations. It was utterly exhausting.

I would watch people in the street laughing, smiling and enjoying themselves and I couldn't understand how they were living so happily when surely we are all just waiting to die. Infact at times, I remember wishing I had never been born as I had no choice but to die one day.

Each doctor would tell me I was young, fit and healthy and that I had health anxiety but I refused to believe it was anxiety. Every doctor wrote the same prescription; Sertraline and would urge me to take it but my anxiety was so severe that I was convinced taking just 1 tablet would kill me. I couldn't contemplate a paracetamol so how could I possibly take an antidepressant?!

To cut a very long story short, my GP somehow eventually persuaded (begged) me to take the Sertraline after phoning her as I was not able to eat or drink properly for weeks as I was convinced I had a throat tumour.

I eventually gave in and took the tablets as there was no other option. It made me very agitated initially but after 2 weeks the symptoms and anxiety lifted somewhat however it was still there lurking in the background.

I now a take a stronger dose along with having CBT weekly through the NHS (initially privately as waiting times for NHS in my area was crazy at the time).

I currently have no health anxiety, no constant fear of death, death doesn't rule my life, no intrusive thoughts etc, no more body pain (all psychological) and no daily and nightly panic attacks.

I have honestly never felt better. I am genuinely happy and relaxed, I finally have energy and no longer a walking zombie. Llife is no longer a slog.

I urge you to speak to your GP and get CBT / Counselling either through the NHS or privately - they are offering sessions over the phone currently.

Also, please consider an SSRI from the GP. It has honestly changed my life and i now look back and wish I had got help sooner as I 'wasted' 4 years of my life refusing medication.

The fear for me is always there below the surface and one thing that really grabs me is that we are one of the only species that seems to be really 'aware' of their own mortality (although maybe also primates and elephants too I'm guessing?).

One thought that makes me feel slightly better is the pragmatism aspect- if noone died the earth would be choc a block full of us! So maybe a positive of us dying is that someone else gets a chance to experience life. So the people before made room for us and we will make room for the next lot.

One of my children suffers with death anxiety, it’s awful for them. I’m not sure how best to help at the moment. I hope you get the help you need

@PrawnofthePatriarchy

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

I love this quote from Mark Twain.

I love this quote too.

I grew up in a religious home and there was a lot of "death" imagery from my earliest childhood (Jesus on the cross, the body and blood of Christ, Herod killing babies, Hell). I grew up very afraid of death.

I'm with Twain now and actually if I have a faith at all it's closer to the gentleness of Wicca. I find deep peace in the seasons and nature.

Things that helped me were putting more meaning into my life, through yoga, spending more time outside growing veg/herbs/fruit, more time with my friends and getting back into painting/art.

I found reading this thread quite therapeutic. I have been thinking about death quite a lot but that's mainly because I have a child with special needs. My absolute biggest fear is who will look after him when I'm dead.

I struggled a bit with this after my dad died. I don't know what I believe in and an eternal non existence did freak me out.

What has helped me is the idea that your consciousness continues for some time in your body even after you die and it's seemingly likely that you'll experience an after life or something in your own mind. It sounds odd but there is some science around it and it really helped me put the issue down.

I'm not one to suggest therapy for everything, but therapy isn't to 'take away' things. It's to work through thinking and work out coping skills that over time and practice changes how we process and regulate. Our brains are great for having ideas, but humans, like many social animals, use others and things from our environment to help process and regulate (otherwise we wouldn't really have any desire to ask others if we're being unreasonable) as we can struggle to do it on our own. Talking therapies can help put that into place (personally, I've always preferred group to one-on-one).

Ruminating about death, something you cannot control, is something that happens to many people and there are tools that can help. For me, having great fear of a violent death that started in early childhood, I've worked through some of the ideas already mentioned by others, and the ideas around fear meaning to be a motivator to do something. I can get my affairs in as much order as possible (I was an odd child writing wills and funeral plans), I can put in reasonable safety and health measures, and sometimes the 'doing' is working on habits to let go of things outside my control in acceptance of my inability to stop death or to totally prevent harm to myself or others or reading more about things like death to feel more comfortable with them - there have been some good recommendations already (I personally really like Ask a Mortician), but also books on the regrets of dying and similar can help give food for thoughts other than the ones we're already chewing over and over.

In middle school when this fear was very strong, I was taught in group therapy to visualize and discuss different possible futures - so yes, a violent death could take me tonight/this year/next year, but at those same time scales, I could... and fill in a few to several options in as much detail as I liked. This can be done with death - coming up with different types of death, different types of afterlife - but the main purpose is to help regulate ourselves to see beyond what we're hyper focusing on even if, in the end, much if out of our control.

Op I used to feel exactly the same as you when I was much younger.
Awful panic attacks and felt like an oppressive cloud over me. I thought I would go mad with it.

Also like you, I couldn't understand how any therapy could work. As death is still there whatever you do.

I was still living with my parents at the time and I was lucky they paid for private CBT with a therapist that actually worked with patients with a terminal diagnosis.
It was amazing how it worked - almost from the first session and he also gave me a tape (that's how long ago it was!!) to listen to twice a day at first. It was almost like hypnosis.

I think maybe I was lucky that I seemed to be very receptive to his treatment.

Now 30 years later, amazingly I work for a funeral director!! If you had told me that back then it would have bought me out in a cold sweat.

Please please try and get some therapy.

Good luck with it all

@feedmegin Thank you, I was initially very unlucky - I fell down a steep staircase into a narrow space and suffered positional asphyxia - but then extremely lucky, because I woke up from the coma a couple of days later absolutely fine, nothing more than bruises. I was utterly astonished to learn that I had been in a coma.

@sweetnessnfight Watching and reading all those accounts of near death experiences changed my mind about atheism and completely changed my attitude to death, and to my life. It just blew my mind how many people across the decades have described such similar experiences. I had to conclude that it was scientifically impossible that they were all having exactly the same kind of delusion, or that they were all making it up, especially as many of them are doctors and scientists themselves.