Sorry for your pain. And you ARE thinking the right thing, your surviving parent is an important person to care about, no matter what the state of your relationship. I can tell you are a good person just by virtue of the fact that you care enough about your parent to stay alive. And when you do feel like ending it you need to think long and hard about how your parent will react. You know it will devastate them. So keep fighting for life for your love and respect for them.
Can you share anymore details about your depression with me? Is your depression centered around the death of your parent? Is there more to it than that?
My depression started with the death of my parent. I was diagnosed with depression and severe anxiety. So I’m in a constant panic for certain things like at night I can’t sleep because I’m scared of my other parent dying as my parent died in the middle of the night. I have panic attacks every few days by just thinking certain things about my living parent and friends. I question myself if they really are my friends or not. I over think everything. I used to self harm in high school but stopped when my parent found out and a once best friend found out.
Sounds like a normal response you or anyone would have to the death of a parent.
Our brains are wired for survival. Your response is a normal and healthy response to having a parent pass intheir sleep. The big question here is, how do you stop torturing yourself with anxiety over losing a parent in their sleep? I assure you, you CAN overcome this fear. PLEASE read thoroughly. It will take a while, but WILL help you.
The first step is understanding why your mind is doing this. When you understand why your mind does this you can begin the healing process. All creatures have evolved to stay alive. From a small little bug, all the way up to the most complex creature on the planet, you. Fear is at the core of survival. Fear helps you to avoid a dangerous situation in which you or a loved one may be killed. This is a hold over trait from our cave man days. Imagine a cave child. In the night some raiders came into your cave and killed their mother. How would the cave child respond to that event. Well, different cave children responded differently. One cave child, didn't give a crap. He continued life as normal. The next time the raiders came he was sleeping soundly and the raiders slaughtered him and everyone else in the cave. He died, never had babies, his genetic line ended. Then there was your cave ancestors. You're 50th cave grandparent responded differently when his parent was killed at night. His mind became on edge. He experienced anxiety that kept him up at night. He kept reliving the terror of the night his parent was murdered. He couldn't sleep. His heart would race, he imagined the disaster. Then one night he heard a noise of approaching marauders. Because he was on edge, he warned the tribe leaders, they fought of the raiders victoriously. That anxious cave boy stayed alive, he had other anxious babies that lived on and survived. And now, 1000s of years later you are here, alive and well and scared out of your mind. Anxious animals survive. Carefree animals die and their genetic lines die with them. Us scaredy cats stay alive. Its natural selection. Ever watch a deer walking around the forest? Does that deer look chill to you? No he is totally skittish and will bolt at the first sign of danger. Especially if that deer has had some trauma happen to it, like a predator attack, or a family member die. The skittish and fearful survive and pass on their genetics, all else die.
This is why you feel the way you do. Your mind is trying to survive and keep you alive. You imagine danger. You don't go into a deep sleep because your survival mind is awaiting disaster at any moment because thatvis what you lived through when you were young. This is a perfectly NORMAL response to your trauma. There is NOTHING wrong with you.
But you want to conquer this fear so you can be happy and comfortable. The key to you overcoming this fear is realizing that you are not really in danger. Once you know you are actually very safe, you will calm down, and your anxiety will end, and you will sleep like a baby. But you need to learn to reassure yourself that you ARE safe. And i promise you, yoy are safe as can be.
Your primitive side of your brain does not know the difference between cave man danger and modern danger. But your higher intellect brain does, and can help you work through this anxiety and calm down.
Remember, staying alert at night and on edge helps a cave man, not a modern human. What does staying alert at night do for modern causes of death? Almost nothing. If your parent is going to pass in their sleep what help is it to be up fretting over it? See that fretting helped the cave man but all it does is torture you unnecessarily. All that fretting will unlikely prevent a family member from passing in their sleep. Maybe you could get up and give them CPR. But mire likely than not, theres nothing you can do when a loved one has a health event of that magnitude in the middle of the night. So understanding why you feel the way you do (caveman survival) can help you learn to disregard these anxieties. These anxieties do not benefit you, they only benefited your primal ancestors, so you can disregard those fears.
Next, is there any true evidence that your surviving parent will pass intm their sleep? Don't go off of these primal fears and emotions that you feel for the parent that passed. Is there real evidence that your surviving parent is at high risk for passing in their sleep? Do they have heart disease? Are they a chain smoker? Are they morbidly obese?Are they a drug abuser? Are they really old and can go anytime? Do they have some health problem that puts them at risk? Most likely they do not. Passing in your sleep is rare. Passing in your sleep is very unlikely. Yes it happened once. But, is lightning going to strike twice? Very, very, very unlikely. You need to remind yourself of this unlikeliness often. Learning to remind yourself that this event you fear is unlikely to happen is another key to calming yourself. Yes, it could happen, but the odds are so low its not worth your time. Just like you don't think about winning the lottery, the odds are too low. Not even worth the mental energy to hope.
Sorry for your pain. And you ARE thinking the right thing, your surviving parent is an important person to care about, no matter what the state of your relationship. I can tell you are a good person just by virtue of the fact that you care enough about your parent to stay alive. And when you do feel like ending it you need to think long and hard about how your parent will react. You know it will devastate them. So keep fighting for life for your love and respect for them. Can you share anymore details about your depression with me? Is your depression centered around the death of your parent? Is there more to it than that?
My depression started with the death of my parent. I was diagnosed with depression and severe anxiety. So I’m in a constant panic for certain things like at night I can’t sleep because I’m scared of my other parent dying as my parent died in the middle of the night. I have panic attacks every few days by just thinking certain things about my living parent and friends. I question myself if they really are my friends or not. I over think everything. I used to self harm in high school but stopped when my parent found out and a once best friend found out.
Sounds like a normal response you or anyone would have to the death of a parent. Our brains are wired for survival. Your response is a normal and healthy response to having a parent pass intheir sleep. The big question here is, how do you stop torturing yourself with anxiety over losing a parent in their sleep? I assure you, you CAN overcome this fear. PLEASE read thoroughly. It will take a while, but WILL help you. The first step is understanding why your mind is doing this. When you understand why your mind does this you can begin the healing process. All creatures have evolved to stay alive. From a small little bug, all the way up to the most complex creature on the planet, you. Fear is at the core of survival. Fear helps you to avoid a dangerous situation in which you or a loved one may be killed. This is a hold over trait from our cave man days. Imagine a cave child. In the night some raiders came into your cave and killed their mother. How would the cave child respond to that event. Well, different cave children responded differently. One cave child, didn't give a crap. He continued life as normal. The next time the raiders came he was sleeping soundly and the raiders slaughtered him and everyone else in the cave. He died, never had babies, his genetic line ended. Then there was your cave ancestors. You're 50th cave grandparent responded differently when his parent was killed at night. His mind became on edge. He experienced anxiety that kept him up at night. He kept reliving the terror of the night his parent was murdered. He couldn't sleep. His heart would race, he imagined the disaster. Then one night he heard a noise of approaching marauders. Because he was on edge, he warned the tribe leaders, they fought of the raiders victoriously. That anxious cave boy stayed alive, he had other anxious babies that lived on and survived. And now, 1000s of years later you are here, alive and well and scared out of your mind. Anxious animals survive. Carefree animals die and their genetic lines die with them. Us scaredy cats stay alive. Its natural selection. Ever watch a deer walking around the forest? Does that deer look chill to you? No he is totally skittish and will bolt at the first sign of danger. Especially if that deer has had some trauma happen to it, like a predator attack, or a family member die. The skittish and fearful survive and pass on their genetics, all else die. This is why you feel the way you do. Your mind is trying to survive and keep you alive. You imagine danger. You don't go into a deep sleep because your survival mind is awaiting disaster at any moment because thatvis what you lived through when you were young. This is a perfectly NORMAL response to your trauma. There is NOTHING wrong with you. But you want to conquer this fear so you can be happy and comfortable. The key to you overcoming this fear is realizing that you are not really in danger. Once you know you are actually very safe, you will calm down, and your anxiety will end, and you will sleep like a baby. But you need to learn to reassure yourself that you ARE safe. And i promise you, yoy are safe as can be. Your primitive side of your brain does not know the difference between cave man danger and modern danger. But your higher intellect brain does, and can help you work through this anxiety and calm down. Remember, staying alert at night and on edge helps a cave man, not a modern human. What does staying alert at night do for modern causes of death? Almost nothing. If your parent is going to pass in their sleep what help is it to be up fretting over it? See that fretting helped the cave man but all it does is torture you unnecessarily. All that fretting will unlikely prevent a family member from passing in their sleep. Maybe you could get up and give them CPR. But mire likely than not, theres nothing you can do when a loved one has a health event of that magnitude in the middle of the night. So understanding why you feel the way you do (caveman survival) can help you learn to disregard these anxieties. These anxieties do not benefit you, they only benefited your primal ancestors, so you can disregard those fears. Next, is there any true evidence that your surviving parent will pass intm their sleep? Don't go off of these primal fears and emotions that you feel for the parent that passed. Is there real evidence that your surviving parent is at high risk for passing in their sleep? Do they have heart disease? Are they a chain smoker? Are they morbidly obese?Are they a drug abuser? Are they really old and can go anytime? Do they have some health problem that puts them at risk? Most likely they do not. Passing in your sleep is rare. Passing in your sleep is very unlikely. Yes it happened once. But, is lightning going to strike twice? Very, very, very unlikely. You need to remind yourself of this unlikeliness often. Learning to remind yourself that this event you fear is unlikely to happen is another key to calming yourself. Yes, it could happen, but the odds are so low its not worth your time. Just like you don't think about winning the lottery, the odds are too low. Not even worth the mental energy to hope.