fear of death

[smcc8172]

The fear of being there one minute and not the next can be really scary, the thought of not 'existing at all', but remember you have been 'nothing' before, before you were born you did not exist and it wasnt scary was it !

[befuddled1]

The fear of being there one minute and not the next can be really scary, the thought of not 'existing at all', but remember you have been 'nothing' before, before you were born you did not exist and it wasnt scary was it !

The idea that I was once nothing terrifies me almost as much as the fact that I will be again.

I have a fear of death as in end of existence/self as well. It is currently pretty well latent but was more active around the end of last year. Related to that I seem to have difficulty doing anything future-orientated (which is most things in our culture) and 'looking forward' for fear that something may happen to thwart my plans. Like I shouldn't look too far ahead or get too excited and into planning for the future because that might somehow make it more likely to occur that things will go wrong or death will happen. Bizarre, huh? Having said it's latent, that means it's not in my head too much but is present in the way I deal with life (as above) and sometimes I seem to wake up or have moments in the night when I'm horrified about the realisation I will one day cease to be. I seem to suddenly realise that this has been happening without me really having noticed it.
The fact I can write this now, means I'm not suffering with it too badly. It's 'put away' but I still got a twinge when reading someone else's post and am wondering if I should be a bit more concerned about how I'm writing this, the fact that I can do it so easily may mean I'm not taking the fear seriously enough or something... weird.
Anyway, there are lots of other threads on this I think. That's my contribution for now...

[PHOBIA MAN]

Hi, just thought i'd make a little point here, that may benefit you all, it regards this line "I have to train myself just NOT to think about it"
the mind cannot be trained NOT to think about something, all it can do is think about something else. eg. don't think about a red car (you just did!) never think about your right hand (you just did!) to some degree in order to try not to think about something you have to first think about it and then somehow eeerm!, not! get it? I have just treated a young man with FOD (Thanatophobia) (I'm a Hypnotherapist/NLP practitioner) and the key is to concentrate on gratitude of life and what you want from it and those around you, it's true there is a bit more to it than this but it's a start. Also "stay in the now" predicting the future is for Maddam Zsa Zsa and her crystal ball! you are alive NOW! your living rellies and friends are alive NOW! live in the moment and if you catch yourself drifting into negative thoughts cut it short by thinking about how warm/cold you are or how comfortable you are, soon your mind will learn to switch quickly to the here and now. This is how to "train yourself" to eeerm not think about it!
This is what is called the law of reverse effect 'the more you try not to, the more you will. Develope the attitude of gratitude, and marvel at life.
"you get more of what you focus on" if you focus on (just an example, i'm not suggesting anything here, ok?) how ugly you think you are, then in your lack of self confidence you will project 'unnatractive' qualities about yourself and therefore become a self fulfilling prophecy. What i'm trying to say is, if you concentrate on death, you forget to LIIIVE!! and this is a kind of living death.
Take what you will from this!
listen to the muller yoghurt song' it does a better job that me! copy and paste this whole address
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOKbFJWQAC8
I think you may be able to just click on it?
Toodles all!

I know exactly how you feel I spend ages lying awake being petrified about dying, not being with the people I love and what will happen to them. The thought scares me more than anything else. However I have to train myself just NOT to think about it because my mind goes around in circles otherwise. If this is the only life I have then I don't want to waste it! Hope things get easier for you xx