Fear of Death: Sounding Board (all welcome)

[NoPoet]

Hi all, I was watching something today and I found part of it really inspiring.

When I was suffering very badly from anxiety last year, I found all mention of death or suicide made me feel terrible. I've learned that this is a really common thing with anxiety. After all, we're all mortal, and actually understanding that is a difficult and frightening thing, since there are no guidelines for coping with it and there are no easy answers to any of the questions it raises.

I thought it might help if people got a chance to actually discuss their thoughts on the matter. You can tell us what made you think about death, how it made you feel, and then tell us how exactly you have started to deal with it.

I'm not expecting loads of people to reply with answers or insights into life and death, I just want to give people a safe place where they can talk about their fears and maybe realise that they are not alone.

Who knows, maybe we will actually stumble across a few truths along the way.

To open the thread I'll quote the episode of Stargate Universe which inspired me to start this thread.

Eli: "I'm really afraid that my mom's just gonna give up if I die out here. I remember as a kid, I was - I don't know, I was maybe 7 or 8 - my grandfather died. My parents took me to the funeral. Watching his casket getting lowered into the ground, it - it was the first time that I realised, I was gonna die one day. I mean, I knew people died, I'm talking about the idea that my consciousness was gonna end. I wasn't gonna see what happened to the world. I... it was such an empty, dark feeling, like I was falling down a pitch black hole. It was - it scared the crap out of me."

Dr Rush: "I take it you don't believe in the afterlife."

Eli: "That - fear - was almost too much to handle. I guess maybe I thought one day I'd get used to it."

Dr Rush: "But you don't."

Eli: "No. No, it scared me just as much every time."

Dr Rush: "Most people realise their own mortality at some stage of the game, Eli. It's not a particularly unique experience."

Eli: "I know."

Dr Rush: "The question is: did it change you? Did it inspire you to make something of the short existence that we have?"

[davey]

im more scared of the pain before death instead of death itself....does that still count?

[Newin]

davey, i think i agree with you.
now that psychopoet started this thread with a movie quotation i mention about another quote from "Terminator 4" last scene when Marcus gives his HEART to Connor :

" What is it that makes us human?
it's not something you can program.
You can't put it into a chip.
it's the strength of the human heart.
The difference between us and machines."

although it seems everything gonna be programmed someday but this quote makes me happy:)
and sorry if it is Irrelevant to the thread!!

[suzie21]

Hiya,

Thanks so much for making this thread, its been on my mind a lot recently but I feel like I can't talk to anyone about it because its not a subject people like to talk about a lot, so I really appreciate this.

I've had real problems with anxiety over the past few months, mostly worrying about health problems, hypochondria, panic attacks etc. And I'm having some therapy for it which I hope is helping :) Recently though I've been thinking that what the anxiety stems from is ultimately a fear of dying.

I'm not really scared of the actual process, I'm scared of never seeing the people I love again and of missing out on so much (I'm only 20). A few years ago, a friend of mine died when she was 18 which was a massive tragedy. I have thought a lot about how when you die its just nothingness, and she won't get to see what's going on in the world, she will miss out on so many happy times, she will never see her loved ones again. It scares me so much.

What also scares me is the mystery of it. Nobody really knows what happens after we die which terrifies me. I'm not religious and so I think nothing happens. However, I wish that I was religious, I think it would be amazing to believe there was a God controlling everything happening to us, and that there was an afterlife, and we would pass on to heaven or be reincarnated. I genuinely think that would be such a huge comfort and I would love to believe in it but I just don't unfortunately.

And thirdly, I have always feared not being in control, I hate flying because I'm not in control for example, but recently I've felt like we're not in control of anything, we could die at any time and that terrifies me so much.

I really would love to learn how to accept death because at the moment I feel like its affecting the way I live.

[trish1955]

my whole panic and anxiety started at the age of 12 i was so sure if i went to sleep i would die evry day i would be crying to my mum i am goin to die and even though over the years my anxiety and panic as lfted a few times never gone but thw fear of deathas been in my head now for forty years i now fear dying not avein lived a real life without fear dont no if this counts

[agnes]

When my anxiety is at its worst and I'm scared of dying, I just almost wish it would happen (dont get me wrong, I dont want to cause it myself) instead of having to live in fear of it all the time.

[Vanilla Sky]

I look at it in the way that ..if we have no memory of coming into this world then the same will happen going out . Like eg where were we when our great grandparents were here ? Where were we .. do we have memory of being in an awful place ? No .
In my work i see people dying and most of them just slip away , I see illness and dying a bit like pregnancy and childbirth , only the other way round .
Perhaps we do come back again as a new born , if thats true , then we will only have memories while we are here with them and when we go . the process starts all over again .
Fear of death is a thing that we humans have in our heads and anxiety brings these fears out , of course in the most horrible way we can think of them .
Live life for the here and now , learn your lessons that are set out for you, because i do believe we will be back as another person and i sure aint taking this anxiety back with me

:) Paige xx

[racdun]

My fear of dying really started after my first born. I suddenly realised that I was responsible for someone and he depended on me and what would happen if I was not there. That abated itself over a couple of months but then by the time i had baby number five and i was under a lot of stress cause she was very colicy and did not sleep much I got post natal anxiety and I remember one day the thought came into my head of what a heart attack would feel like. For a while I was stunned wondering where the thought had came from and what a silly way of thinking. Then a few weeks later a friend did die at 25 of sudden death and my thought came back more along with the chest pain! I knew nothing about stress that time, it was just a word to me. But it all led to my first panic attack where I was lying on the ground waiting to die because I felt so weak and faint and my heart was pounding so fast and hard. That was 4 years ago and thankfully now I am a lot better. I have learnt as much about anxiety and panic and it does not really bother me much anymore but I still do have it in the back of my mind that I am afraid of death. I am not afraid for myself but more for my family and how they would cope. I used to be able to run the video in my head of them being so upset and never getting over it. But I am stronger now and I know that there would be great support and they would cope somehow because they would have to.
I do see a homeopath and lately she asked me if I found out that I had a week to live what would I do? Would I live my last week fully and pack in as much as I could? Or would I wither and crumble into a total mess?
At the moment I would honestly say I would initally veer towards the second option but maybe with a bit more work on myself and my beliefs i can change that to the first scenario. But only because I am stronger now. If I had been asked that question last year I would not have stopped crying everytime I thought of the question.
Good post psychopoet.

[JFlower]

I am terrified of not seeing my daughter grow up but more so of the thought of her without a mum - I am incredibly close to my own mother and want my daughter to have the benefit of such a relationship.

My anxiety started as a result of an accident which landed me in hospital for a week. Totally random (freak) accident and a therapist told me I was lucky not to die. I'd not thought of that aspect but when I did the thought started to consume me.

[NoPoet]

I'd like to thank everyone who has made a contribution to this thread. I know personally how tough it can be to face this type of fear... and my fears about death have been bad, but nothing like as bad as some peoples'. People who live with that kind of sword above their head day after day are the heroes of today. Just because they aren't rich, they don't carry hairless dogs in their handbags, because they aren't prepared to go on telly and make idiots of themselves, does not mean that these people will never amount to anything.

A person with a morbid fear of death copes with their burden through every single second of every day. They don't care whether they can win the X Factor, they don't care if they can't afford a nine grand dress or own a Porsche, their eyes are fixed on something that will outlast talent shows and possessions.

I personally salute every person who spends any time at all dealing with the fear of death, as they are dealing with what, in the balance of things, is the first and final problem facing us all.

Having said that, maybe the real heroes - the elite among the elite - are the ones who can acknowledge this burden and live their lives regardless.

So what if we all face death? Maybe that is the one thing that links every human being who ever lived and who will ever live, from Julius Caesar to that weird-looking prat from Big Brother, from the first homo sapiens who crawled out of his cave and wondered what the stars were for to some unimaginably advanced humanoid in the far future.

Maybe there is no over-reaching, mystical fate. Maybe we are here, we are alive and we need to live our lives in whatever way we can, and so long as we are happy, we are doing what God or nature or some vast cosmic creator intended us to do all along.

Maybe when we die we become something else. Some people think we become like a ray of sunshine. Others might think we leave our bodies behind and journey into an afterlife of some kind. Some people think we just stop: for some of us, that thought leaves us cold with horror, while for others it gives them a sense of calm and peace, knowing that whatever we endure today, when it's all over we are safe and quiet.

Einstein apparently believed in some form of life after death. He said that human consciousness is a form of energy and energy cannot be destroyed - only changed into another state of existence. In that case, maybe who we are and what we do are like ideas: an idea cannot be killed. Freedom is an idea. So is hope.

Finally, where death can seem like a terrible thing and we can fear how it might happen to us, who's to say that we are doomed to die a lonely or painful death? How do we know we won't go out fighting, and our last words to the people around us won't be "Tell my family I wasn't afraid"?

Consider these words from the magnificent (and quite startlingly violent) film Kick-Ass. The hero of the film has fought three gang members to a standstill to defend a man he doesn't know. Exhausted and battered, Kick-Ass crouches over the wounded man while the gang members face him with knives and a crowd of onlookers from a nearby restaurant decide to film the action on their phones rather than intervene.

Gang Member: "What the **** is wrong with you, man? You'd rather die for some piece of **** you don't even ****ing know?"
Kick-Ass: "Three ***holes, laying into one guy while everybody else watches? And you wanna know what's wrong with me? Yeah, I'd rather die. So bring it on."

[Maj]

That's why I think people who suffer from palpitations feel so bad because it's all about the heart and if your heart isn't functioning right then what's the outcome in our minds...........:ohmy: (even although benign palpitations are COMPLETELY harmless!) I remember when I first suffered palpitations and I thought that my heart was on it's way out and death was impending!! I was terrified. I now know that palpitations mean nothing, but I remember the fear of death and felt it was just round the corner. No matter how awful we anxiety sufferers feel and no matter how desperate and in despair we feel I think it's fascinating that deep down we really all Fear Death - as opposed to finding it a welcome release! Thanks for this post Poet. Yet another interesting, thoughtful thread by a compassionate man.:hugs: