To be petrified of death

[mumofthreesmallmen3]

I don't know if this belongs in aibu, I seem to have got a real thing/maybe towards a phobia type of thing about dying, I know I will die at some point but it's becoming a issue, keeping me up at night panicky and taking a lot of my thoughts, I feel like I don't understand ( I do) that everything will be normal one minute then it will change and I'll know nothing more, I won't see anyone again or do anything again when that happens, I obviously do understand this WILL happen but I'm having so much anxiety around it, I'm in 30s so its 'probably' not even soon if nothing happens/illness etc but it's really domineering my thoughts for last couple of months and getting worse, I think ( and hope) when it happens I just won't know anything about it but I find it overwhelming to think everything is gone in that moment, I'll never know anything again, if my brain ceases to work then I'll never have the capacity to know, for example, what my kids upto, it sounds so silly but I just struggling to comprehend it will just be blackness, like under general anaesthesic but don't come back around, I'm not religious really so don't have faith to fall back on or think about, does anyone else think it's crazy and scary that one minute in the future you'll just be no more and you don't know when, I just find it hard to comprehend and wonder if I'm the only one

thenightsky ·

RedHelenB

If its any consolation the older you get the less you care about dying.

Not for me.

Not in my case. Now I've hit my 60s I lay awake at night fretting and getting upset at the thought I've probably only got 20 years left

Totally agree with this. Since I retired It’s never very far from my mind. I’ve always been frightened of dying but now it’s less the dying and more the actually being dead and missing out and not being around for my family.

But you won't feel the no worries because you don't exist! You feel or think anything, you won't enjoy having no worries because your not there to enjoy it, it doesn't make much sense to me at the moment

I think about death a lot too. Probably ever hour! Don’t know what the answer is other than to live life to the full

Just wanted to add to my earlier post and say that I can relate to a lot of what you've written, OP.

I've had what I can only describe as a vivid and sometimes overwhelming understanding of my own mortality since I was quite a little kid. I don't know why that should be, I guess I've just always been quite a morbid and introspective sort. I've come to terms with it more as I've got older because there simply is no way of getting around it: death is not a problem I can solve or reason my way out of: it just is. I think for me something shifted when my dad died suddenly last year and I know in my bones he is absolutely gone, not a robin in a tree or a ghost or a spirit in the sky. The knowledge that one day I will be too - maybe today, maybe next year, maybe in forty years - doesn't seem to have the same chill any more, I'm not sure why.

I know… I get you. You can’t imagine there being literally nothing.

You won’t feel the sensation of having no worries but equally you have no worries in the first place because you don’t exist, and I find that comforting in a way.

I agree with this. It's oddly comforting to know that struggle, work and loneliness will end.

How much exercise are you getting, OP? It has the power to sort out all manner of worries and anxieties and help people come to terms with stuff.
Your Dad's death sounds very upsetting for you and I'm not at all surprised you feel this way. But you don't want to, of course, because it's hardly helping you make the most of your life.
Being dead appears to be very peaceful. Being unwell prior to that is ... Same as being unwell ever is. "Dying" is only special because you failed to recover this time round. A lot of people just feel ill and don't know that this time they're not getting better - so for them, it feels no different from when you're ill and pass out but recover later. They just don't have that "later". That's it.

I genuinely don't understand fear of death. Perhaps people think they are still going to have emotions after they die? Of course they won't - it's not possible to have emotions if you don't exist so, in that sense, death is no different to the thousands of years that went by before our birth.
Fear of dying - in a painful way - makes sense, but there is absolutely nothing bad about death. Indeed, as Shakespeare wrote " it is a consummation devoutly to be wished" - all fear, pain & sadness will be gone.

I do not believe people go to Heaven/Hell/Purgatory as actual places when we die.
How would everyone fit in for a start?.

I believe that our souls die with our bodies and as we did not exist before we were conceived we do not exist after we die.

It is the manner of death that I fear. E.g. 2 close friends have what is meant to be a very rare disease. We also know of 3 other people who have it...Progressive Supra-Nuclear Palsy. It is like Parkinson's on steroids. Also worried about the amount of pain involved. Unlike other posters I find I worry about it more as I get older not less.

OP worrying about death has ruined my life. And has done since the age of 10 years old.
I literally live in panic mode 24/7
I am now agoraphobic, and in a constant state of worry.
My child has complex needs and I am his full time caregiver. I now worry about what would happen to him and how would he cope when I'm not here.
I've no friends because I don't leave the house. I've no family left (we had a very very small family)
I wish I could give you some advice but even the GP doesn't understand how bad it is for me. He just offers me time to talk and they never call me back. It's horrendous and you're not alone

There's an amazing nurse on Facebook. I think her names 'hospice nurse julie' she posts videos about death and dying. She explains the process and why she no longer fears it. Have a look.

I am quite interested in people's veiws of what happens, my dad was someone that he did believe in after life, he was a big working class man, but after his mum does around 20 years ago he visited the spiritual church because he believed in it, I don't think I believe in any of that stuff, personally I think I believe when your gone, then your gone. Because he believed all of that sign stuff he said he'll do a sign, it's been about 1.5 years, there hasn't been a sign, he's gone, he's not sitting in the clouds putting signs out for us, I think that cloud my veiw a bit, I thought people who die watch us, the realisation they don't watch us, there not sitting in clouds watching us,they don't exist, and I'm ashamed to say I'm mid 30s and it's only occured me recently that actually no they can't watch us,they don't know what's going on, because there brain doesn't work anymore? I find it baffling, I know it's completely normal but it's also crazy. Especially if sudden, how can you go from one extreme,living,to the other in a few seconds

I think the feeling you have in some ways is similar (yet very different) to the feeling I have when I stare at the sky and think about just how big the universe is. It's that feeling of not being able to comprehend the vastness. For me, I have some sort of feeling of existential fear of what's out there, to the point it can make me teary. Strange, I know!

I’m not scared of dying but I’m terrified of people I love dying. It keeps me awake at night that I could just wake up to bad news. I hope that I go first

Are you busy enough? I find my mind wanders to these things and feeds anxieties when I don't have enough other stuff to occupy it. When I'm fully engaged, there's no time for the angst and, like a very suburban Samurai warrior, I feel ready to go into battle and face death if needs be, which is a very freeing and empowering feeling. Easy to say maybe, but the best thing is to get on with living. In fact there's a great book by Sherwin B Nuland called How We Die which is fascinating and might help rather than exacerbate your fears, and one of the outcomes is really learning how to live. The fear is your problem, not death itself. The readiness is all...

I am getting older and am more worried about it now. I wasn't bothered when I was young. I am now 66.

(stuffjeffreads.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/hamlet-on-acceptance-the-readiness-is-all/)

I have a problem with your worries. Once you are dead you won't know you are dead - because you will be dead.

I know! That's the quite scary bit,I won't know anything ever again! It's madness people just disappear, I do understand it, but I also don't.

But isn't it better to not exist? I would hate to keep living in an afterlife or anywhere else like as ghost for eternity.

Same.

Seldom used to think about it before.

I don't know the answer! I find it all baffling and scary too. Where do I go then, obviously my physical body will be cremated probably but people say you have a soul etc, I do not understand where does that go then? Would I even know,if I don't have a brain/mind how would I even know then? I just won't exist, and that's really weird

I think your soul will die when your body does and you will lose consciousness. You will not be aware of anything so if you do not exist it won't matter which is for the best; as imagine you died in the Black Death you would not want to spend centuries remebering your death and your family and friends' either an awareness with afterlife whether Heaven or Hell or Purgatory sounds much worse to me than just dying in all respects.