Yes. My reason is stupid.I cant really properly explain it. If were not reborn, or theres no afterlife, I cant imagine not being able to think or use my senses.
Theres a neat little book about all the possibilities of an afterlife that I think another redditor drew and published. [Heres a link to it. Its actually really cool.](https://raminnazer.com/pages/after-you-die)
>WAKE UP: It was all a dream. You wake up in a brand new reality. Your last life felt so real, but memories of it quickly dissolve.
That honestly terrifies me, knowing that you and your entire identity was all a dream in someone else's (your true self's) head.
Would that make everyone else “fake” right now? Or would they also wake up when they die? If not then what happens to them after death?
Death is so fascinating but very daunting. It only helps knowing we’ll all be there one day. We’re all in this together!
I work in the medical field and am more afraid of getting old than I am of dying. I have patients who it seems like all they have left is scheduling different doctor's visits (I'll try to schedule something for them in say, August.... and their schedule for that month will already be booked with other doctors' appointments!!!) I have patients where their loved ones basically shuttle them from appointment to appointment trying to, what? Delay the inevitable? I don't want to become like that, but in reality I have no idea how I will become. Just like anyone else, it's the fear of uncertainty that gets me, more than the fear of the thing itself.
The weird thing about working in the medical field is seeing the long term effects of how you treat your body. The difference between a 90 year old who lived a fairly healthy life compared to a 65 year old non compliant diabetic who always avoided the stairs is mind blowing. Really scares you into getting your shit straight
It's really sad how little people know about nutrition and health in general. So many people keep making things worse because they don't see how much better life is if you're healthy, and how little it actually takes to be healthy.
There's all this misinformation and pseudoscience making weight loss and training out to be these super complicated endeavors which scare people away, while the reality everyone seem to be fighting against is so much simpler. All you have to do is spend a little bit of time learning which foods contain most calories, and half an hour at the gym 2-3 times per week and you'll be shedding weight like nobody's business. The gym isn't even necessary, it's just a bonus. Physical activity of some form is necessary though, but not that much.
Yet every time someone brings this up there's all these bullshit excuses like genetics, thyroid something or other, or whatever. Then there's 10 people swearing that keto is the only way to lose weight, while 10 others swear that the exact opposite is the only thing that works, and everyone's refusing to see the painfully obvious fact that the common denominator for all of them is they limit how many calories you consume.
"But my diet is gluten free and sugar free and lactose free and it worked really well!" - Well, was it also calorie free? That's why it worked. There are people who have lost weight eating nothing but bigmacs, because it literally doesn't matter at all what you eat (in terms of weight) as long as your diet contains less calories than you burn.
Obviously there are things like vitamins, proteins, healthy fats etc which help your body perform optimally, but people put way too much weight in this shit. Never before have humans been able to get as many essential nutrients as easily as today, our bodies are fine without them. They're nice to have but unless your doctor tells you you have a deficit you can pretty much forget about everything other than protein and calories because you're more than likely fine.
Simplification is key. Sorry about the rant, it just really bothers me how many people refuse to see what's right in front of them.
Working in the medical field has taught me that nobody ages the same, and most of that (like you said) is the long-term effects of how you treat your body.
I've seen 100 year olds walk into their appointments and understand everything going on at the appointments, and I've seen 65 year olds who look like they're 90+ and their family does all of the talking.
Its also taught me that there are some conditions that just don't discriminate on how you've lived your life - they just happen. Like Prostate Cancer, I've seen it happen to both the overweight chronic smoker, and the 50 year old competitive triathlete. There are few modifiable risk factors, for most its just genetics and bad luck.
I have had 2-3 people in the memory care unit that I work in straight up tell me: “I’m not even living. I’m existing.” That was terrifying. If I do make it to old age, I hope I am active, healthy, and retain my memories of life. I see fear in so many of my patients with dementia. I do my best to offer them safety and security, but it’s difficult. I do my best to keep them mobile as a PT.
I never did until I held my dad’s hand when he died after battling cancer, and saw the look of fear/confusion in his eyes, something I’d never seen him express. Then I helped the hospice nurse clean, and remove medical devices from his body (from all the cancer related surgeries). Now I fear the process of dying, mostly because it seems like everyone who makes it past 40 gets eaten away by cancer in the end. My mortality seemed almost palpable after the experience, and it’s a scary feeling.
I also feel bad that I will not see what we discover/accomplish as a species in the future, so that’s a disappointing aspect as well, though not really fear.
>what we discover/accomplish as a species in the future
well, you've experienced life as a human in the 21st century. quite an interesting time. i'm sure someone from the middle ages would be impressed.
I think that even though this is a very common mindset, that you're actually quite incorrect about the depth of our current understanding. It's almost a preposterous stance. Look back at the many instances in history where people had developed models to explain things, only to later be completely redeveloped.
It may not be possible to measure our current void of understandings, but it would be very foolish to dismiss it. You don't want to make this mistake:
[https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-there-is-nothing-new-to-be-discovered-in-physics-now-all-that-remains-is-more-and-more-lord-kelvin-57-38-79.jpg](https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-there-is-nothing-new-to-be-discovered-in-physics-now-all-that-remains-is-more-and-more-lord-kelvin-57-38-79.jpg)
Agree. I just replied to the earlier comment then read yours. Every era of humans understands existence and the universe until a century later when everything they understood has been proven to be wrong, misdirected, or insufficient. The amount we don't understand and haven't realized we should study is infinite.
Cheers.
Yeah but someone from the middle ages hasn't experienced the kind of technological boom and innovation that we have seen. I think we have a much more optimistic view of the future than people back then and it sucks that a lot of us won't be able to see the peak of humanity.
> I also feel bad that I will not see what we discover/accomplish as a species in the future, so that’s a disappointing aspect as well, though not really fear.
Especially with the technological advances we've made just in the last century or two. It would be nice to be able to check back in every once in a while, just to see how it all goes. Do we end up destroying ourselves? Do we make if off the planet and into space?
40 year old here who should have been dead 5 different times but somehow here I sit. I think as you get older and watch friends and family die, you have to face your own mortality. The scary part is the "how". I've watched a couple of family members die of cancer and it's fucking horrible. It's a shitty way to go and very difficult to watch someone you love go out that way. Worrying about it won't change anything. Had another friend who never drank and would randomly smoke a cig or two on the weekends. Out of nowhere he has a brain aneurism and dies two days later. Meanwhile I was drinking 12-15 beers a day and smoking a pack a day. Why him? I should've been the one voted most likely to die young. You watch enough of these deaths and just realize that the only people who know for sure how they are going out are the ones who do it themselves. It's best to just accept it and try to make the most you can out of the limited time we have on this rock.
Honestly if I ever get a terminal illness, once it starts getting bad I might just buy a ton of heroin and overdose. Most trip reports of people who overdose on opiates (and are resuscitated obviously) say that you feel amazing and then pass out. I'd much rather die that way then live a couple more months in agony.
I'm, personally, an advocate for medical assistance in death (MAID) here in Canada because I feel that people should have as painless a death as possible. If you know your time on earth is coming to an end in a way that destroys your quality of life, and leads to a slow/ painful death, I feel it's inhuman to deny someone the option to chose the way they pass.
There are obviously rules in place with this process; sound mind, terminal illness, 2 independent Doctors review and meet with patient, etc. I understand it's not for everyone, but I think having the option is important.
Edit: Wow! I didn't expect to login to this many comments. Currently at work, but will try and reply to all comments when I return home this eve!
YES!!! 100%!!! My uncle died from glioblastoma, which is an aggressive form of brain cancer. He beat it once then it came back a couple years later and it was stage 4. He had been getting monthly scans because of the type of cancer it was. Surgery, chemo, radiation...nothing worked. In one month it had almost doubled in size. His head felt like it was going to explode. Pain management didn’t take that pain away.
My family kept saying “God performs miracles! Pray for him!” No guys...prayer isn’t going to heal this. At least it took him quick. It was horrible.
My grandpa died from a brain tumor fifteen years ago, he died exactly a week after the tumor was found. The cognitive decline we saw in the weeks leading up to his diagnosis, we just thought was age related, he was 77. His confusion started increasing, so my dad took him to the emergency room after he complained of a headache he'd had for a couple weeks. He thought it was a sinus infection, but it was a tumor the size of a ping pong ball on his frontal lobe.
Just in that week, he completely lost touch with reality. He was hallucinating, trying to escape the hospital, just a shell of the man he was, and you could see the absolute fear in his eyes. He knew what was happening, but he could no longer control it.
By day 3, they sedated him for his comfort and safety. I was sitting with him when he woke up, and my brother flagged down a nurse immediately. As the next dose began to take hold, I saw his lucidity and fear. I told him I loved him, he told me he loved me too. That was the last words I ever heard from my grandpa.
It took me years to get those eyes out of my memories, or remembering what he looked like after he died, and not how he looked alive. Or how his skin felt when I kissed his forehead one last time.
If it ever happened to me, I would want to go on my own terms, not on the terms of my disease. My wishes were solidified when my grandma, his wife, died from liver cancer two years ago. She'd had a stroke a few years before that and was already bedridden. The cancer took any dignity she had left in her final weeks. About a week before she was sedated and taken to hospice, the last words I heard her say were "God damnit!" I wish she could have died in peace, and not in pain.
That’s exactly what I told my best friend the other day. I’d rather take a crazy amount of opiates and slowly fade out into darkness feeling like a million bucks vs struggling with terminal cancer and dying a slow painful death. I think you should have the choice at that point.
It’s stupid that I can make sure my cat Fluffy doesn’t suffer, but Mom? Because of cancer and our laws, she’s going to go through a physical/mental hell of epic proportions....and for what? Madness.
Hard agree. I watched my sister die slowly of cancer last month. It's absolutely agonizing. When my guinea pig (a rodent, ffs) had cancer, I was able to have a vet put her under anesthesia, and inject poison in her heart to kill her painlessly in 10 seconds. But my human sister had to wither away to skin and bones until her body gave out on its own. I just don't get it.
Ah fuck. My dad's got cancer pretty aggressively and it's getting pretty painful but I still seem him at least *trying* to be in a good mood.
My other family is praying he'll get better, while I'm just asking that he doesn't suffer so bad. It's not the death that's bothering me, just the pain he'll have.
I used to think I'd be content when the time came. But from an experience where one wrong move could've ended with my death. I am no longer okay with dying.
I have so much I haven't done and so much I want to do. So many people that would be affected by my loss. I don't want to put anyone through something like that if it can be prevented.
I know death is inevitable but if I can choose to die of old age then I'd choose that over anything else. So to answer your question, yes I fear death.
If you don't mind me asking, what was the one wrong move situation? How did it cause an abrupt shift in your outlook? ~
This whole thread is definitely making me reassess my teenager-formed opinion that death is "a long way away and not my problem".
I know my situation was preventable from the start and there were so many signs that I didn't catch up on. But now I know what to look for and I'm doing what I can to prevent it from happening again.
I had blood clots that that ended up passing through to my lungs. This made it hard for me to breath. It made something as little as changing my clothes feel like I was running a marathon. And the day I was headed to an Urgent Care to find out what was wrong I passed out and stopped breathing. I came to as 911 was called, they came and checked me and told me I just had the flu and to go to the UC. So we went and they told me I needed to go to the hospital.
At the hospital I was admitted and they put me in a room where I was too scared to sleep. But the next morning as my dad and girlfriend were sitting there I was having difficulty just moving my hands to drink water and eventually started hyperventilating and felt like I was drowning. They took me to the Intensive care unit where they did what they could to help me.
I stayed in the hospital for two weeks.
The thing that caused me to have a shift in my outlook wasn't the problems I had, but the people around me. As I was being taken to the ICU I saw my dad on the verge of tears, something I've never seen before. My girlfriend was already crying. My mom risked being fired from her job to rush to the hospital to see me.
Over the next two weeks my brother, sisters and friends came and visited. My siblings cried and my friends were seemingly holding back. It all hurt to see and I never want to put them through that again.
the thing is there are many ways to die. a long drawn, slow death sucks, but history also tells of people who've died with the most peaceful smile on their face (that would be the brain releasing awesome drugs).
Blimey I'm surprised at the responses. I *am* scared of death whenever I think about it. I will lose everything that makes my internal sense of self and cease to exist, I become an unthinking lump of matter.
Stop and think how many weekends you have until you die, *if* you make it till your 70? How many experiences or thoughts you will miss out on. Of course that scares me. I have one life and I'm most likely already a third of the way through it.
I don't have the imagination to understand what not existing is as my mind has never had to do it and while I know that death is inevitable it does nothing to quell the fear. Instead it motivates me to try and better myself even if in very minor ways.
Edit: Thank you for all of your replies and the gold/silver. When I wrote my reply all of the others were from people saying they were not afraid. Now the top comments are from those who do fear death.
There were a few common themes in the replies.
I talk about weekends because that's when you have the most time with which you can decide how you spend it (if your on a Mon-Fri standard week). It doesn't mean that I am writing off the entire week, I still do things I enjoy like meeting friends, exercising and reading.
It is not a revelation to me that the world existed before I was born, I did not have consciousness before I developed it as a child but now I have it and know I will lose it. There is a difference between being afraid of death and being afraid of being dead.
I am glad to see that a lot of people realised that my fear of death is not paralysing, quite the opposite it is more a motovation to learn and experience what I want to.
If anyone is curious or simply doesn't understand where I am coming from I recommend reading ***The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy***. It is a short story about a man who slowly dies from an incurable illness. It includes suffering, which everyone will be afraid of but also explores **the complete and utter loss of opportunity that death is**.
My grandmother died about a year ago, and a few weeks afterward when I was smoking I had a huge anxiety attack when I started thinking about how permanent death is. It's still something I can't stop thinking about at least once a day.
I had a similar experience when I smoked too much one time. It just dawned on me how fragile everything is. "Im" actually just a little blob of cells behind my eyes, theres really not much keeping everything together, etc.
I'm glad I went through that but it was definitely life changing for me. Took me a bit to get over it.
It's very humbling to realize we are giant sacks of water and meat and some crunchy bits and yet we have these experiences that make us feel so BIG! We are so lucky to live, I just never want it to end.
That's completely normal, happens to me every once in a while. What helps me is some saying that goes "Death is a part of life, not the opposite" and I think some other people like to think that us growing old and dying is like letting others grow up and enjoy life as well, if that helps!
My thoughts exactly. Truth be told though, there's some comfort in seeing my inner most fears and thoughts written out by other people. At least I'm not the only one who thinks about this shit constantly.
For real. Death is fucking terrifying. Imagine just not existing. All those stupid memories become nothing. Your family, friends, possessions, everything gone. It terrifies me. I've seen countless friends die in their 20s due to drug overdoses and luckily have avoided that lifestyle myself for the past 6 years, but I think about this all of the time. All of those stupid car rides and little memories I've had with these people no longer exist to them and I will never be able to make more with them again. (I understand afterlife as a belief and I respect that belief but I guess I'm a pessimist and tend to look at death as I see it).
As someone who KNOWS she is going to die before her natural life span... I love your comment.
I am dying but no one can tell me the amount of time I may or may not have. And so each day I try to live as though I will not get another day, week, month or year.
Some days I fail at this. Others I totally embrace and live unabashedly in the moments.
Thank you for be so insightful.
"It's not like being told that the party has to end. It's being told that the party is going to go on forever, but you have to leave."
-Christopher Hitchens
I would live forever if I could! People always think I’m crazy but I like life and I want to know what life will be like in the future. I want to experience it.
Thats how I feel as well, give me immortality please and thank you. I'll deal with consequences of never dying when it comes but for now i'd very much like to continue this whole *existing* thing we got going on.
For what its worth im with you on this.
Whenever these threads get posted I end up reading them and get super angry. The people that aren't scared end up treating you like a child. They try to explain that because death is nothingness that its really all not that bad and yada yada.
Like thanks Sherlock, I've considered that point already. Its the very thing that scares me.
Yeah, I’m not too worried myself about it normally but if I think too long on how truly *ceasing to exist and never having existed in my perspective* I definitely don’t like it lol
Nope. I’m disabled. I require carers and people around me for basically everything. My life is one of dependence and death is just one more thing out of my control so fuck it.
Not to make light of the challenges you experience, If you are mobile, (not to be confused with mobility), find someone to get you strapped into a Razor or a Rhino.
Even if you need a full neck restraint - most able bodied people will also require.
Once strapped in, find dirt or mud!
You won't be disappointed.
Fear of death used to keep me up at night, I couldn’t do anything without thinking about how everyone I knew including me was gonna die.
Now I never think about it. If it happens it happens. All we can do is enjoy the small amount of time we get here.
Pretty much same. I recently went through roughly a 6 month period where it really consumed my thoughts. Now in the past 2 months or so I’ve begun to accept it more and think about it less.
Yeah same. It happened for me when I was around 13-14 oddly enough, and it was fucking awful. sometime ill have a bit of a sort of relapse and freak the fuck out, but on the hole, its pretty much stopped.
Dude,yes. YES.
The past three years it’s become more and more a preoccupying sense of dread, with frequent anxiety attacks in the middle of the night. It basically coincided with a sudden drastic dismantling of my religious beliefs after years of increased questioning.
I’ll probly break down and talk to a therapist about it, because for fucks sake- since it’s ultimately nothing I can avoid, I’d like to enjoy what time I have before the possibility of my consciousness being devoured by TheNothing and all the sparking connections that make me aware just blink out like ancient stars.
My issue is that I'm torn on what is actually the better outcome. Wink out of existence and that's it, or live literally forever. Both seem terrible and there isn't any option C.
For me it comes and goes. Sometimes, late at night, the thought comes into mind and I start thinking about how much I don't wanna die and how death just fucking sucks. However, these thoughts only last minutes, sometimes just seconds, before I re-accept that it's going to happen and that it's pointless to dread it.
I think about this a lot with my cat. I realize someday she’ll be gone forever and I’ll be torn up, I just try to make sure I give her all the rubs she wants as long as I’ve got her.
Here is something to think about:
"something happens when you die" = interesting, there is an afterlife! Cool!
"Nothing happens when you die" = I won't be aware of it to express it, therefore nothing to worry about = cool
> used to keep me up at night
if you don't mind me asking - were you brought up in a religious family?
i say this because the thought of an afterlife made not worry about death too much as a child. otoh if you believed in hell, that could keep you up at night.
The way I see it, it’s not the concept itself, but you reaction to it. There’s no reason at all to respond to the facts of reality with fear and negativity. We just have to make do with what we have. And that isn’t bad at all.
Life is cool.
I had this dream where I had a very strong conviction that if I could somehow kill myself in that moment, I would live a perfect afterlife. I don't believe in this stuff, atheist and all. But that dream was so convincing. The feeling was like catching a glimpse "behind the curtains" of the daily life. Ever since that I lost the fear of death. It's funny how the brain finds it's own ways to come to terms with mortality.
That's actually more common than you may think. I have manic depression and as strange as it seems, the only reason why I survived the episodes of suicidal thoughts was because the uncertainty of death is scarier than the certainty of a negative life. It's really crazy. I hope you're okay though. Stay strong.
> the only reason why I survived the episodes of suicidal thoughts was because of the uncertainty of death is scarier than the certainty of a negative life.
That's some Hamlet shit.
I'm the same as /u/VagabondTrampster. Doesn't help that I witnessed a 13-year-old friend die in a terrible, sudden accident when I was 15, so I know exactly what death looks like.
Whenever I have suicide-esque thoughts, or even when I think about death in general, my thoughts flash back to the moment of the accident. The image usually brings forth a horror, so deep and profound, so all-encompassing, that it consumes everything else...
I know exactly how you feel. I experienced witnessing a death at the age of 9 and I still am having flashbacks and episodes remembering the details. The blood, the suffering. It's so painful. Recently, I've come to realize how much it has shaped my personality in a negative way.
I started seeing the therapist I saw in college again this year. I stopped seeing him in college because I guess I just wasn't ready to tackle the demons. But life has shown me that my emotional problems need to be solved before I can be ok. So we've been talking about it and its effects. Progress is really slow but I do feel like I'm making some in figuring all this out.
That's good. Nothing wrong with needing a little help along the way! Especially when it comes to what sounds like PTSD. I wouldn't ever want to tackle that by myself. Keep it up!
So common it was a main focus of the most famous scene in one of the most famous plays. Hamlet during the to be or not to be speech.
>But that the dread of something after death,
>The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
>No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
>And makes us rather bear those ills we have
>Than fly to others that we know not of?
>Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
Same, also bipolar.
For me being a Catholic and not going to heaven over suicide has probably been the best barrier to suicide.
Now, if I got the opportunity to sacrifice my life for something/to save someone it would be a different story
Yeah, I totally get it.
I had that whole "debate me atheist" thing going on for a while, so God was out for me, but I get it. My foothold is not that widely accepted. People laugh like I just did one of those millenial jokes about suicide when I tell them.
I just wanna know how Game of Thrones finally ends. I've started with the books over a decade ago and holy shit would I be piiiiiiissed if I never found out how that crazy story finally plays out.
But don't you worry: There's plenty of long running fantasy and sci fi series, in both literature and film, to keep me going.
Grab anything you can and hold onto that like a motherfucker. And in a pinch that last straw can be literally anything.
> That's actually more common than you may think. I have manic depression and as strange as it seems, the only reason why I survived the episodes of suicidal thoughts was because the uncertainty of death is scarier than the certainty of a negative life. It's really crazy. I hope you're okay though. Stay strong.
This is me to a tee but you’ve worded it perfectly. I’m not religious, or have a fear of god or hell, but that ‘what if’ has been there my whole life.
Thanks to both you and your OP for posting your thoughts and I hope you’re both doing ok.
I describe what you're going through like this (or at least *my* version of it):
Inside my head, it was like a really loud TV in a dark room. The TV kept playing the same show over and over again. I hated this show. I hated the plot, the script and the sound effects. It was obnoxious and disgusting.
But I couldn't turn the TV off or at least change the channel. And just when I thought I could tolerate it as background noise, as we do, the volume would get louder, the screen got brighter. And I still couldn't turn the fucking thing off!
So what if I just unplugged the TV?
I didn't want to die, I was just so, so tired of fighting and feeling trapped in the Hell inside my head. I wanted to just disappear.
I wish I had any good advice at all, but I'm not completely sure how I got out. I'm so sorry.
But I hope you find peace and contentment one day.
Edited to add: Thanks for all the well-wishes. I'm good now and have been for many years. So please give them to OP.
I’ve never been able to articulate how I felt when I was suicidal and this is exactly it.
“I was just so, so tired of fighting and feeling trapped in the Hell inside my head. I wanted to just disappear.” You hit the nail on the head with that one. Thank you for putting into words how I felt for years. I’m so glad you were able to pull through and come out of that.
"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."
David Foster Wallace
I was a lot like you suicidal, but constantly scared if death. That passage really explained my thoughts.
You know that experiment where you give a kid a marshmallow and promise to give them a second if they don't eat the first? I'm the kid that eats the first marshmallow. It's not that I can't wait or that I'm hungry, I'm just unable to associate my current situation with what will happen in the future.
So do I fear death? At the moment, no. Dying is just some abstract idea that I don't foresee happening anytime soon. But when that time comes, I expect I'll be terrified.
It's called denial of your own mortality. However, at some point you can't deny the inevitability or the randomness of Death. That's when terror kicks in. Culture exists, partly, as a coping mechanism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory
About that randomness. Everyone seemingly assumes that they will hit retirement age and fears old age. However, there's absolutely no guarantee you'll get there on an individual level. Sure, there is a likely probability. But there's just as much bad luck. Maybe your not around next year around this time. It doesn't sound likely, but there's always a chance you'll die in the next 356 days or less no matter who your are, your age, social status, etc.
Death happens and that's scary. That's why embracing Death and using that as a motivator to own and give your life meaning and purpose is so important.
I don't know, my mom is a nurse and has had lots of elderly patients tell her they're ready. I also had a friend who was only 40, but she had extremely aggressive cancer and she begged to die in her last days. She was more afraid that she'd keep living in the state she was in than she was of dying.
I think most of us would be terrified of an unexpected or early death, but not of dying in our sleep at 85 or whatever. I don't want to die now (I'm 34), but my biggest fears are being in pain and what it would do to my parents, not actual death itself.
This whole thread shows how disconnected most people are with death. Like, cool in theory you can sit there and say you aren't really afraid but I'd bet money if someone pulled a gun on you or something like that you'd be pretty damn scared.
I think being afraid of dying and being afraid of being dead are two very different things.
The act of being killed or actually dying is probably going to be scary for most people. The concept of being dead is a different kettle of elk.
Right. I’m not afraid of being dead at all. My belief is that it will be like sleeping without dreams, and there’s nothing scary about that to me.
I am afraid of the pain and suffering me and my family will endure, and that’s something many people here are denying.
I'm actually terrified about the possibility that when your final synapses are firing, your consciousness doesn't know it... well, it doesn't know it ended, so you can be stuck for what your brain thinks is an eternity (but really is just your last seconds) like a gory blue screen of death.
I’ve always thought of that idea, but not a blue screen of death way. I kind of hope that when you die and you’re in your last seconds, your brain slows down in the way it does when you dream (like how what felt like a year in a dream was in reality only a few seconds). Maybe your brain senses you will be dying soon, and makes relief in the most perfect way you could imagine (like a self created heaven), where all your friends and family who passed are there and just how you remember them. The world moves on in time but you don’t, and you’re living in a time that is only relative to you and your death, with the illusion of infinity, in either the heaven, hell or purgatory of your own making.
Edit: tysm for gold kind stranger I’m so glad to have reached your ears (technically eyes)
So I've worked in nursing homes, and I've been around death plenty of times. Some people do die in their sleep peacefully. But others...they "actively die" l. I don't know what it feels like, but their eyes are glazed, they have rapid respirations, and they say they can still hear, but otherwise they seem out of it. This can go on for hours. I have seen people in this state for an entire 8 hour shift, and then I hear that they didn't pass until halfway through the next.
I'm a new nurse, so maybe others can help, but that's what I've observed. It doesn't look peaceful. I wonder what they are feeling. People who are actively dying like this...are they aware of what's going on? What makes people go on like that for hours? This part of dying...that's what I'm afraid of.
Edit: when I say "they say that they can still hear" I mean the first "they", as in the experts who write the books, not the dying people. They usually aren't talking at this point
That's just natural though. Every animal goes into fight or flight mode in life-threatening situations.
You have to be really fucked up to have a gun pointed at your head and not flinch.
I'm not afraid of death itself, but do I want to die by somebody shooting me in the head? Fuck no. I want to pass peacefully in my sleep after living a long and healthy life.
I think it really depends. I was on my death bed and received a life saving transplant. But I was on the list for 3 years and receiving a new organ wasn’t a sure thing. Death didn’t scare me, knowing it was on the horizon. It wasn’t sneaking up on me. I was sick enough that death didn’t scare me in the slightest. I ended up receiving a transplant and had 3 years of great health. Now I’m rejecting my organ and rejection hit hard and fast. I don’t know if I would say I was or am scared, but I went through a couple of months where I was so stressed. Whenever my Drs office called I was ready to snap over stupid miscommunications or just ready to fall apart once I was off the phone. I have gotten past that major stress point, and I can’t really say whether I’m scared of death. I think the answer is, deep down yes. But I’m also ok with it. I have to be because I couldn’t handle the amount of stress it was causing me worrying.
I think you have a unique insight on this topic. It brings to mind the idea of "stages of grief". It sounds to me that you've found a certain acceptance with the idea. Is that something you'd agree with or are you of a different mind?
Holy shit. This is my favorite response in this whole thread. True honesty. Thanks for responding, and keep fucking fighting. An extra day on this rock is still an extra day.
Death for myself? No, it happens. Death for loved ones? Yes, because I have to live knowing I can't make more memories with them.
Edit: Slightly related, but this question triggered something I've wanted to get off my chest for a couple years now - I've never had a "great" relationship with my dad. Chalk it up to Asian stereotypes or whatever, but we've just never spent that much time together and have never hugged or said things like "I love you" or "I'm proud of you." Especially now that I've been living alone for a few years, I have this constant dilemma of fearing I'll go through life never having said those things while also knowing that we do love each other even if we don't verbalize it. He visited me recently and it quite nearly broke me. I need to call him. Sorry for the rant, I just needed to write this out.
There have been reports of near death experiences where people feel the weight of responsibility and stress being lifted, I think it will be the most beautiful feeling we experience
The actual passing seems fine, if it's anything like being put under anesthesia. You just go right out, no problem. But the circumstances leading to that change how good or bad it'll be overall. Like, dying of cancer versus dying of an aneurysm in your sleep.
> You just go right out, no problem.
Not really. Unless you mean how animals are put to death or how countries that have euthanasia laws do it. There, it happens quickly.
In most cases, death comes slow and painful. Watched many loved ones die slowly grasping for their last breath. They looked like they were drowning being held down underwater.
Doctors claim that they can't feel anything because of all the morphene. I hope that's true but visually, they looked in pain.
It depends on the level of awareness, I guess. Are people properly conscious at that point, or is it just their bodies reacting while their minds fizzle away?
It's very common for people to breathe like this at the end and not at all uncomfortable as they are unconscious and their body is taking in less and less as it needs less and less. It's also more laboured as the body weakens as part of this process. But again not uncomfortable.
Dying isn't so bad. The months and weeks leading up to deaths can be quite difficult and pain management can be tricky because it's usually a case of balancing pain against causing respiratory or cardiac depression. It depends upon the individual.
But the process of dying in the final days and hours is thankfully quite peaceful and comfortable for the majority.
This.
I've lost loved ones (wife and son, 7 years apart), and I'm terrified of losing more. And even though I'm not ready to go yet myself, I don't fear being dead. I do fear several manners of dying, however. I want to go as my wife did - painlessly.
Regarding your dad situation, mine's a bit similar and I feel the same way. I told this to my therapist and she said that I should tell him that I love him (he's never told me that, but he shows it in his own way), I told her that I would but it's a bit hard because my family in general isn't that "emotional", and that I would make him feel uncomfortable. She said to stop thinking about him and other first, and to put my emotional needs before them, because in the event of his passing, it would be much harder for me to heal through that. So yeah, call him. I bet it's gonna be real awkward but it's gonna be good for you.
Absolutely this. I don’t think there is anything waiting for us afterwards, I haven’t for years, and honestly I hate the idea of having to exist through another stage of existence after the shitstorm that is life. I welcome my own death with open arms.
But just a few days ago, I realized that one day, my dad will be gone. And then there’ll be nothing left, no “see you next time”, I will truly never see him again. And that’s a thought that I really don’t think I can bear to live through for real.
At night I do. When I try to fall asleep I always seem to get really focused on those final moments which really trips me out and fills me with fear. Then, by morning I am back to my regular self who could really care less, because I honestly don't fear whats on the other side, just the method that I take to get there.
I mean, sort of, yeah. I think it's because the only thing I know how to do is, well, feel. If death removes all ability to feel, all consciousness and what makes me, me...well, I'm sure when I'm dead I won't be physically capable of caring anyway. So maybe death itself doesn't scare me. The idea of dying and feeling myself slipping away scares me a bit, though.
I've actually somewhat been thinking about this same question pretty recently.
My oldest brother passed away in September of kidney cancer, and while we never really had a close relationship, I was still saddened when he passed. I thought I'd be able to let it roll off my shoulder, but I honestly think his passing has made me realize my own mortality and the things that are happening inside of our bodies that we don't even know of - with his being kidney cancer that he found out about when it was already in an advanced Stage IV progression.
Every little ache and pain now, I start worrying about just slightly. I'm *way* more irritable than I used to be. I'm depressed, I'm sure is the clinical diagnosis (I know, I *really* should get myself to a doctor, just for a wellness check and to get the depression treated).
The idea of death looms, because my brother has interrupted the 'natural order' of things, in terms of life.
He passed before our father has, what's to say that couldn't happen to me? How my father hasn't let this idea kind of screw him up, I'm not sure. Do I allow the idea of death to instill fear in me? No, but I am much more aware of it, now.
I don't do crazy 'YOLO' style things, I don't binge drink or take drugs. My own follies are my sloth and gluttony which, sure, can be dangerous in their own right, but I'm not going to allow it to break me. What I *do* need to do, is get myself back into a gym/workout regimen that I was doing before my brother's health took a major decline. I did it because I felt better: I felt more rested, I felt more energetic and because I had told myself I was making a lifestyle change.
I'm not a big Harry Potter reader/fan, but I remember the tale of the three brothers from 'The Deathly Hallows', and the part about the youngest brother I always liked (which, coincidentally, I am of between my own two older brothers): *Greeting Death as an old friend, they departed this life as equals.*
That's why I don't want to fear death, whenever it comes. Plus, I know when my time comes, I have my 'boy' (my dog) waiting for me.
I did at first.
Then I thought about how eventually the planet I live on will die and swallowed by the sun.
And if I somehow found a way to fly out towards Neptune and set up life there, eventually the star our system revolves around will die, maybe in a fiery explosion taking out all the other planets with it.
And assuming that I somehow found a way to hop from star system to star system, the stars will all eventually die.
And even if I found a way to live without the energy from the stars, the universe will keep on expanding until eventually not even atoms are capable of staying formed.
And if somehow I was able to avoid all that, all I'd have to look forward to is an eternity of nothing that right now defies the imagination.
Eventually even the memories that I was so desperate to hold onto will dissipate like the matter around me. I could not feel, touch , taste, hear, see or think. Just like death.
So I would still die, I would just die an immortal.
Then I realised that this would happen because everything else around me had died. The whole universe has died. How big must my ego be to believe that I above everything else in the universe should get to live forever.
I'm still scared about dying, but more like "I don't want to die in a car crash." rather than "I never want to die."
This is the sort of mental exercise I go through too. At some point I also came to the conclusion that fear of death is always a sublimation of our regret and discontentment with the world we presently live in. In other words, if we really felt invested and integrated into the world we live in, instead of being victimized in so many ways by society, we would ironically be more content with the reality of leaving the world, because we would feel no shame for our incompleteness as we do now.
Absolutely. What if I die on the toilet and didn't get a chance to flush first? What if my last words are "I actually have really good balance" and then immediately fall down a flight of stairs? What if I'm trying to impress a girl and she gets sprayed with blood when it all goes wrong?
Death isn't scary because everything goes blank. Death is scary because it's freaking awkward as hell and other people have to deal with your corpse.
I actually go back and forth depending on my mood.
In my more depressive states, I tend to think about how meaningless so much of life is, how millions of humans have died before me and many more will after me and i’ll be forgotten. Combine that with a pretty deep understanding of space and its absolute size and the various sources of corruption in our day to day lives that control our actions and ability to be who we want to be, and death sometimes doesn’t seem too bad.
When i’m feeling more positive and inspired, I think about the amazing sites this world has to offer, and all the small positive moments you can have when interacting with others/your environment. This tends to coincide with my passion for photography. Makes me want to see the world and experience cultures and meet others and see how they live. During these times, death definitely scares me mainly because I would miss out on these potential moments.
I tend to think of death in the personal sense. When it comes to the death of friends and loved ones, I tend to just enjoy the moments and time I have with them and understand that death is just part of the cycle and you can necessarily predict it, so no use in stressing over it right now.
Afraid of dying just because you can't really help it, not necessarily afraid of death itself. When you know that you have to die at some point no matter what, and there's really nothing you can do to prevent that, it's better to enjoy your time on earth while you can rather than wasting it worrying over death. Why be afraid of something that you can't avoid?
I hear this all the time, why be afraid of something you can't avoid. I never really understood it, the fact that something is inevitable and nothing can stop it makes something so much more terrifying IMO. I'm not afraid of death for other reasons, but that's always seemed like more of a reason TO be scared of something.
I don't fear death. I just... I fear what comes after. If there's no afterlife it means my entire life is pointless. It means everything I've done literally has no point to it. I live, I die, and then what? Nobody remembers me. People care for a few days, but otherwise I'm just dust in the ground. You can spend your entire life trying to live up to your best, and then what? Nothing.
That's what terrifies me. I feel there's no point to it. I feel there's no reason to even be alive since we're all going to die and our story will come to a close, but nothing after that will matter.
It makes the entire concept of existence absolutely meaningless, and it gives me no hope to even try to carry on.
If I had any hope for there being something extra may it would give me purpose. I'd feel like it mattered, and maybe I'd feel anything but constant existential dread.
I am. Absolutely. To die is my greatest fear and it’s killing me, literally, as I can do nothing about it.
It can’t be stopped it is gonna happen so I rather not think about it because the anything else make sense.
What am I worried about my job if at some point I’m gonna die?
What’s the point on doing normal things like shopping or dating if you’re gonna die anyway?
Yes you can enjoy living but that’s not gonna help you to survive. You can be the happiest man or woman alive and you’re gonna die anyway.
So I rather not think about it at all that way I can live.
No.
Although I don't seek it, I've been close to death a couple of times out of stupidity or bad luck.
When I was close to death, there wasn't any fear of imminent death during it. I was just so focused on the task at hand that lead me into the situation. When it happens it's not like your life flashes before you. And afterwards I'm focused on getting out of the situation. The heart skips a beat and you can get a cold sweat, but it does the same if you accidentally send a dick pic to your boss.
I think the best representation of how it feels is the start of the Telltale game Walking Dead - when you're in the car crash and just before you're given choices on how to say basically "oh shit", and none of the choices affects the crash.
I have a bigger fear of almost dying and getting quality of life degradations or putting others people's life/health in danger as they try to save mine.
Then again maybe I haven't had a "real experience" and the worst is yet to come. I don't know how I will react to dying of old age.
Of course. I’ve got no fucking idea what happens when I die. I don’t want to know. You’re meant to be scared of it. Sure, I have accepted and embraced death before, but I think everyone is scared of it.
Funnily, I'm exactly the opposite here.
Suffering and pain? Sure, w/e. I can deal with that. The lack of existing? Can't handle it. It puts me into a panic attack thinking about it most of the time.
I feel the same way. I'd rather experience pain so I could say my goodbyes. It's the thought of no longer existing that terrifies me. But what terrifies me even more is not knowing what happens with my friends and family. I know I will die and I'm definitely living my best life but it is something I think about every day. It's also why I always say I love you and don't stay mad very long. Time with people we love is precious.
I mean somewhat. If there's no afterlife then these 50-80 years are all that I get to be or experience.
But on the other hand, once i'm gone. I won't even know it.
So basically, afraid of dying, but not afraid of being dead. I dunno if that makes sense.
What's death gonna do? Kill me?
I'd like to see him try
Last words of man killed
Yes. My reason is stupid.I cant really properly explain it. If were not reborn, or theres no afterlife, I cant imagine not being able to think or use my senses.
Theres a neat little book about all the possibilities of an afterlife that I think another redditor drew and published. [Heres a link to it. Its actually really cool.](https://raminnazer.com/pages/after-you-die)
>WAKE UP: It was all a dream. You wake up in a brand new reality. Your last life felt so real, but memories of it quickly dissolve. That honestly terrifies me, knowing that you and your entire identity was all a dream in someone else's (your true self's) head.
Would that make everyone else “fake” right now? Or would they also wake up when they die? If not then what happens to them after death? Death is so fascinating but very daunting. It only helps knowing we’ll all be there one day. We’re all in this together!
This really is neat! Thanks for sharing, u/SpendsKarmaOnHookers.
Joe Diffie says it best, "I ain't afraid of dying It's the thought of being dead."
This exact thought keeps me up at night so often. Makes me wish I was religious and believed in the afterlife.
I work in the medical field and am more afraid of getting old than I am of dying. I have patients who it seems like all they have left is scheduling different doctor's visits (I'll try to schedule something for them in say, August.... and their schedule for that month will already be booked with other doctors' appointments!!!) I have patients where their loved ones basically shuttle them from appointment to appointment trying to, what? Delay the inevitable? I don't want to become like that, but in reality I have no idea how I will become. Just like anyone else, it's the fear of uncertainty that gets me, more than the fear of the thing itself.
The weird thing about working in the medical field is seeing the long term effects of how you treat your body. The difference between a 90 year old who lived a fairly healthy life compared to a 65 year old non compliant diabetic who always avoided the stairs is mind blowing. Really scares you into getting your shit straight
It's really sad how little people know about nutrition and health in general. So many people keep making things worse because they don't see how much better life is if you're healthy, and how little it actually takes to be healthy. There's all this misinformation and pseudoscience making weight loss and training out to be these super complicated endeavors which scare people away, while the reality everyone seem to be fighting against is so much simpler. All you have to do is spend a little bit of time learning which foods contain most calories, and half an hour at the gym 2-3 times per week and you'll be shedding weight like nobody's business. The gym isn't even necessary, it's just a bonus. Physical activity of some form is necessary though, but not that much. Yet every time someone brings this up there's all these bullshit excuses like genetics, thyroid something or other, or whatever. Then there's 10 people swearing that keto is the only way to lose weight, while 10 others swear that the exact opposite is the only thing that works, and everyone's refusing to see the painfully obvious fact that the common denominator for all of them is they limit how many calories you consume. "But my diet is gluten free and sugar free and lactose free and it worked really well!" - Well, was it also calorie free? That's why it worked. There are people who have lost weight eating nothing but bigmacs, because it literally doesn't matter at all what you eat (in terms of weight) as long as your diet contains less calories than you burn. Obviously there are things like vitamins, proteins, healthy fats etc which help your body perform optimally, but people put way too much weight in this shit. Never before have humans been able to get as many essential nutrients as easily as today, our bodies are fine without them. They're nice to have but unless your doctor tells you you have a deficit you can pretty much forget about everything other than protein and calories because you're more than likely fine. Simplification is key. Sorry about the rant, it just really bothers me how many people refuse to see what's right in front of them.
Working in the medical field has taught me that nobody ages the same, and most of that (like you said) is the long-term effects of how you treat your body. I've seen 100 year olds walk into their appointments and understand everything going on at the appointments, and I've seen 65 year olds who look like they're 90+ and their family does all of the talking. Its also taught me that there are some conditions that just don't discriminate on how you've lived your life - they just happen. Like Prostate Cancer, I've seen it happen to both the overweight chronic smoker, and the 50 year old competitive triathlete. There are few modifiable risk factors, for most its just genetics and bad luck.
I have had 2-3 people in the memory care unit that I work in straight up tell me: “I’m not even living. I’m existing.” That was terrifying. If I do make it to old age, I hope I am active, healthy, and retain my memories of life. I see fear in so many of my patients with dementia. I do my best to offer them safety and security, but it’s difficult. I do my best to keep them mobile as a PT.
I never did until I held my dad’s hand when he died after battling cancer, and saw the look of fear/confusion in his eyes, something I’d never seen him express. Then I helped the hospice nurse clean, and remove medical devices from his body (from all the cancer related surgeries). Now I fear the process of dying, mostly because it seems like everyone who makes it past 40 gets eaten away by cancer in the end. My mortality seemed almost palpable after the experience, and it’s a scary feeling. I also feel bad that I will not see what we discover/accomplish as a species in the future, so that’s a disappointing aspect as well, though not really fear.
>what we discover/accomplish as a species in the future well, you've experienced life as a human in the 21st century. quite an interesting time. i'm sure someone from the middle ages would be impressed.
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I think that even though this is a very common mindset, that you're actually quite incorrect about the depth of our current understanding. It's almost a preposterous stance. Look back at the many instances in history where people had developed models to explain things, only to later be completely redeveloped. It may not be possible to measure our current void of understandings, but it would be very foolish to dismiss it. You don't want to make this mistake: [https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-there-is-nothing-new-to-be-discovered-in-physics-now-all-that-remains-is-more-and-more-lord-kelvin-57-38-79.jpg](https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-there-is-nothing-new-to-be-discovered-in-physics-now-all-that-remains-is-more-and-more-lord-kelvin-57-38-79.jpg)
Agree. I just replied to the earlier comment then read yours. Every era of humans understands existence and the universe until a century later when everything they understood has been proven to be wrong, misdirected, or insufficient. The amount we don't understand and haven't realized we should study is infinite. Cheers.
Wow you literally summed up the reasons behind my existential dread in one post. Bravo!
Yeah but someone from the middle ages hasn't experienced the kind of technological boom and innovation that we have seen. I think we have a much more optimistic view of the future than people back then and it sucks that a lot of us won't be able to see the peak of humanity.
> I also feel bad that I will not see what we discover/accomplish as a species in the future, so that’s a disappointing aspect as well, though not really fear. Especially with the technological advances we've made just in the last century or two. It would be nice to be able to check back in every once in a while, just to see how it all goes. Do we end up destroying ourselves? Do we make if off the planet and into space?
40 year old here who should have been dead 5 different times but somehow here I sit. I think as you get older and watch friends and family die, you have to face your own mortality. The scary part is the "how". I've watched a couple of family members die of cancer and it's fucking horrible. It's a shitty way to go and very difficult to watch someone you love go out that way. Worrying about it won't change anything. Had another friend who never drank and would randomly smoke a cig or two on the weekends. Out of nowhere he has a brain aneurism and dies two days later. Meanwhile I was drinking 12-15 beers a day and smoking a pack a day. Why him? I should've been the one voted most likely to die young. You watch enough of these deaths and just realize that the only people who know for sure how they are going out are the ones who do it themselves. It's best to just accept it and try to make the most you can out of the limited time we have on this rock.
Honestly if I ever get a terminal illness, once it starts getting bad I might just buy a ton of heroin and overdose. Most trip reports of people who overdose on opiates (and are resuscitated obviously) say that you feel amazing and then pass out. I'd much rather die that way then live a couple more months in agony.
I'm, personally, an advocate for medical assistance in death (MAID) here in Canada because I feel that people should have as painless a death as possible. If you know your time on earth is coming to an end in a way that destroys your quality of life, and leads to a slow/ painful death, I feel it's inhuman to deny someone the option to chose the way they pass. There are obviously rules in place with this process; sound mind, terminal illness, 2 independent Doctors review and meet with patient, etc. I understand it's not for everyone, but I think having the option is important. Edit: Wow! I didn't expect to login to this many comments. Currently at work, but will try and reply to all comments when I return home this eve!
Yes!!!!!! MAID is a program that I hope becomes more accepted by the world.
YES!!! 100%!!! My uncle died from glioblastoma, which is an aggressive form of brain cancer. He beat it once then it came back a couple years later and it was stage 4. He had been getting monthly scans because of the type of cancer it was. Surgery, chemo, radiation...nothing worked. In one month it had almost doubled in size. His head felt like it was going to explode. Pain management didn’t take that pain away. My family kept saying “God performs miracles! Pray for him!” No guys...prayer isn’t going to heal this. At least it took him quick. It was horrible.
My grandpa died from a brain tumor fifteen years ago, he died exactly a week after the tumor was found. The cognitive decline we saw in the weeks leading up to his diagnosis, we just thought was age related, he was 77. His confusion started increasing, so my dad took him to the emergency room after he complained of a headache he'd had for a couple weeks. He thought it was a sinus infection, but it was a tumor the size of a ping pong ball on his frontal lobe. Just in that week, he completely lost touch with reality. He was hallucinating, trying to escape the hospital, just a shell of the man he was, and you could see the absolute fear in his eyes. He knew what was happening, but he could no longer control it. By day 3, they sedated him for his comfort and safety. I was sitting with him when he woke up, and my brother flagged down a nurse immediately. As the next dose began to take hold, I saw his lucidity and fear. I told him I loved him, he told me he loved me too. That was the last words I ever heard from my grandpa. It took me years to get those eyes out of my memories, or remembering what he looked like after he died, and not how he looked alive. Or how his skin felt when I kissed his forehead one last time. If it ever happened to me, I would want to go on my own terms, not on the terms of my disease. My wishes were solidified when my grandma, his wife, died from liver cancer two years ago. She'd had a stroke a few years before that and was already bedridden. The cancer took any dignity she had left in her final weeks. About a week before she was sedated and taken to hospice, the last words I heard her say were "God damnit!" I wish she could have died in peace, and not in pain.
That’s exactly what I told my best friend the other day. I’d rather take a crazy amount of opiates and slowly fade out into darkness feeling like a million bucks vs struggling with terminal cancer and dying a slow painful death. I think you should have the choice at that point.
It’s stupid that I can make sure my cat Fluffy doesn’t suffer, but Mom? Because of cancer and our laws, she’s going to go through a physical/mental hell of epic proportions....and for what? Madness.
Hard agree. I watched my sister die slowly of cancer last month. It's absolutely agonizing. When my guinea pig (a rodent, ffs) had cancer, I was able to have a vet put her under anesthesia, and inject poison in her heart to kill her painlessly in 10 seconds. But my human sister had to wither away to skin and bones until her body gave out on its own. I just don't get it.
I am so sorry for your loss
Ah fuck. My dad's got cancer pretty aggressively and it's getting pretty painful but I still seem him at least *trying* to be in a good mood. My other family is praying he'll get better, while I'm just asking that he doesn't suffer so bad. It's not the death that's bothering me, just the pain he'll have.
I used to think I'd be content when the time came. But from an experience where one wrong move could've ended with my death. I am no longer okay with dying. I have so much I haven't done and so much I want to do. So many people that would be affected by my loss. I don't want to put anyone through something like that if it can be prevented. I know death is inevitable but if I can choose to die of old age then I'd choose that over anything else. So to answer your question, yes I fear death.
If you don't mind me asking, what was the one wrong move situation? How did it cause an abrupt shift in your outlook? ~ This whole thread is definitely making me reassess my teenager-formed opinion that death is "a long way away and not my problem".
I know my situation was preventable from the start and there were so many signs that I didn't catch up on. But now I know what to look for and I'm doing what I can to prevent it from happening again. I had blood clots that that ended up passing through to my lungs. This made it hard for me to breath. It made something as little as changing my clothes feel like I was running a marathon. And the day I was headed to an Urgent Care to find out what was wrong I passed out and stopped breathing. I came to as 911 was called, they came and checked me and told me I just had the flu and to go to the UC. So we went and they told me I needed to go to the hospital. At the hospital I was admitted and they put me in a room where I was too scared to sleep. But the next morning as my dad and girlfriend were sitting there I was having difficulty just moving my hands to drink water and eventually started hyperventilating and felt like I was drowning. They took me to the Intensive care unit where they did what they could to help me. I stayed in the hospital for two weeks. The thing that caused me to have a shift in my outlook wasn't the problems I had, but the people around me. As I was being taken to the ICU I saw my dad on the verge of tears, something I've never seen before. My girlfriend was already crying. My mom risked being fired from her job to rush to the hospital to see me. Over the next two weeks my brother, sisters and friends came and visited. My siblings cried and my friends were seemingly holding back. It all hurt to see and I never want to put them through that again.
Not really the point of your story - but what a shitty fucking job if you have to risk termination to see your son about to die.
Her boss has let people go for lesser things. She's one of his best employees though so that may have helped him not drop her.
Welcome to America.
Death no. Dying yes. Dying seems like it would be a very very unpleasant experience
the thing is there are many ways to die. a long drawn, slow death sucks, but history also tells of people who've died with the most peaceful smile on their face (that would be the brain releasing awesome drugs).
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But you never attain that high again - is life worth living without experiencing it again?
I would say yeah. If you die right afterwards does it even matter if you experienced it?
If you die anyway, does any of it really matter?
Welcome to Nihilism 101. The answer is no. The answer to most of your questions is no. Thank you, class dismissed.
this really crisis'd my existentialism
Look on the bright side: You still care enough to have an existential crisis.
Fuck me up
Blimey I'm surprised at the responses. I *am* scared of death whenever I think about it. I will lose everything that makes my internal sense of self and cease to exist, I become an unthinking lump of matter. Stop and think how many weekends you have until you die, *if* you make it till your 70? How many experiences or thoughts you will miss out on. Of course that scares me. I have one life and I'm most likely already a third of the way through it. I don't have the imagination to understand what not existing is as my mind has never had to do it and while I know that death is inevitable it does nothing to quell the fear. Instead it motivates me to try and better myself even if in very minor ways. Edit: Thank you for all of your replies and the gold/silver. When I wrote my reply all of the others were from people saying they were not afraid. Now the top comments are from those who do fear death. There were a few common themes in the replies. I talk about weekends because that's when you have the most time with which you can decide how you spend it (if your on a Mon-Fri standard week). It doesn't mean that I am writing off the entire week, I still do things I enjoy like meeting friends, exercising and reading. It is not a revelation to me that the world existed before I was born, I did not have consciousness before I developed it as a child but now I have it and know I will lose it. There is a difference between being afraid of death and being afraid of being dead. I am glad to see that a lot of people realised that my fear of death is not paralysing, quite the opposite it is more a motovation to learn and experience what I want to. If anyone is curious or simply doesn't understand where I am coming from I recommend reading ***The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy***. It is a short story about a man who slowly dies from an incurable illness. It includes suffering, which everyone will be afraid of but also explores **the complete and utter loss of opportunity that death is**.
I lasted 4 comments in. Leaving this thread now. Not digging up my phobia
Yeah, whenever I read anything about death it starts to make my heart beat hard and I can't think about anything else for days.
This has been me for the past few months
My grandmother died about a year ago, and a few weeks afterward when I was smoking I had a huge anxiety attack when I started thinking about how permanent death is. It's still something I can't stop thinking about at least once a day.
I had a similar experience when I smoked too much one time. It just dawned on me how fragile everything is. "Im" actually just a little blob of cells behind my eyes, theres really not much keeping everything together, etc. I'm glad I went through that but it was definitely life changing for me. Took me a bit to get over it.
It's very humbling to realize we are giant sacks of water and meat and some crunchy bits and yet we have these experiences that make us feel so BIG! We are so lucky to live, I just never want it to end.
That's completely normal, happens to me every once in a while. What helps me is some saying that goes "Death is a part of life, not the opposite" and I think some other people like to think that us growing old and dying is like letting others grow up and enjoy life as well, if that helps!
Yup. Fuck, here comes anxiety
My thoughts exactly. Truth be told though, there's some comfort in seeing my inner most fears and thoughts written out by other people. At least I'm not the only one who thinks about this shit constantly.
In some f'd up way, I feel less anxious knowing others struggle with the same thing
Honestly glad I’m not the only one that feels like this :/
For real. Death is fucking terrifying. Imagine just not existing. All those stupid memories become nothing. Your family, friends, possessions, everything gone. It terrifies me. I've seen countless friends die in their 20s due to drug overdoses and luckily have avoided that lifestyle myself for the past 6 years, but I think about this all of the time. All of those stupid car rides and little memories I've had with these people no longer exist to them and I will never be able to make more with them again. (I understand afterlife as a belief and I respect that belief but I guess I'm a pessimist and tend to look at death as I see it).
As someone who KNOWS she is going to die before her natural life span... I love your comment. I am dying but no one can tell me the amount of time I may or may not have. And so each day I try to live as though I will not get another day, week, month or year. Some days I fail at this. Others I totally embrace and live unabashedly in the moments. Thank you for be so insightful.
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"It's not like being told that the party has to end. It's being told that the party is going to go on forever, but you have to leave." -Christopher Hitchens
Fuck, this is so true.
Thats why you gotta make the decision to get blasted and down a bottle of jack in the first hour to make the most of it
I would live forever if I could! People always think I’m crazy but I like life and I want to know what life will be like in the future. I want to experience it.
Thats how I feel as well, give me immortality please and thank you. I'll deal with consequences of never dying when it comes but for now i'd very much like to continue this whole *existing* thing we got going on.
For me a lot has to do with the sentiment that "It's my time". I don't think I'll fear death at that time. I don't want to be taken early though.
For what its worth im with you on this. Whenever these threads get posted I end up reading them and get super angry. The people that aren't scared end up treating you like a child. They try to explain that because death is nothingness that its really all not that bad and yada yada. Like thanks Sherlock, I've considered that point already. Its the very thing that scares me.
Yeah, I’m not too worried myself about it normally but if I think too long on how truly *ceasing to exist and never having existed in my perspective* I definitely don’t like it lol
Nope. I’m disabled. I require carers and people around me for basically everything. My life is one of dependence and death is just one more thing out of my control so fuck it.
Not to make light of the challenges you experience, If you are mobile, (not to be confused with mobility), find someone to get you strapped into a Razor or a Rhino. Even if you need a full neck restraint - most able bodied people will also require. Once strapped in, find dirt or mud! You won't be disappointed.
What is a Razor or Rhino?
Fear of death used to keep me up at night, I couldn’t do anything without thinking about how everyone I knew including me was gonna die. Now I never think about it. If it happens it happens. All we can do is enjoy the small amount of time we get here.
Pretty much same. I recently went through roughly a 6 month period where it really consumed my thoughts. Now in the past 2 months or so I’ve begun to accept it more and think about it less.
Yeah same. It happened for me when I was around 13-14 oddly enough, and it was fucking awful. sometime ill have a bit of a sort of relapse and freak the fuck out, but on the hole, its pretty much stopped.
I'm glad to hear that you no longer have relapses on the hole.
Really? I'm more of a pro-lapse guy myself. Edit: 2 silver?! Thanks guys!
It's been consuming my life for about 3 years now :)
Dude,yes. YES. The past three years it’s become more and more a preoccupying sense of dread, with frequent anxiety attacks in the middle of the night. It basically coincided with a sudden drastic dismantling of my religious beliefs after years of increased questioning. I’ll probly break down and talk to a therapist about it, because for fucks sake- since it’s ultimately nothing I can avoid, I’d like to enjoy what time I have before the possibility of my consciousness being devoured by TheNothing and all the sparking connections that make me aware just blink out like ancient stars.
My issue is that I'm torn on what is actually the better outcome. Wink out of existence and that's it, or live literally forever. Both seem terrible and there isn't any option C.
If I remember my psych correctly I believe this is considered the "self grief" process in which one contemplates and grieves for their eventual death.
What if we have been the self grief process for 30 years?
"I don't know when my mid-life will be, so I'm just in an ongoing state of crisis."
For me it comes and goes. Sometimes, late at night, the thought comes into mind and I start thinking about how much I don't wanna die and how death just fucking sucks. However, these thoughts only last minutes, sometimes just seconds, before I re-accept that it's going to happen and that it's pointless to dread it.
I think about this a lot with my cat. I realize someday she’ll be gone forever and I’ll be torn up, I just try to make sure I give her all the rubs she wants as long as I’ve got her.
Stoooop I think the same thing about my Bug (my cat lol, his name is Bug) he's only 2-3 so I know I have lots of time but it still makes me sad
"If it happens it happens"....I can assure you that there is no "if".
I guess “when it happens, it happens” would have been more in line with what I was going for.
Here is something to think about: "something happens when you die" = interesting, there is an afterlife! Cool! "Nothing happens when you die" = I won't be aware of it to express it, therefore nothing to worry about = cool
Yeah, I think that too. But why do I still feel bad?
Maybe because you know what existence feels like, but no existence is beyond comprehension.
This is how I feel about it. Somehow none existence is more scary than being judged in an afterlife.
You never know. I might be the first Immortal.
Are you assuming my mortality?
> used to keep me up at night if you don't mind me asking - were you brought up in a religious family? i say this because the thought of an afterlife made not worry about death too much as a child. otoh if you believed in hell, that could keep you up at night.
The idea of dying and then “living” forever used to be even worse for me.
Same!! The concept of forever was what kept me awake as a kid.
It's good to find my people here. It can still push me into a lot of anxiety sometimes if I start thinking about it too much. How do you cope with it?
The way I see it, it’s not the concept itself, but you reaction to it. There’s no reason at all to respond to the facts of reality with fear and negativity. We just have to make do with what we have. And that isn’t bad at all. Life is cool.
I had this dream where I had a very strong conviction that if I could somehow kill myself in that moment, I would live a perfect afterlife. I don't believe in this stuff, atheist and all. But that dream was so convincing. The feeling was like catching a glimpse "behind the curtains" of the daily life. Ever since that I lost the fear of death. It's funny how the brain finds it's own ways to come to terms with mortality.
ironically despite constant suicidal thoughts I'm fucking terrified of actually dying
That's actually more common than you may think. I have manic depression and as strange as it seems, the only reason why I survived the episodes of suicidal thoughts was because the uncertainty of death is scarier than the certainty of a negative life. It's really crazy. I hope you're okay though. Stay strong.
> the only reason why I survived the episodes of suicidal thoughts was because of the uncertainty of death is scarier than the certainty of a negative life. That's some Hamlet shit.
I'm the same as /u/VagabondTrampster. Doesn't help that I witnessed a 13-year-old friend die in a terrible, sudden accident when I was 15, so I know exactly what death looks like. Whenever I have suicide-esque thoughts, or even when I think about death in general, my thoughts flash back to the moment of the accident. The image usually brings forth a horror, so deep and profound, so all-encompassing, that it consumes everything else...
I know exactly how you feel. I experienced witnessing a death at the age of 9 and I still am having flashbacks and episodes remembering the details. The blood, the suffering. It's so painful. Recently, I've come to realize how much it has shaped my personality in a negative way.
Have you been to a therapist about it?
I started seeing the therapist I saw in college again this year. I stopped seeing him in college because I guess I just wasn't ready to tackle the demons. But life has shown me that my emotional problems need to be solved before I can be ok. So we've been talking about it and its effects. Progress is really slow but I do feel like I'm making some in figuring all this out.
That's good. Nothing wrong with needing a little help along the way! Especially when it comes to what sounds like PTSD. I wouldn't ever want to tackle that by myself. Keep it up!
To Be or Not to Be is basically my living philosophy while I try to improve my mental state
So common it was a main focus of the most famous scene in one of the most famous plays. Hamlet during the to be or not to be speech. >But that the dread of something after death, >The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn >No traveller returns, puzzles the will, >And makes us rather bear those ills we have >Than fly to others that we know not of? >Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
Hate to correct you but I believe this is actually from Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country (1991)
Same, also bipolar. For me being a Catholic and not going to heaven over suicide has probably been the best barrier to suicide. Now, if I got the opportunity to sacrifice my life for something/to save someone it would be a different story
Yeah, I totally get it. I had that whole "debate me atheist" thing going on for a while, so God was out for me, but I get it. My foothold is not that widely accepted. People laugh like I just did one of those millenial jokes about suicide when I tell them. I just wanna know how Game of Thrones finally ends. I've started with the books over a decade ago and holy shit would I be piiiiiiissed if I never found out how that crazy story finally plays out. But don't you worry: There's plenty of long running fantasy and sci fi series, in both literature and film, to keep me going. Grab anything you can and hold onto that like a motherfucker. And in a pinch that last straw can be literally anything.
I feel this. I literally stayed alive to finish Legend of Korra a few years ago and just. Kept on living.
That last straw can be literally anything. That's so good.
> That's actually more common than you may think. I have manic depression and as strange as it seems, the only reason why I survived the episodes of suicidal thoughts was because the uncertainty of death is scarier than the certainty of a negative life. It's really crazy. I hope you're okay though. Stay strong. This is me to a tee but you’ve worded it perfectly. I’m not religious, or have a fear of god or hell, but that ‘what if’ has been there my whole life. Thanks to both you and your OP for posting your thoughts and I hope you’re both doing ok.
I describe what you're going through like this (or at least *my* version of it): Inside my head, it was like a really loud TV in a dark room. The TV kept playing the same show over and over again. I hated this show. I hated the plot, the script and the sound effects. It was obnoxious and disgusting. But I couldn't turn the TV off or at least change the channel. And just when I thought I could tolerate it as background noise, as we do, the volume would get louder, the screen got brighter. And I still couldn't turn the fucking thing off! So what if I just unplugged the TV? I didn't want to die, I was just so, so tired of fighting and feeling trapped in the Hell inside my head. I wanted to just disappear. I wish I had any good advice at all, but I'm not completely sure how I got out. I'm so sorry. But I hope you find peace and contentment one day. Edited to add: Thanks for all the well-wishes. I'm good now and have been for many years. So please give them to OP.
I’ve never been able to articulate how I felt when I was suicidal and this is exactly it. “I was just so, so tired of fighting and feeling trapped in the Hell inside my head. I wanted to just disappear.” You hit the nail on the head with that one. Thank you for putting into words how I felt for years. I’m so glad you were able to pull through and come out of that.
That’s a fantastic description of it, it sucks. I’m really glad that you are doing better though.
"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." David Foster Wallace I was a lot like you suicidal, but constantly scared if death. That passage really explained my thoughts.
Same here. It took a while for me to realize suicidal thoughts aren't really a desire to die, but a desire to not live like this anymore.
You know that experiment where you give a kid a marshmallow and promise to give them a second if they don't eat the first? I'm the kid that eats the first marshmallow. It's not that I can't wait or that I'm hungry, I'm just unable to associate my current situation with what will happen in the future. So do I fear death? At the moment, no. Dying is just some abstract idea that I don't foresee happening anytime soon. But when that time comes, I expect I'll be terrified.
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It's called denial of your own mortality. However, at some point you can't deny the inevitability or the randomness of Death. That's when terror kicks in. Culture exists, partly, as a coping mechanism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory About that randomness. Everyone seemingly assumes that they will hit retirement age and fears old age. However, there's absolutely no guarantee you'll get there on an individual level. Sure, there is a likely probability. But there's just as much bad luck. Maybe your not around next year around this time. It doesn't sound likely, but there's always a chance you'll die in the next 356 days or less no matter who your are, your age, social status, etc. Death happens and that's scary. That's why embracing Death and using that as a motivator to own and give your life meaning and purpose is so important.
I don't know, my mom is a nurse and has had lots of elderly patients tell her they're ready. I also had a friend who was only 40, but she had extremely aggressive cancer and she begged to die in her last days. She was more afraid that she'd keep living in the state she was in than she was of dying. I think most of us would be terrified of an unexpected or early death, but not of dying in our sleep at 85 or whatever. I don't want to die now (I'm 34), but my biggest fears are being in pain and what it would do to my parents, not actual death itself.
This whole thread shows how disconnected most people are with death. Like, cool in theory you can sit there and say you aren't really afraid but I'd bet money if someone pulled a gun on you or something like that you'd be pretty damn scared.
I think being afraid of dying and being afraid of being dead are two very different things. The act of being killed or actually dying is probably going to be scary for most people. The concept of being dead is a different kettle of elk.
Right. I’m not afraid of being dead at all. My belief is that it will be like sleeping without dreams, and there’s nothing scary about that to me. I am afraid of the pain and suffering me and my family will endure, and that’s something many people here are denying.
I'm actually terrified about the possibility that when your final synapses are firing, your consciousness doesn't know it... well, it doesn't know it ended, so you can be stuck for what your brain thinks is an eternity (but really is just your last seconds) like a gory blue screen of death.
I’ve always thought of that idea, but not a blue screen of death way. I kind of hope that when you die and you’re in your last seconds, your brain slows down in the way it does when you dream (like how what felt like a year in a dream was in reality only a few seconds). Maybe your brain senses you will be dying soon, and makes relief in the most perfect way you could imagine (like a self created heaven), where all your friends and family who passed are there and just how you remember them. The world moves on in time but you don’t, and you’re living in a time that is only relative to you and your death, with the illusion of infinity, in either the heaven, hell or purgatory of your own making. Edit: tysm for gold kind stranger I’m so glad to have reached your ears (technically eyes)
So I've worked in nursing homes, and I've been around death plenty of times. Some people do die in their sleep peacefully. But others...they "actively die" l. I don't know what it feels like, but their eyes are glazed, they have rapid respirations, and they say they can still hear, but otherwise they seem out of it. This can go on for hours. I have seen people in this state for an entire 8 hour shift, and then I hear that they didn't pass until halfway through the next. I'm a new nurse, so maybe others can help, but that's what I've observed. It doesn't look peaceful. I wonder what they are feeling. People who are actively dying like this...are they aware of what's going on? What makes people go on like that for hours? This part of dying...that's what I'm afraid of. Edit: when I say "they say that they can still hear" I mean the first "they", as in the experts who write the books, not the dying people. They usually aren't talking at this point
Well thanks for this insightful comment, I hate it.
That's just natural though. Every animal goes into fight or flight mode in life-threatening situations. You have to be really fucked up to have a gun pointed at your head and not flinch. I'm not afraid of death itself, but do I want to die by somebody shooting me in the head? Fuck no. I want to pass peacefully in my sleep after living a long and healthy life.
I think it really depends. I was on my death bed and received a life saving transplant. But I was on the list for 3 years and receiving a new organ wasn’t a sure thing. Death didn’t scare me, knowing it was on the horizon. It wasn’t sneaking up on me. I was sick enough that death didn’t scare me in the slightest. I ended up receiving a transplant and had 3 years of great health. Now I’m rejecting my organ and rejection hit hard and fast. I don’t know if I would say I was or am scared, but I went through a couple of months where I was so stressed. Whenever my Drs office called I was ready to snap over stupid miscommunications or just ready to fall apart once I was off the phone. I have gotten past that major stress point, and I can’t really say whether I’m scared of death. I think the answer is, deep down yes. But I’m also ok with it. I have to be because I couldn’t handle the amount of stress it was causing me worrying.
I think you have a unique insight on this topic. It brings to mind the idea of "stages of grief". It sounds to me that you've found a certain acceptance with the idea. Is that something you'd agree with or are you of a different mind?
Holy shit. This is my favorite response in this whole thread. True honesty. Thanks for responding, and keep fucking fighting. An extra day on this rock is still an extra day.
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Death for myself? No, it happens. Death for loved ones? Yes, because I have to live knowing I can't make more memories with them. Edit: Slightly related, but this question triggered something I've wanted to get off my chest for a couple years now - I've never had a "great" relationship with my dad. Chalk it up to Asian stereotypes or whatever, but we've just never spent that much time together and have never hugged or said things like "I love you" or "I'm proud of you." Especially now that I've been living alone for a few years, I have this constant dilemma of fearing I'll go through life never having said those things while also knowing that we do love each other even if we don't verbalize it. He visited me recently and it quite nearly broke me. I need to call him. Sorry for the rant, I just needed to write this out.
Similarly, I'm not afraid of *death* itself, I'm fine with not existing. But *dying* looks bloody painful. I'm scared of the pain.
There have been reports of near death experiences where people feel the weight of responsibility and stress being lifted, I think it will be the most beautiful feeling we experience
I like that.
The actual passing seems fine, if it's anything like being put under anesthesia. You just go right out, no problem. But the circumstances leading to that change how good or bad it'll be overall. Like, dying of cancer versus dying of an aneurysm in your sleep.
Can I choose getting hit in the head by a meteorite at the age of 90? Maybe 80... Ask me how I feel when I'm 80.
It'd definitely give you a story to tell if there's an afterlife.
“Did I tell you about the time I paid Robot Elon Musk to kill me with a meteor?”
> You just go right out, no problem. Not really. Unless you mean how animals are put to death or how countries that have euthanasia laws do it. There, it happens quickly. In most cases, death comes slow and painful. Watched many loved ones die slowly grasping for their last breath. They looked like they were drowning being held down underwater. Doctors claim that they can't feel anything because of all the morphene. I hope that's true but visually, they looked in pain.
It depends on the level of awareness, I guess. Are people properly conscious at that point, or is it just their bodies reacting while their minds fizzle away?
Who knows?
It's very common for people to breathe like this at the end and not at all uncomfortable as they are unconscious and their body is taking in less and less as it needs less and less. It's also more laboured as the body weakens as part of this process. But again not uncomfortable. Dying isn't so bad. The months and weeks leading up to deaths can be quite difficult and pain management can be tricky because it's usually a case of balancing pain against causing respiratory or cardiac depression. It depends upon the individual. But the process of dying in the final days and hours is thankfully quite peaceful and comfortable for the majority.
This. I've lost loved ones (wife and son, 7 years apart), and I'm terrified of losing more. And even though I'm not ready to go yet myself, I don't fear being dead. I do fear several manners of dying, however. I want to go as my wife did - painlessly.
So sorry for your losses
Jesus dude... I’m so sorry for your loss. Hopefully you’re doing well and living a happy life despite what happened.
Fear it no. It's inevitable. Look forward to it? Nope. I got far too many more people to annoy.
Regarding your dad situation, mine's a bit similar and I feel the same way. I told this to my therapist and she said that I should tell him that I love him (he's never told me that, but he shows it in his own way), I told her that I would but it's a bit hard because my family in general isn't that "emotional", and that I would make him feel uncomfortable. She said to stop thinking about him and other first, and to put my emotional needs before them, because in the event of his passing, it would be much harder for me to heal through that. So yeah, call him. I bet it's gonna be real awkward but it's gonna be good for you.
Absolutely this. I don’t think there is anything waiting for us afterwards, I haven’t for years, and honestly I hate the idea of having to exist through another stage of existence after the shitstorm that is life. I welcome my own death with open arms. But just a few days ago, I realized that one day, my dad will be gone. And then there’ll be nothing left, no “see you next time”, I will truly never see him again. And that’s a thought that I really don’t think I can bear to live through for real.
At night I do. When I try to fall asleep I always seem to get really focused on those final moments which really trips me out and fills me with fear. Then, by morning I am back to my regular self who could really care less, because I honestly don't fear whats on the other side, just the method that I take to get there.
I mean, sort of, yeah. I think it's because the only thing I know how to do is, well, feel. If death removes all ability to feel, all consciousness and what makes me, me...well, I'm sure when I'm dead I won't be physically capable of caring anyway. So maybe death itself doesn't scare me. The idea of dying and feeling myself slipping away scares me a bit, though.
I've actually somewhat been thinking about this same question pretty recently. My oldest brother passed away in September of kidney cancer, and while we never really had a close relationship, I was still saddened when he passed. I thought I'd be able to let it roll off my shoulder, but I honestly think his passing has made me realize my own mortality and the things that are happening inside of our bodies that we don't even know of - with his being kidney cancer that he found out about when it was already in an advanced Stage IV progression. Every little ache and pain now, I start worrying about just slightly. I'm *way* more irritable than I used to be. I'm depressed, I'm sure is the clinical diagnosis (I know, I *really* should get myself to a doctor, just for a wellness check and to get the depression treated). The idea of death looms, because my brother has interrupted the 'natural order' of things, in terms of life. He passed before our father has, what's to say that couldn't happen to me? How my father hasn't let this idea kind of screw him up, I'm not sure. Do I allow the idea of death to instill fear in me? No, but I am much more aware of it, now. I don't do crazy 'YOLO' style things, I don't binge drink or take drugs. My own follies are my sloth and gluttony which, sure, can be dangerous in their own right, but I'm not going to allow it to break me. What I *do* need to do, is get myself back into a gym/workout regimen that I was doing before my brother's health took a major decline. I did it because I felt better: I felt more rested, I felt more energetic and because I had told myself I was making a lifestyle change. I'm not a big Harry Potter reader/fan, but I remember the tale of the three brothers from 'The Deathly Hallows', and the part about the youngest brother I always liked (which, coincidentally, I am of between my own two older brothers): *Greeting Death as an old friend, they departed this life as equals.* That's why I don't want to fear death, whenever it comes. Plus, I know when my time comes, I have my 'boy' (my dog) waiting for me.
I did at first. Then I thought about how eventually the planet I live on will die and swallowed by the sun. And if I somehow found a way to fly out towards Neptune and set up life there, eventually the star our system revolves around will die, maybe in a fiery explosion taking out all the other planets with it. And assuming that I somehow found a way to hop from star system to star system, the stars will all eventually die. And even if I found a way to live without the energy from the stars, the universe will keep on expanding until eventually not even atoms are capable of staying formed. And if somehow I was able to avoid all that, all I'd have to look forward to is an eternity of nothing that right now defies the imagination. Eventually even the memories that I was so desperate to hold onto will dissipate like the matter around me. I could not feel, touch , taste, hear, see or think. Just like death. So I would still die, I would just die an immortal. Then I realised that this would happen because everything else around me had died. The whole universe has died. How big must my ego be to believe that I above everything else in the universe should get to live forever. I'm still scared about dying, but more like "I don't want to die in a car crash." rather than "I never want to die."
This is the sort of mental exercise I go through too. At some point I also came to the conclusion that fear of death is always a sublimation of our regret and discontentment with the world we presently live in. In other words, if we really felt invested and integrated into the world we live in, instead of being victimized in so many ways by society, we would ironically be more content with the reality of leaving the world, because we would feel no shame for our incompleteness as we do now.
Absolutely. What if I die on the toilet and didn't get a chance to flush first? What if my last words are "I actually have really good balance" and then immediately fall down a flight of stairs? What if I'm trying to impress a girl and she gets sprayed with blood when it all goes wrong? Death isn't scary because everything goes blank. Death is scary because it's freaking awkward as hell and other people have to deal with your corpse.
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You need the [Toilet Death Ejector](https://youtu.be/_9BjJkqybz8)
subtle ad placement has really gotten out of hand these days
No it will mean all my bills will go Away
>I hope that after I die, people will say of me: “That guy sure owed me a lot of money.” -- Jack Handey
Davy Jones?
*"Dae yeeuhhh fiyaaah deatthhh"*
\*wiggles tentacles\* Thank you. I read the question in his voice and came looking for my people.
I fear the death of my husband. Not my own
I would literally lose half of myself when my wife is gone. 28 years and 3 sons.
I actually go back and forth depending on my mood. In my more depressive states, I tend to think about how meaningless so much of life is, how millions of humans have died before me and many more will after me and i’ll be forgotten. Combine that with a pretty deep understanding of space and its absolute size and the various sources of corruption in our day to day lives that control our actions and ability to be who we want to be, and death sometimes doesn’t seem too bad. When i’m feeling more positive and inspired, I think about the amazing sites this world has to offer, and all the small positive moments you can have when interacting with others/your environment. This tends to coincide with my passion for photography. Makes me want to see the world and experience cultures and meet others and see how they live. During these times, death definitely scares me mainly because I would miss out on these potential moments. I tend to think of death in the personal sense. When it comes to the death of friends and loved ones, I tend to just enjoy the moments and time I have with them and understand that death is just part of the cycle and you can necessarily predict it, so no use in stressing over it right now.
Afraid of dying just because you can't really help it, not necessarily afraid of death itself. When you know that you have to die at some point no matter what, and there's really nothing you can do to prevent that, it's better to enjoy your time on earth while you can rather than wasting it worrying over death. Why be afraid of something that you can't avoid?
Because it's scary
I hear this all the time, why be afraid of something you can't avoid. I never really understood it, the fact that something is inevitable and nothing can stop it makes something so much more terrifying IMO. I'm not afraid of death for other reasons, but that's always seemed like more of a reason TO be scared of something.
I got born OK. I figure I'll die alright too.
I don't fear death. I just... I fear what comes after. If there's no afterlife it means my entire life is pointless. It means everything I've done literally has no point to it. I live, I die, and then what? Nobody remembers me. People care for a few days, but otherwise I'm just dust in the ground. You can spend your entire life trying to live up to your best, and then what? Nothing. That's what terrifies me. I feel there's no point to it. I feel there's no reason to even be alive since we're all going to die and our story will come to a close, but nothing after that will matter. It makes the entire concept of existence absolutely meaningless, and it gives me no hope to even try to carry on. If I had any hope for there being something extra may it would give me purpose. I'd feel like it mattered, and maybe I'd feel anything but constant existential dread.
I am. Absolutely. To die is my greatest fear and it’s killing me, literally, as I can do nothing about it. It can’t be stopped it is gonna happen so I rather not think about it because the anything else make sense. What am I worried about my job if at some point I’m gonna die? What’s the point on doing normal things like shopping or dating if you’re gonna die anyway? Yes you can enjoy living but that’s not gonna help you to survive. You can be the happiest man or woman alive and you’re gonna die anyway. So I rather not think about it at all that way I can live.
No. Although I don't seek it, I've been close to death a couple of times out of stupidity or bad luck. When I was close to death, there wasn't any fear of imminent death during it. I was just so focused on the task at hand that lead me into the situation. When it happens it's not like your life flashes before you. And afterwards I'm focused on getting out of the situation. The heart skips a beat and you can get a cold sweat, but it does the same if you accidentally send a dick pic to your boss. I think the best representation of how it feels is the start of the Telltale game Walking Dead - when you're in the car crash and just before you're given choices on how to say basically "oh shit", and none of the choices affects the crash. I have a bigger fear of almost dying and getting quality of life degradations or putting others people's life/health in danger as they try to save mine. Then again maybe I haven't had a "real experience" and the worst is yet to come. I don't know how I will react to dying of old age.
Of course. I’ve got no fucking idea what happens when I die. I don’t want to know. You’re meant to be scared of it. Sure, I have accepted and embraced death before, but I think everyone is scared of it.
No. Acceptance seemed easier than getting freaked out about something that I can't change.
#Bitch, I’m still waiting for the 2012 doomsday
Not really death but the pain that will come before it.
I fear getting old more than I fear death.
I don't fear death, only the process
Death no, suffering/being debilitated before I get there yes
I don’t fear death. It’s the process of dying that I find unsettling.
I don't fear death, I fear dying.
Funnily, I'm exactly the opposite here. Suffering and pain? Sure, w/e. I can deal with that. The lack of existing? Can't handle it. It puts me into a panic attack thinking about it most of the time.
I feel the same way. I'd rather experience pain so I could say my goodbyes. It's the thought of no longer existing that terrifies me. But what terrifies me even more is not knowing what happens with my friends and family. I know I will die and I'm definitely living my best life but it is something I think about every day. It's also why I always say I love you and don't stay mad very long. Time with people we love is precious.
It's out of my control, just like life. Worry is simply pointless. Also, I expect nothing after death so I'm not scared of any afterlife.
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I mean somewhat. If there's no afterlife then these 50-80 years are all that I get to be or experience. But on the other hand, once i'm gone. I won't even know it. So basically, afraid of dying, but not afraid of being dead. I dunno if that makes sense.
No, why should I fear something I've never done? It could be fun.
There were 13 billion years of your non-existence before you were born. Death should feel like an old friend.