I can't be the only one this happens to?

[queenofayrshire]

Woke up this morning, laying in bed and having a nice relaxed scroll through Mumsnet. Come across the thread about which generation had it the hardest. This somehow led my brain to think about how one day I will be dead. Usually I'm quite chill about dying, don't give it much thought, no control over it, when my time is up, it's up etc. don't think too deeply. However not the case this morning.

I got this overwhelming gut punch in my stomach realising that I'm going to die one day. And that the people I have been surrounded by all my life, will no longer be with me and the things I enjoy doing, I'll not be able to do again. And I'll be alone for eternity. And me and everyone else I know will be forgotten about in 100 years, as if we didn't exist. I feel this overwhelming panic and helplessness. I know it'll pass, I'm 31 and have experienced this before.

But does this happen to anyone else? Like I know death is inevitable but I keep it at arms length but once in a while the reality of it hits me. Anyone else?

Ugh what a way to start a Friday

YES !! You are not alone. I think exactly the same, and feel exactly how @Milarky feels. Its awful.

I get similar thoughts. I’m 49 & the last 10 years have totally flown. It’s scary thinking I’m past half of my life & look back at my carefree 25 year old self

But then, depending on my fate, 25 could’ve been my middle age so I just have to be grateful I’m here & hope for a long & healthy life.

@Ecnerual gosh that’s awful 😞 so sorry you’ve been through that

31! Wait until you are > mid 50s.

There is a facebook page for one of my old work places I spent 24 years at before it shut down and it has around 1000 members.

We now get regular messages with funeral details and too many for my liking are for ex-colleagues very close to my age!

I try not to think about it too much.

That lying in bed time in the morning is the very worst for ruminating on stuff that's going to make you maudlin and miserable. Wake up, get up, enjoy your days while they're here.

Yep. I'm irrepressible thoughts of death Barbie.

@Nows I found the same when my husband died. Watching him get sick and feel bad was not great at all, but the end bit, the dying, was peaceful and not scary, but he did have amazing hospice care and I hear from others on here that not everyone has that. I've told my children I want all the drugs, all of them!

What I mean is, I think I can do it. I'm just going to close my eyes and go off to wherever and preferably have as much pain relief as possible. The harder thing is for those left behind to carry on and like others, I do worry about my children, but I try to tell them that I will be very cross if they don't live their best lives moping around after me (!) We do talk about death quite a bit in our family as my husband was terminal for many years and we've also had quite a few other relatives die, so it's not as taboo as it might otherwise be.

Something very similar happened to me when I was the same age as you, OP!
We had friends over, having a lovely evening.
I went to check on my baby and all of the sudden the reality of death really hit me.
I felt as if I’d lost the ground under my feet, as if a big black hole had suddenly opened up beneath me.
Thinking back it felt like a panic attack. Might have been the wine (although I hadn’t had much) or the dark winter evening, but it took me a little while to mentally recover and find my balance again.

I remember waking up in the night aged around 30 and saying to my husband. I'm going to die one day. One day I won't be here, I won't be reading a book or going for a walk or even having a shower. And everyone I know will also die. And I completely freaked out. Then I had my daughter and stopped believing in the afterlife and my dad passed away 3 years ago and it got worse. I just cannot get my head around any of it.

Death is part of life.
It doesn't worry me in the slightest. I had the priverlege of seeing my children grow up, unlike my husband who sadly died young. We always assume we will die when old, but there's no guarantee. I enjoy my life more now because l am fully aware of how unpredictable it can be.

My gran died a couple of weeks ago, she was 105 and died of old age. At her funeral there were so many people, even though she'd been in a care home for 3 years (yes, she lived in her own home til she was 102!) It was really touching to see how many people whose lives she'd touched, and the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who wouldn't have been there without her. It was sad to say goodbye, it makes you think of your own mortality, but think about all that you can do in your life, however long it is.

I know that feeling I'm 67 in January my youngest grandaughter is 5 my target is to reach her 18th then maybe her 21st I'm not in the best of health death scares me I don't want my daughter to be on her own with her daughter there's nothing we can do about death my mum is 92 in fairly good health my grandma was 96 when she died maybe I've got their genes I try not to think about death too much

Yes, I do.

Since losing Mum, relatively quickly, last year I get bouts of thinking about her, but also at other times about how someone (and that will include me) is here, then gone. Completely. Forever.

Totally get this feeling

I used to worry about dying before I turned 50. I don't know why but I've just accepted it as something that will eventually happen.

I also believe you can question your own mortality when you lose somebody.

I’m ok with the idea of death. I don’t think there’s anything after death and I’m ok with the idea that I am transient and unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Hopefully my dc will be independent adults by then and ok with me not being around for them, if sad.

What does depress me is thinking of that stage of life towards the end when (for many people) your body and brain gradually get less reliable and more likely to go wrong, you are more likely to get ill, be in pain, lose marbles, need help. I’m not looking forward to that.

thats why i wish immortality was possible.

I like the Stoics' take on death: by thinking about it, we are really thinking about how we live in the now.
A good exercise is to imagine yourself on your deathbed, but not in a morbid way.
I do this and it stops me obsessing about petty work issues, irritating problems, or other such stuff which is trivial.

I never used to think about it and then my dad died and now it's kind of there that I'll go one day too. It'll really bother me when my mum goes as then there really will be nobody ahead of me. All my grandparents are dead, no aunts or uncles either and so I'll be part of the older generation in my family. It's a scary thought really.

In this world, with the way things stand and how they are going, I don't!

I've been scared of death since I was 8 and my Mum died suddenly.

Joining that fear of death is the inability of my brain to understand the vastness of space and time.

I don't want to be forgotten. Like almost everyone has forgotten my mum.

I get panicky if I think about this for too long.

I found a name for it once but have forgotten. It's similar to existential dread. It's the sense of your own mortality.

I'm trying to live the best life I can and push the thought away.

Sometimes I'm convinced we might get reincarnated but that freaks me out too!

I wish I had faith. That would probably make it easier to live with.

Sorry about your mother. That must have been awful 🌷

I've experienced this exact same gut punch, adrenaline rush reaction to the realisation of permanent death many times.

You explained it well!

First time for me was when I was 12 and I've had it probably once a year since.

My only way of dealing with it is to just never think about it.

It gives me small comfort to know that we had eternal nothing before and it didn't bother me then, but nothing really helps with the sheer panic when it comes.

for me it seems that argument could be made, if we were in eg 1800's era etc, i want to see the full future of what humanity can achieve.