I'm convinced that I'm going to die in my sleep

[Chloe34517]

I'm 19 and have severe ocd and health anxiety, and right now I'm always convinced I'm dying. Everyday it's more real than the day before and it terrifies me to the point where I honestly don't know how to carry on. I had this fear, mostly on a slightly smaller scale, when I was a bit younger.....But the past 2 months it's flared up worse than ever before and it feels so different this time, like 100x realer. Every night when I sleep I get so upset and scared because in my head I honestly feel like I won't wake up again. Sleep to me makes me feel so out of control, like I know there's a 99% chance I will wake up, but nobody knows if tonight will be the night that I fall in to that 1% and slip away. I can't put in to words how real it is and how I genuinely know that I have something seriously wrong, like an underlying condition and I feel like I know I'll die in my sleep. I sleep with a baby breathing monitor that should sound an alarm for my parents to hear if I were to stop breathing, but it's not enough :(. Because if I slip away, I feel like I know it'll be too late by the time anybody tries to save me. I never know how to let go and sleep, because I just want to be in control. I know it's 'unlikely' that I'll never wake up again, but at the end of the day, nobody knows. The fact that nobody knows and nobody can save me is destroying me. I don't want to die. I just want to live. I'm seeing my best friend on Friday for the first time in months and I'm just convinced that I won't make it until then. Being excited for something is so bad for me because my head makes it feel so likely that I won't make it to that point. I have all these symptoms constantly and I know I'm genuinely ill or there's something that the doctors are missing, because I'm constantly exhausted and just don't feel right and always get a pain in my chest when I move and I cough too. I'm so scared. I'm on an anti depressant and have an anti psychotic anxiety medication called stelazine/trifluoperazine, but I'm too scared to start taking it because I read that it can cause both bloods clots and also a few people in the past have suddenly died taking it. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm on the waiting list for NHS therapy but I just need help to get me through each night until then. I'm so scared to sleep. I just want to be in control.

[nomorepanic]

Hi

Did you read the replies to your 1st post as well?

[Chloe34517]

Hi Nicola, I just saw the replies on my last post x

[Sar89]

Hello sweetheart sorry to hear how low ur feeling... When I read ur post it was surreal I could of wrote it. I have had a massive fear of dying for about 5-6 yrs now in past few years got even worse it got to a point where I was scared to go to sleep at night I started doing little rituals before I went to bed, I would lie in bed for hours foot tapping away for hours till I would fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. I look at my 4yr old sleeping at night an get this overwhelming feeling I'm not going to see her wake up. I leave food low down still so if I die in my sleep she won't starve to death whilst waiting for someone to rescue her. It's a sad way to live I know how u feel. I'm not quite sure the answer to it but I just wanted u to know ur not alone with this x

[illgetthere]

Hello sweetheart sorry to hear how low ur feeling... When I read ur post it was surreal I could of wrote it. I have had a massive fear of dying for about 5-6 yrs now in past few years got even worse it got to a point where I was scared to go to sleep at night I started doing little rituals before I went to bed, I would lie in bed for hours foot tapping away for hours till I would fall asleep from sheer exhaustion. I look at my 4yr old sleeping at night an get this overwhelming feeling I'm not going to see her wake up. I leave food low down still so if I die in my sleep she won't starve to death whilst waiting for someone to rescue her. It's a sad way to live I know how u feel. I'm not quite sure the answer to it but I just wanted u to know ur not alone with this x

Sarah the bit about your daughter made me cry 😪 I'm like this Aldo not with food but other things I'm do desperate to see my children grow up it's heartbreaking x

---------- Post added at 00:04 ---------- Previous post was at 00:03 ----------


I'm 19 and have severe ocd and health anxiety, and right now I'm always convinced I'm dying. Everyday it's more real than the day before and it terrifies me to the point where I honestly don't know how to carry on. I had this fear, mostly on a slightly smaller scale, when I was a bit younger.....But the past 2 months it's flared up worse than ever before and it feels so different this time, like 100x realer. Every night when I sleep I get so upset and scared because in my head I honestly feel like I won't wake up again. Sleep to me makes me feel so out of control, like I know there's a 99% chance I will wake up, but nobody knows if tonight will be the night that I fall in to that 1% and slip away. I can't put in to words how real it is and how I genuinely know that I have something seriously wrong, like an underlying condition and I feel like I know I'll die in my sleep. I sleep with a baby breathing monitor that should sound an alarm for my parents to hear if I were to stop breathing, but it's not enough :(. Because if I slip away, I feel like I know it'll be too late by the time anybody tries to save me. I never know how to let go and sleep, because I just want to be in control. I know it's 'unlikely' that I'll never wake up again, but at the end of the day, nobody knows. The fact that nobody knows and nobody can save me is destroying me. I don't want to die. I just want to live. I'm seeing my best friend on Friday for the first time in months and I'm just convinced that I won't make it until then. Being excited for something is so bad for me because my head makes it feel so likely that I won't make it to that point. I have all these symptoms constantly and I know I'm genuinely ill or there's something that the doctors are missing, because I'm constantly exhausted and just don't feel right and always get a pain in my chest when I move and I cough too. I'm so scared. I'm on an anti depressant and have an anti psychotic anxiety medication called stelazine/trifluoperazine, but I'm too scared to start taking it because I read that it can cause both bloods clots and also a few people in the past have suddenly died taking it. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm on the waiting list for NHS therapy but I just need help to get me through each night until then. I'm so scared to sleep. I just want to be in control.

Chloe I've sent you a message x

[Sar89]

Illgetthere... It's so awful isn't words can't even describe the horror and fear that fills u when u have this feeling u won't see ur baby grow up... The death of peaches geldof today has really set me off she's only a few months older then me and such a sudden random death.. Those poor little babies of hers :-( x

[bingjam]

Hi. Ive been in the same situation as you are right now about 6 years ago, I was so scared just like you, at night I used to set the alarm on my phone to go off every half an hour to make sure I didnt die, then on the off chance I did my partner would be awoken by the alarm and see I was dead and maybe there was a chance he could save me woth it being not too long since it happened if that makes sense.. I was like this for 4 months straight. All the sleep I lost out on worrying made me really ill and I knew I had to do something. So I just made my mind up one night that ibwouldnt set the alarm and just go to sleep, the night I didnt sleep at all, the next night was a bit better.... it got better and better every night and now 6 years later the thought does still creep up on me but it doesnt worry me as much as it used to...

Just know that the thoughts your having will eventually dissappear

Xx

[mummyanxious]

As a single mother to two very young children I really do understand where you're coming from. All that everyone has written here is so touching.
The peaches thing has worried everyone understandably. We dontbknowcwhsts happened yet but I can't help but think seeing the love she has for her children she wouldn't have done something stupid to leave them. But we won't know just yet and you and I need to try and put it out of our minds. It's very hard though.

[yenool]

have you ever tried looking at it from a 'so what' point of view?
I mean if you were to die in your sleep so what? You wouldn't know anything about it as you would be dead...!

Dying in your sleep has to be preferable to the way most people die and I would have thought if asked most people would like to just pass away peacefully sleeping when the time is right.


I don't want to die. I just want to live.
This is obviously the main issue. Nobody wants to die but the reality is we are ALL in the process of dying. One certainty of life is death at the end. All you can do is take one day at a time.

[Jabberwoxx]

Hello Chloe,
Sorry for bumping up an old post. But I did because I have exactly the same fear as you (if you look at my last thread). For me it's Sudden Adult Death and Long QT syndrome. I'm up at quarter to 5 because I've read online that Clarithromycin (which is an antibiotic I took 6 months ago) can cause sudden cardiac death which has sent my anxiety through the roof. :(

People have given such great advice to both you and me but it doesn't take the anxiety away because there's a niggling ''what if'' doubt in our minds constantly. I completely identify with the 1% chance you could die in your sleep feeling. I always feel like even if people tell me it won't happen (people get really annoyed with me about this) then it doesn't stop it from happening. If it's going to, it's going to.

In that respect I suppose you - and I - could look at it in the sense that it doesn't matter what you do, worrying won't prevent it from happening if it's going to. So you could either go to sleep without worrying - and it could happen (albeit an extremely slim chance) or you could worry and worry and worry all night, make yourself feel very ill and tired and unhappy, go to sleep eventually and it still happens. So with regards to that, worrying doesn't make any sense at all :)

Nobody wants to die, everyone wants to live. But we all die eventually, that's the thing. Both of us need to realise that there are much more common ways of dying which we don't even think about (for example, I'm sure you don't worry about getting in somebody's car, but statistically there is more chance of dying from road accidents than there is sudden cardiac death in a young adult - yet we both worry much, much more about the latter).

I hope I haven't brought up bad feelings bumping this post but I want you to realise you're not alone :) I'm going through the same thing (as indicated by being up at 5am!) yet I can't practise what I preach :blush:

[Alice1]

Nobody wants to die, everyone wants to live. But we all die eventually, that's the thing. Both of us need to realise that there are much more common ways of dying which we don't even think about (for example, I'm sure you don't worry about getting in somebody's car, but statistically there is more chance of dying from road accidents than there is sudden cardiac death in a young adult - yet we both worry much, much more about the latter). :

This really made me think, because it's odd how little we worry about these things. Personally I feel that it's because it feels as though in road accidents it's not your body 'betraying' you for want of a better word. It's a thing that happens so quickly there's no point worrying about it.
Really there shouldn't be a difference and it just proves that this can be very easy to control if we only thought about all situations as we did those we don't worry about.

[Jabberwoxx]

This really made me think, because it's odd how little we worry about these things. Personally I feel that it's because it feels as though in road accidents it's not your body 'betraying' you for want of a better word. It's a thing that happens so quickly there's no point worrying about it.
Really there shouldn't be a difference and it just proves that this can be very easy to control if we only thought about all situations as we did those we don't worry about.

I'm a firm believer that anxiety makes us focus on the smaller, slim chances rather than the bigger picture, because with anxiety, everything is magnified. It's a similar thing with OCD; I have a friend suffering from it who believes she may contract HIV through the smallest things e.g. touching door handles, yet the chances are pretty much zero.

I agree with the body betraying part too. For a young person to die in their sleep of a random undiagnosed heart defect seems more frustrating than dying of a road accident which is more commonplace - yet both have the same result. Both involve dying. Yet the former is worse because I think no-one likes to be singled out as a one-off, rare case, especially with something like this. And no-one wants to be unlucky.

[Catherine S]

Great replies Jabberwoxx, makes perfect sense and a good way to look at it.

ISB

[mummyanxious]

How you doing Chloe?