If you fear death read this! It may help!

[stevenr1986]

so today i have convinced myself i must or may have lung cancer, its a possibility as fare as i see, i have pain in the 'lungs' and i smoke, im asthmatic (i think) and have lumps on the tounge that could indicate cancer.

the issue is i dont fear of cancer but what IT can do, the idea that i would die, if i ended up with it i would not have treatment as i would not want to spend the rest of my life suffering the side effects of the drugs and also spend it fearing the cancer would return.

so what does death mean i ask my self?

i have two ideas,

the first is that i will end up in either hell or heaven and spend eternity in damnation which does not sit well with me at all,or pleasure which would be fine, but i must ask what the possibilities of either? well i have never killed or raped anyone or done the things thought of as major sins but i have eaten apples and had sex out side marriage and all the other sins we all do! !

or-

that death is the biological end of life that all biological entities must face, and once the synapses in the brain stop firing then all memories i have and thoughts i enjoyed will dissolve into nothing, further more science tells us this is the result of death and nothing would be able to travel to hell or heaven.

what of my soul? well i have thought of this to and while i like to believe in both a soul and god i dont understand the way my conscious mind is transported to a place beyond earth?


but why fear it, we ALL have to die at some time of something and there is no known way to stop it, nor would i want to! !
i came to this conclusion as to why i fear it- i dont! ! "i fear not death, but fear missing the life i would have had". in other words i fear the life i may have had if i had not died,i want to see my children grow up and be able to get my degree and maybe see my grandchildren! but they say prepare for the worst and hope for the best, so i have written a will, a letter to my children who are under 6, instructions on my cremation, but i still want to live...i WANT to live and hope i do!

all this leads me to one question? if i die will i ever know i lived? would at the point my mortal life ends and one of the two processes takes place i said above will i know i had lived, had kids a wife or even i ever existed?

so i have decided to enjoy life to the fullest i can with what i have (at least thats the plan) as if i die at 25 then i will never know i lived so will never know i had died! so there is no point in fearing what must end with out question, maybe i should enjoy what life has to offer and hope, just hope that while i live i can enjoy life so when death comes i can lay down and say "i WAS alive"

[crystal17]

Ooh wow very deep! But it does make sense, there is no point worrying about it if you're not religious....I still do though lol...

[stevenr1986]

the mad thing is i am! i believe in god and it gives me allot of hope!

[pablo22]

hey, im 20 and im gay, and have had health anxiety (living with) for aslong as i can remember. I thought myself incredibly religious, always went to mass every sunday and prayed alot. But ive separated myself from the teaching o the church, on discovering what it means to be gay.

the church is incredibly divisive, hell has been made up to control people. chrisitans are born to feel guilty, "orginal sin". In fact all organised religions are doing is pitting the human population against one another. the induce hate, the breed it, live off peoples fears and uncertinity's.

I wont be going to hell. because hell doesnt exist. and if i do meet the christian god i would ask him why he created me, if my sole purpose in life, no matter what good i do on this earth. is to end up in hell.

science doesnt have the answers to everything! science is just what we know at this moment in time, (remember only a few hundred yrs ago we thought the earth was flat)

but i do believe in a higher power, energy never dies. consciousness has been placed in our bodies, in our skull, and then leaves back to this power after we die... that what i believe anyway.

so now i don't fear death. i don't belong to any religion. :noangel:

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and science doesnt know what happens when we die, if it did .. they would have told us already and we all would have piled into the one religion lol the one true god LUL

[stevenr1986]

there should be rules governing all religion, just 3:

-my god is not better than yours nor yours better than mine.
- i will not threaten force, violence, murder, not shall i commit these acts to convince or otherwise make you believe in what i do.
-religion does not give you any greater stake to me, my property or the land on which legally and peacefully live.

the fact the god (which ever you hold to be true) has given human beings ability to make choice means that he would, in all logical sense, not punish me for choosing a god of my own or C of E, RC, Islam or any other, i believe in Christ, and so he died for my sins, so cant i make a choice of the god i wish and all sins forgiven in absolution if it is a sin to chose another god?

the fact that the text of most religion is open to interpretation via the text it holds as dear leads me to the conclusion that the system is open to choice as well!

i will continue to believe in "god" or my idea of one, i will still prey and ask forgives for sin i had committed, i will still believe he is listening and has the power to answer those prayers because that is what i choose to believe.

[Dazza]

I guess I am scared of death, but more than death, I'm scared of the process of death.... more specifically, of having a terrifying, painful heart attack... it's my biggest phobia since having my first panic attack 3 1/2 years ago, when I was convinced I was having a heart attack.

I don't share the same fear about cancer, which although can make people die in a short time, it would not be sudden.

So, I have a fear of sudden death.

[stevenr1986]

I guess I am scared of death, but more than death, I'm scared of the process of death.... more specifically, of having a terrifying, painful heart attack... it's my biggest phobia since having my first panic attack 3 1/2 years ago, when I was convinced I was having a heart attack.

I don't share the same fear about cancer, which although can make people die in a short time, it would not be sudden.

So, I have a fear of sudden death.

i understand totally, i have thought about it too, and came up with this, a fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat, therefore if you did have a "terrifying, painful heart attack" instinct would kick in the "i must survive"instinct is a powerful instinct, a man in New York had a morbid fear of being mugged, it effected his whole life, only going out in the day and never alone, always carried money to give to a mugger in the hope he would grab it an run and not kill him (a common thing in the US i hear) for having nothing on him! he went on like this for many many years, he finally got over the phobia and began rebuilding his life, eventually he was walking down a road a Block away from home when indeed he was mugged! instead of doing what he feared he would do all those years-cry, beg, scream and be killed, he acted on instinct and disarmed the man and made a "private arrest"(as it termed in the US so i have been told) when asked if it was like the dark deep thoughts he had while it controlled his life, he said "exactly, even the mask and smell of the mugger, the knife and the copper metal taste in the mouth, but i reacted on instinct alone! the actual event was far more controlled in real life"! this tells me that actual situations are very, very different to the real event, indeed i think if you were to have a heart attack you would focus on the pain, the time to get to hospital and the systems around you, not on the fact that you were going to die a painful death, which you would not really as the brain releases chemicals like Endorphins which would start to dull the pain in the end causing you to feel very little before an unconscious state sets in. plus, if you did die, you would have no way of knowing the pain you were in prior to death.

i hope that helps even a bit:)

[ciccone-hassell]

guess makes sence but its getting ones mind to make sense of what you have written i full agree why fear death when once yourve died u'll never know life happed i still wish i could get fears of death outta my mind as its a daily battel at times

[xJust_Sarahx]

Hi
What you say makes sense and i agree, but i completely have a fear of death regardless, its not so much the suffering to be honest... although the breathlessness, and the short of breathe and the chest pain and the way it drains u physically and mentally is really tough.. the biggest thing i fear (which u have mentioned) is the fact i would be leaving 3 young kids under the age of 5.
I have just turned 24, i dont smoke, i dont drink (dont get time and etc) and i am convinced i have something wrong with my lungs also, all i have had done is a peak flow test and my chest listened to and my bloods took.. and apparantly im fine. Yeh right... i think not.!

You tell me how struggling to breathe everyday, and having a wheezy and chesty cough and getting breathless just from bending down to standing up and walking up the stairs etc. How is that normal? I am convinced i am asthmatic of have lung cancer. Therefore i am limited to what i can do. I hate been left alone and yesterday was one of the rare times i was and i ended up calling 999. Im pathetic i know!!

But despite all that i just never want to leave my kids, im so clongy of them lately and it kills me to think i will die and they may not remember me or someone else will bring them up as a mother replacing me etc. If i was going through this and i had no kids then i would think what have i got to live for? I maybe have more will power and mind over matter in the positive way type thing. But thats my weak spot

[stevenr1986]

i have done allot of thinking on the subject of health anxiety as it effects me personally, i have come up with this:

for some people the fear of loss is so massive that they want what they have to stay so much they begin to believe they will lose it come what may!

for me its blindness, and why? well i have always wanted a degree, and now am taking one i have these thoughts that im going to go blind and be unable to do it anymore! i also fear the fact that i will be unable to see my children grow and be unable to have a life as i know it know it now!

the same applies to you! you fear the loss of the life you would have if you die. i have had your symptoms too 9to a lesser degree as it is all on my eyes-even as i type this), i have an asthma pump, im not asthmatic at all! its stress related and causes a reaction that causes a tightness in the chest!

health anxiety is a self perpetuating problem-

stress = (in some people) = physical anxiety symptoms = more stress over the symptom, = another symptom = more stress and so on!

this is a cycle and it needs to be broken asap, seeking medical help is not the answer as i bet you think one of two things 1) they missed something 2) the symptoms may have occurred after the last check which was xx days/weeks ago. there for unless you have a medical clinic in your home this is not the solution! you have been checked and its all good, so as of that day you were clear of cancer, so by a logical process of elimination, we can deduce that as the symptoms are the same as before you went to hospital it must be be stress related or at most non lethal such as asthma.

the cycle of health stress is one of the hardest to break as the body is a hard thing to predict and changes in the way it works are frequent, also most test only see the "today's news" situation, as in we know what happened yes today as you are alive now, but we have no idea what will happen tomorrow! but we can whats happening today

think of the stats, you are at very low risk of cancer in the lungs, and if detected early its curable!

most importantly look at you children, you have a low risk of just dying in this country as people will do ALL they can to keep you alive, but most important is your children have a mum who loves them so much she is ill through worrying about dying? that is a combo that is bad for every one as you are not enjoying you life with them NOW and looking back in 40 years and saying "i regret the fear i had which was irrational" will make you hurt in a bad way!

if you had cancer YOU WOULD KNOW there was a problem and seek help and get it!

[xJust_Sarahx]

What you say makes alot of sense but i guess im just not that strong enough to think of things in that light of way.
I just try my hardest to get through each day and each day i wake up i feel grateful because i honestly think the night before that its my last, i kiss my kids good night and etc with a tear in my eye type thing before i go to bed. The thing is i know its pathetic and i know people say to live life to the full and lifes too short and like u say that we more than likely gonna look back on the this and wish we had thought and dealth with things differently but i dont wanna be like this, i dont wanna live like this, and i have tried to live what some may call a "normal" life, like just get on with things.. and pace my way through it and its just my breathing that stops me, i tried just thinking " u know what.. bring it on, if its gonna happen then happen," or i think along the lines of "i wish something would happen so i can prove its not in my head"

so i will just walk up the stairs in the pace i used to years ago, i WILL go out the house alone, i WILL run around the house and play with the kids, I WILL eat things that im warey on eating incase i have an allergic reaction even if i was never allergic to it in the past,... but it never works. its just there.... my breathing.. me gasping for ait or my chest wheezy and me coughing. The feeling like im breathing to fast or cant get enough air in my lungs. The constant worry and what not.

I do take in what you say though and hope to try and use it for some reassurance. Thank you :)

[stevenr1986]

what you say makes alot of sense but i guess im just not that strong enough to think of things in that light of way.
I just try my hardest to get through each day and each day i wake up i feel grateful because i honestly think the night before that its my last, i kiss my kids good night and etc with a tear in my eye type thing before i go to bed. The thing is i know its pathetic and i know people say to live life to the full and lifes too short and like u say that we more than likely gonna look back on the this and wish we had thought and dealth with things differently but i dont wanna be like this, i dont wanna live like this, and i have tried to live what some may call a "normal" life, like just get on with things.. And pace my way through it and its just my breathing that stops me, i tried just thinking " u know what.. Bring it on, if its gonna happen then happen," or i think along the lines of "i wish something would happen so i can prove its not in my head"

so i will just walk up the stairs in the pace i used to years ago, i will go out the house alone, i will run around the house and play with the kids, i will eat things that im warey on eating incase i have an allergic reaction even if i was never allergic to it in the past,... But it never works. Its just there.... My breathing.. Me gasping for ait or my chest wheezy and me coughing. The feeling like im breathing to fast or cant get enough air in my lungs. The constant worry and what not.

I do take in what you say though and hope to try and use it for some reassurance. Thank you :)


absolutely any time! ! ! ! ! ! ! And i completely understand what you are going through!

---------- Post added at 19:16 ---------- Previous post was at 18:46 ----------

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