Do you have a fear of death?

[canadian1000]

For the past few years, I have had this overwhelming feeling that I am going to die imminently; that I am going to die young; that terminal illness is waiting for me; or that I am going to have a long and drawn out death. This feeling has been with me consistently for about 2 years, but I have had this feeling for most of my life.

I am almost 30 years old and when I was young, I was exposed to death quite early in my childhood. Last year, my uncle passed away after a long and likely painful death as a result of liver cancer. My father passed away two months later suddenly and without warning.

I now live with a fear, almost PTSD in nature, that haunts me at every turn. Interestingly enough, I am a registered mental health first aid interventionist with the Mental Health Commission of Canada. While I am capable of recognizing symptoms of underlying mental health issues in other people, as well as myself, I am unable to take the advice I provide to others and apply it to my own life.

Sometimes the best form of therapy is to hear that you are not alone. Anyone else suffer from nagging thanatophobia (fear of death?) What is your story?

[NervUs]

Yes!

I went through a legit breast cancer scare at about age 40, and that is what made me really understand on a visceral level what death is. Ever since then, I am afraid (with varying intensity) that it is going to happen to me or one of my kids. I am worried for how it would affect them, and also for how I would be destroyed if one of them died. There are also things I still want to accomplish on this Earth, but those are probably secondary considerations.

I am really hoping old age will take this fear away. I'm not sure I would be so nutty if I didn't have the kids. BUt, maybe?

[phil06]

I have this worry.

My biggest fear is when you die not finding out how life works or nothing happening.

I want to believe in reincarnation however like I say I want to know meaning of life I would hate to not find out when alive and also when your not around still not finding the meaning?

[HelloPanda23]

I’m only 16 and I fear death so much now. I had a huge death scare 3 months ago, and it was due to drinking redbull. I thought I was going to have a seizure and die, or have a heart attack. That fear has now escalated over these three months and soI think I’m either going to die from brain eating amoeba, or from ALS. Life sucks for me so much rn, and I don’t know what to do anymore. I was never like this before, and this stupid redbull has really turned my life around for the worst. My fears were lessening by such an insane amount last week, but then I decided to be stupid and look around these forums and revert my attention to brain eating amoebas. I’m too young to worry about dying..

[lofwyr]

I did. I was terrified of it. Then, almost exactly a year ago I was diagnosed with a bad aortic valve and an aortic aneurysm, which *will* need to be corrected through open heart surgery, not a matter of if, but a matter of when. I go for my next six month scan in August.

To that end, I have done a lot of soul searching, and a lot of introspection, and with this cloud hanging over my head, I have not been this happy and fulfilled in 30 years. I have some anxiety, but it was nothing like I expected it would be when I actually *had* something serious to contend with. I honestly feel great, and would not trade my mental health now for what it was before. I have a physical problem, but I learned from it that I need to live in the moment.

To that end, my fear of death went away almost completely. I have lost a lot of the anxiety that goes along with that fear of death. I might be gone in a month, I might last 40 more years, I have determined that I am not going to waste the next month, or 40 years, worrying about how or when it will end.

[paranoid-viking]

Of course. Why do you think we have health anxiety? That is where it all comes from.

[ServerError]

Do I fear being dead? No.

Do I fear the suffering and pain that dying involves? Yes.

[welsh girl]

Don't Laugh, but I fear death, not in the usual way.I worry where my money is going,
not that I have much,and have made a will (most necessary)
But what will happen to the things I have bought and loved over they years, silly or what??

[ServerError]

I wouldn't say it's silly but the fact is that, in the grand scheme of things, money and things are not important. It's pointless worrying about that. Drawing up a will is probably the best thing you can do.

[Prokopton]

I've struggled with anxiety/preoccupation with the death of myself and loved ones for as long as I can remember.

I think my first step towards more acceptance of death was acknowledging the fact that it is an incredibly difficult and distressing problem that people have been dealing with ever since we became intelligent enough to realize we are mortal. Philosophy and religion have struggled with the question for millennia, so I shouldn't be too hard on myself for not coming up with perfect answers myself.

Recently, I've found consolation in the philosophies of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Stoicism in particular. They didn't try to repress thoughts about death for the same reason that it is pointless to tell yourself not to think of a white elephant (you end up thinking of white elephants more by trying to suppress the thought, not less).

Instead, they used these thoughts to try to cultivate an acceptance of death (and other tragedies) and used these thoughts as tools to forge a more well-lived life.

a couple of my favorite quotes to return to in times of high-anxiety about death...

I have to die. And if it is now, well then I die now; if later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived. And dying I will tend to later.

-Epictetus

and

Death [...] the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.

-Epicurus

That being said thinking about death obsessively can prevent you from leading a fulfilling life. I was once advised by a therapist to try to be more like "these happy idiots walking around as if they'll live forever". So like most things, thoughts of death are not necessarily bad, but best done in moderation.