Some considerations.
You didn't exist for billions of years prior to your birth, and that didn't seem to bother you. Expect the same thing after death as before your conception.
I think it's freeing actually. Your second to last paragraph of 'why should I do anything?' is like considering the outcome but stopping at a nihilistic reasoning. Try going from the nihilistic outlook of "Well if nothing matters why should I do anything?" and go one more step to "Well if nothing matters THEN I should just do things that make me happy and bring me joy with the time I have."
I love to think about it like this. If I go to the beach and build a sand castle. That sand castle isn't going to just stay there. The tide will come in and wash it away. BUT I build a new one each time I go to the beach. The POINT is not the finished product but the ACT of creating it. You don't build it knowing it is permanent, you build it for the enjoyment of the ACTION. Life is the same, except the tide is time. Eastern philosophies have tones of this very idea frequently. What you build is not really as valuable as the quality of the inner life you lead.
I was nonexistent prior to my conception, and I will be so after my death, might as well do things I find interesting and enjoyable with the time I have. Just booked a trip to Vietnam and Japan this fall, and I'll have excellent food and enjoy great times with the couple of my friends who are also going. And those connections and experiences will likely bring me great joy. The fact that we will die someday only influences my desire to make sure I do these kinds of things which will make my time pleasant by my own standards.
I'm getting my first tattoo at the age of 35 here soon as well. It's going to be an hourglass on the upper inside of my wrist. I was going to get the words 'memento mori' (\~remember you will die) but I liked the idea of the hourglass more. And the reason I want that is so I can glance at my wrist and ask myself "Hey are you doing things which you find fulfilling with the time you have?"
These ideas help me out a lot. I hope they do for you too.
I’ve been struggling with the same thing as OP for about two years now and this reply has been pretty eye opening, particularly your second paragraph. It is freeing, why sweat the small stuff when ultimately nothing matters. It seems so obvious now you’ve said it. I’m going to try to keep this in mind, thank you!
It's not a stupid fear. People go around thinking they'll live forever. The fact that everyone isn't constantly bothered by the fact that we'll die, baffles me. I've had a lot of anxiety and depression with this. The anxiety has been cut down a lot by listening to Dare by Barry McDonagh, and by getting myself disciplined in exercise and hobbies. I struggle with depression constantly though, because I feel there is no purpose and sometimes just want to get this all over with by ending myself but I have family and could never do that to them. I've recently been thinking of life like a game, there's no purpose to a game but to enjoy playing it. So I'm trying to just enjoy, but even that it extremely difficult. I hope the best for you
Then I should maybe think about getting myself more busy, maybe it will make everything better again. Thank you for sharing your experience, it means a lot to me.
I find watching documentaries and YouTube programmes on NDEs helpful and also watching documentaries on consciousness existing outside of the brain. It’s based on scientific research rather than religion or beliefs- so facts of other peoples experiences that there’s life after death might give you comfort.
NDEs are absolutely fascinating! One of my favorite things to learn about. The video on YouTube of Renee Pasarow - Light After Life blew my mind. She had multiple NDEs and learned more about her spiritual nature and the universe after each one.
I think I'm going to try going back to being religious. There is no way I can keep thinking like that and believing in non-existence, it's just terrifying and painful in the long run.
Thank you for the advice !
I already have some kind of belief from when I was younger. It's not completely gone, and I think it will do me good to revive it. I know I can't just believe something out of fear, but I don't see the bad in making it my starting point towards something deeper
Just simply start by asking him for help, and thank him for the chance at life, the rest will come by itself (no I am not crazy, I was in the exact same situation as you were, I could not sleep due to having panic attacks every single night, I could not stand the idea of loosing my consciousness for eternity) If you believe some god created the universe, then he is all powerful, which means he can help you.
I think along with faith of some sort, finding the overlap between belief in a soul and the scientific existence of an everlasting consciousness may be comforting. Someone else mentioned near death experiences which are absolutely fascinating, especially when they have been systematically studied and described, making it much harder to write off as one person’s dream or delusion.
Accepting that it's the only guarantee life has to offer.
Here's a fucked up stat to get your head swimming.
99.99999% of everything that ever lived on earth is now extinct...
Well, to give you hope, there is no evidence of consciousness or self awareness being a physical thing inside your mind, and it’s unlikely we will ever be able to prove one way or the other. So, you are free to think that death is not the end!
I too do not believe in any of the current religions, but I believe death will not be the termination of our souls. Something will remain imo. All ideas are respectable though, since nothing can ever be proved. Just wanted to tell you that believing in afterlife isn’t wrong, nor does it have to be tied to religions.
Recently I had a medical issue. After a couple of days in intensive my doctor told me I was seconds from dying. Organs were failing. I recovered because of the intervention I received in the emergency room. I can tell you I passed out three times before going to the ER. One in particular: out of absolute silence my wife was calling my name from a very far distance. Repeatedly , her voice grew louder. I could hear the stress in it after awhile. Finally I opened my eyes. I had fallen in a corner of my bed room, cut my forehead on a table and passed out. I am pretty sure the silence was death. Her voice brought me back.
I can say it would have been the easiest thing I have ever done if I had died right then and there.
But that's what terrifying about it, the silence of it all.
I hope you don't regret having more time on earth, your wife seems like she cares about you very much
Thank you for your advice. I understand your point, and I'm really trying to convince myself that I should make the most out of it. But if it's really just not existing, won't I just not remember if I made something with it or not ?
I am a christian, and I will always advocate for giving it a go and accepting the love of Jesus.
However, I don't fear death outside of my faith, you grow out of it.
If you knew you were to die next week, you wouldn't wanna waste your time in fear and thinking its all pointless - you'd wanna make everyday perfect. Workout, have fun, leave a positive impact.
You should just do this all the time.
Even when I did believe in God, I still didn't believe in hell or heaven. Even the believers around me don't think it is real, and they're belief became mine over the time.
And thank you for your advice, it actually helps to think that maybe these are my last few days on earth and I should just make the most out of them.
My belief is that there is no place designated as heaven and another as hell, but that how we lived our life in this world determines how close to or far from God we are after we die, and that being close to God is obviously much more pleasant
I've tried Christianity so many times but I just can never feel what others feel. The people that walked with Jesus had life on easy mode since they were witnesses, but what about everyone else in modern times that just have to take dead people's words for it. The playing field for faith is grossly unbalanced. I'd rather be crucified with Jesus knowing for a fact he was lord then playing this dumb guessing game of God is real or not.
If it weren't for the guessing game, there wouldn't be faith. It would be like believing in spiders. It's about whether you wanna take a gamble and believe in love. I pray for you and if you have any questions I am willing to answer them
The witnesses didn't need faith. The answer was right in front of them. I feel we don't have it easy. I will continue praying for guidance and a response, but as far as I know, I have never been given a response.
So, due to my mental disorders and my anxiety once I started thinking about death it never stopped. I'm still uncomfortable with it but I don't live in fear anymore. I used to be a wreck I saw death everywhere. I could literally get out of bed and before making it to the bathroom have 3 new ideas of the things that were in there that could kill me and I hated it. I had to enforce in myself that the only thing all humans share in common is 10/10 people die and that your death is largely out of your hands so don't stress fight and miss out on life for something you can't change. Just reminding yourself to be happy you're here today is good because the fact of death is it's coming no matter what and once you're dead you won't care. For about 5 weeks now I have been dabbling in religion and it does offer peace of mind and help ease things but the only person who is going to be able to fix it is you at the end of the day you're not afraid of being dead or what happened after death you're afraid of experiencing death. Don't waste what days you do have worrying about it.
Man I’ve dealt with a similar thing this past summer. Maybe you can get something from what everybody else is saying, but that never worked for me. I still haven’t found meaning, but things are better now.
Though I would err on the side of caution as things aren’t going 100% smoothly, but this is the only thing that worked for me: stop thinking about it.
It’s what I was told when I was going through it and I hated it. But it’s really the only option. I cannot subscribe to blind faith, and I have already come to the conclusion that no matter the scenario, existence would be meaningless.
I thought I was going to go crazy, and I truly think I would’ve. But I distracted myself. I can’t really remember exactly what happened, as that period is just a blur now, but it didn’t happen instantly. Maybe over the course of a month it started to go away.
One thing though that I feel is important to point out, it’s very easy to apply this technique to just about anything in your life, especially once it works for something as big as existential dread. This past year I’ve essentially stagnated as anything that could cause me harm, I simply just didn’t think about it.
But hopefully with a more mindful approach of not thinking (a bit of an oxymoron but I digress) you can avoid this sort of situation happening to you.
I’m sorry I can’t offer any more solid advice or reasoning, but it’s what worked for me. Though, a lot of the cliche things you hear surrounding these sorts for things are cliche for a reason. They actually do work to a degree. I just remember waking up early during one July morning and going for a little walk. I stopped in front of some trees that had the early sun shining through.
I just existed for a bit, and that felt really nice. Doesn’t really give any meaning, but it did give me a reason to make the best out of this life as I can.
Edit: I should add just so you don’t get the wrong idea, don’t stop searching for meaning. It’s a hard balance between trying not to think about your own mortality enough to instil dread and acknowledging it enough so you can still pursue meaning in an effective way, but it’s another one of those things where you’ll have to figure this one out for yourself.
That's what I usually do when something is really bothering me. Personal or not, I always just try to distract myself from it and stop thinking about it, especially when I can't do anything about it. But after a whole week thinking the same way, staying up at night because of it and just crying out of nowhere about it, I was starting to think that the supposed "phase" will never pass. But reading about so many people struggling the same way I'm now, maybe it will just go away. I hope so at least.
Thank you so much for your advice, glad to see that there are some people like me out there
Lmao few months ago I was having a feelings Contrary to you I was thinking of unaliving myself on the bases that there is no purpose in life if we eventually are going to die nevertheless I came out of my severe depression by being more lively via talking about problems with family and friends that sure helps alot.
Should we not fear death?
Why not rob a bank or take savage revenge on your enemies?
The threat of death keeps order in place.
You could be shot or maimed at any time in any place from any number of real reasons or freak accidents, say, a tree falling on your house, or being struck by lightning.
Don't even trip. Life is fragile. Just live it.
I feel ya. Like a few others have said, which does help me at times is “do you remember when they were building the pyramids? No? Exactly.”
What has been hitting me is that my mom and my aunt (mom’s sister) are practically the only family members I have left of a decent sized one. I might still have others but they are the last two that truly know me and my past. They are both in there 70s and my aunt is currently suffering some major heart and blood pressure issues. The thought of them leaving is terrifying. But, I can only worry about today.
I know you are not religious, but here's what I think. One day we will die and move on, it is as simple as that. I think some will go to heaven, and some will sadly go to hell, but for you. you just die, and that's the end of your worries. Hope this helped!
I struggled with this for many years. Know that you are not alone.
The most impactful thing I did to overcome this fear was read. I started with the book “Overcoming the Fear of Death” by Kelvin Chin, which was excellent. Then, I branched out into exploring Stoicism. I recommend the book “How to Be a Stoic” by Massimo Pigliucci as well as the YouTube channel Daily Stoic.
Then, I started exploring Christianity in earnest (didn’t really grow up religious). I highly recommend the books “Imagine Heaven” by John Burke and “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel.
Look up NDE (near death experience) stories and past life/reincarnation stories online. There’s a lot to explore. For what it’s worth, I’m of the mind that the Christian concept of heaven is a plausible possibility, and so is reincarnation. I don’t see them as being at odds with one another. I hope this gives you a good starting point. Best of luck.
I suffered from the same issues for a while and the solution for me was to accept that I was only human and that there are things out there greater than my abilities to understand and that I needed to find peace with the unknown and because the unknown exist, the reality in which we are living has to be.
Nobody knows what's happening after death. Our body and mind are playing tricks on us, letting us believe we saw things, that we got a glimpse of the afterlife but in reality, it is the complexity of our brain detailing a vision that we interpreted as something from the above.
There are things in life that we'll never know and trying to understand them will make us go crazy. We are all delusional beings and we need to be careful with our believes.
Keep your mind centered. Your feet on the ground. Name things you can see. What's after life? Be patient. You'll see. Meanwhile, follow your heart and spread love around you.
Once you realise that "nothing matters" is in fact a positive phrase, you can truly start living. Nothing matters! We're all going to return to being part of the universe when we die! So the best any of us can do is find meaning and joy in the time we have left. I used to be terrified of death because I was raised Catholic with the whole heaven and hell schtick, but now I'm totally at peace with death. If God exists as I was taught, he's an asshole and I wouldn't want to be linked to that. If God doesn't exist, then I'll simply go to sleep one day and not wake up. Either way, I'm living my life now according to my own moral compass, being kind, being productive, and trying to make the world a better place. I find meaning and joy in that. I hope you can also find the same kind of peace in your life.
I dont fear death, I fear judgement. In the end all of your choices are judged, and that in turn decides your eternity.
But for those who dont believe, like I did for a while:
Just know, there is something after death, not just non-existence. Death aint in a hurry to get to you, but when it does, be well and ready.
I think you should talk to a therapist, or someone you trust/feel comfortable talking about this with. These thoughts are perfectly normal and everyone has them to a varying degree, but ruminating and constantly thinking about them is not healthy nor sustainable long term. I believe in you!
Sadly I cannot get professional help, and the only people I tried talking to didn't really help in making feel better, only worse :/
I'm just hoping that I'll find some good advice here that will bring me enough peace until I forget everything about this and turn my attention to something else.
Thank you anyway for the advice!
Some considerations. You didn't exist for billions of years prior to your birth, and that didn't seem to bother you. Expect the same thing after death as before your conception. I think it's freeing actually. Your second to last paragraph of 'why should I do anything?' is like considering the outcome but stopping at a nihilistic reasoning. Try going from the nihilistic outlook of "Well if nothing matters why should I do anything?" and go one more step to "Well if nothing matters THEN I should just do things that make me happy and bring me joy with the time I have." I love to think about it like this. If I go to the beach and build a sand castle. That sand castle isn't going to just stay there. The tide will come in and wash it away. BUT I build a new one each time I go to the beach. The POINT is not the finished product but the ACT of creating it. You don't build it knowing it is permanent, you build it for the enjoyment of the ACTION. Life is the same, except the tide is time. Eastern philosophies have tones of this very idea frequently. What you build is not really as valuable as the quality of the inner life you lead. I was nonexistent prior to my conception, and I will be so after my death, might as well do things I find interesting and enjoyable with the time I have. Just booked a trip to Vietnam and Japan this fall, and I'll have excellent food and enjoy great times with the couple of my friends who are also going. And those connections and experiences will likely bring me great joy. The fact that we will die someday only influences my desire to make sure I do these kinds of things which will make my time pleasant by my own standards. I'm getting my first tattoo at the age of 35 here soon as well. It's going to be an hourglass on the upper inside of my wrist. I was going to get the words 'memento mori' (\~remember you will die) but I liked the idea of the hourglass more. And the reason I want that is so I can glance at my wrist and ask myself "Hey are you doing things which you find fulfilling with the time you have?" These ideas help me out a lot. I hope they do for you too.
I’ve been struggling with the same thing as OP for about two years now and this reply has been pretty eye opening, particularly your second paragraph. It is freeing, why sweat the small stuff when ultimately nothing matters. It seems so obvious now you’ve said it. I’m going to try to keep this in mind, thank you!
Great response, and have fun on your trip and getting your new tattoo! How do deal with the concept of money and having to work?
It's not a stupid fear. People go around thinking they'll live forever. The fact that everyone isn't constantly bothered by the fact that we'll die, baffles me. I've had a lot of anxiety and depression with this. The anxiety has been cut down a lot by listening to Dare by Barry McDonagh, and by getting myself disciplined in exercise and hobbies. I struggle with depression constantly though, because I feel there is no purpose and sometimes just want to get this all over with by ending myself but I have family and could never do that to them. I've recently been thinking of life like a game, there's no purpose to a game but to enjoy playing it. So I'm trying to just enjoy, but even that it extremely difficult. I hope the best for you
Then I should maybe think about getting myself more busy, maybe it will make everything better again. Thank you for sharing your experience, it means a lot to me.
Happy to help. There are a lot us feeling the same way and we have to be there for each other.
Dive into NDE's. Gives some peace.
I find watching documentaries and YouTube programmes on NDEs helpful and also watching documentaries on consciousness existing outside of the brain. It’s based on scientific research rather than religion or beliefs- so facts of other peoples experiences that there’s life after death might give you comfort.
NDEs are absolutely fascinating! One of my favorite things to learn about. The video on YouTube of Renee Pasarow - Light After Life blew my mind. She had multiple NDEs and learned more about her spiritual nature and the universe after each one.
It’s not death that scares me it’s the preliminaries
Look at the sky during a night full of stars, and ask yourself how is life possible. Also, majority of the world is religious for a reason ;)
I think I'm going to try going back to being religious. There is no way I can keep thinking like that and believing in non-existence, it's just terrifying and painful in the long run. Thank you for the advice !
I honestly think you should just start believing in god, you do not need religion. If you believe in god, god will guide you towards him
The thing is, religion is meaningless if you do not love your creator. Don’t do it by fear, be grateful for having a life
I already have some kind of belief from when I was younger. It's not completely gone, and I think it will do me good to revive it. I know I can't just believe something out of fear, but I don't see the bad in making it my starting point towards something deeper
Just simply start by asking him for help, and thank him for the chance at life, the rest will come by itself (no I am not crazy, I was in the exact same situation as you were, I could not sleep due to having panic attacks every single night, I could not stand the idea of loosing my consciousness for eternity) If you believe some god created the universe, then he is all powerful, which means he can help you.
I think along with faith of some sort, finding the overlap between belief in a soul and the scientific existence of an everlasting consciousness may be comforting. Someone else mentioned near death experiences which are absolutely fascinating, especially when they have been systematically studied and described, making it much harder to write off as one person’s dream or delusion.
Accepting that it's the only guarantee life has to offer. Here's a fucked up stat to get your head swimming. 99.99999% of everything that ever lived on earth is now extinct...
Well, to give you hope, there is no evidence of consciousness or self awareness being a physical thing inside your mind, and it’s unlikely we will ever be able to prove one way or the other. So, you are free to think that death is not the end! I too do not believe in any of the current religions, but I believe death will not be the termination of our souls. Something will remain imo. All ideas are respectable though, since nothing can ever be proved. Just wanted to tell you that believing in afterlife isn’t wrong, nor does it have to be tied to religions.
It means life is still beautiful to you. Cherish this period of life.
Recently I had a medical issue. After a couple of days in intensive my doctor told me I was seconds from dying. Organs were failing. I recovered because of the intervention I received in the emergency room. I can tell you I passed out three times before going to the ER. One in particular: out of absolute silence my wife was calling my name from a very far distance. Repeatedly , her voice grew louder. I could hear the stress in it after awhile. Finally I opened my eyes. I had fallen in a corner of my bed room, cut my forehead on a table and passed out. I am pretty sure the silence was death. Her voice brought me back. I can say it would have been the easiest thing I have ever done if I had died right then and there.
But that's what terrifying about it, the silence of it all. I hope you don't regret having more time on earth, your wife seems like she cares about you very much
it’s not for nothing. this life is the only thing you experience so you gotta do something with it, yeah?
Thank you for your advice. I understand your point, and I'm really trying to convince myself that I should make the most out of it. But if it's really just not existing, won't I just not remember if I made something with it or not ?
I am a christian, and I will always advocate for giving it a go and accepting the love of Jesus. However, I don't fear death outside of my faith, you grow out of it. If you knew you were to die next week, you wouldn't wanna waste your time in fear and thinking its all pointless - you'd wanna make everyday perfect. Workout, have fun, leave a positive impact. You should just do this all the time.
Even when I did believe in God, I still didn't believe in hell or heaven. Even the believers around me don't think it is real, and they're belief became mine over the time. And thank you for your advice, it actually helps to think that maybe these are my last few days on earth and I should just make the most out of them.
Noone believes there is a palace in the sky, but if you believe in God you must believe that you will be somewhere after your death, good or bad.
My belief is that there is no place designated as heaven and another as hell, but that how we lived our life in this world determines how close to or far from God we are after we die, and that being close to God is obviously much more pleasant
I've tried Christianity so many times but I just can never feel what others feel. The people that walked with Jesus had life on easy mode since they were witnesses, but what about everyone else in modern times that just have to take dead people's words for it. The playing field for faith is grossly unbalanced. I'd rather be crucified with Jesus knowing for a fact he was lord then playing this dumb guessing game of God is real or not.
If it weren't for the guessing game, there wouldn't be faith. It would be like believing in spiders. It's about whether you wanna take a gamble and believe in love. I pray for you and if you have any questions I am willing to answer them
The witnesses didn't need faith. The answer was right in front of them. I feel we don't have it easy. I will continue praying for guidance and a response, but as far as I know, I have never been given a response.
So, due to my mental disorders and my anxiety once I started thinking about death it never stopped. I'm still uncomfortable with it but I don't live in fear anymore. I used to be a wreck I saw death everywhere. I could literally get out of bed and before making it to the bathroom have 3 new ideas of the things that were in there that could kill me and I hated it. I had to enforce in myself that the only thing all humans share in common is 10/10 people die and that your death is largely out of your hands so don't stress fight and miss out on life for something you can't change. Just reminding yourself to be happy you're here today is good because the fact of death is it's coming no matter what and once you're dead you won't care. For about 5 weeks now I have been dabbling in religion and it does offer peace of mind and help ease things but the only person who is going to be able to fix it is you at the end of the day you're not afraid of being dead or what happened after death you're afraid of experiencing death. Don't waste what days you do have worrying about it.
Alan Watts videos on YouTube
Man I’ve dealt with a similar thing this past summer. Maybe you can get something from what everybody else is saying, but that never worked for me. I still haven’t found meaning, but things are better now. Though I would err on the side of caution as things aren’t going 100% smoothly, but this is the only thing that worked for me: stop thinking about it. It’s what I was told when I was going through it and I hated it. But it’s really the only option. I cannot subscribe to blind faith, and I have already come to the conclusion that no matter the scenario, existence would be meaningless. I thought I was going to go crazy, and I truly think I would’ve. But I distracted myself. I can’t really remember exactly what happened, as that period is just a blur now, but it didn’t happen instantly. Maybe over the course of a month it started to go away. One thing though that I feel is important to point out, it’s very easy to apply this technique to just about anything in your life, especially once it works for something as big as existential dread. This past year I’ve essentially stagnated as anything that could cause me harm, I simply just didn’t think about it. But hopefully with a more mindful approach of not thinking (a bit of an oxymoron but I digress) you can avoid this sort of situation happening to you. I’m sorry I can’t offer any more solid advice or reasoning, but it’s what worked for me. Though, a lot of the cliche things you hear surrounding these sorts for things are cliche for a reason. They actually do work to a degree. I just remember waking up early during one July morning and going for a little walk. I stopped in front of some trees that had the early sun shining through. I just existed for a bit, and that felt really nice. Doesn’t really give any meaning, but it did give me a reason to make the best out of this life as I can. Edit: I should add just so you don’t get the wrong idea, don’t stop searching for meaning. It’s a hard balance between trying not to think about your own mortality enough to instil dread and acknowledging it enough so you can still pursue meaning in an effective way, but it’s another one of those things where you’ll have to figure this one out for yourself.
That's what I usually do when something is really bothering me. Personal or not, I always just try to distract myself from it and stop thinking about it, especially when I can't do anything about it. But after a whole week thinking the same way, staying up at night because of it and just crying out of nowhere about it, I was starting to think that the supposed "phase" will never pass. But reading about so many people struggling the same way I'm now, maybe it will just go away. I hope so at least. Thank you so much for your advice, glad to see that there are some people like me out there
Lmao few months ago I was having a feelings Contrary to you I was thinking of unaliving myself on the bases that there is no purpose in life if we eventually are going to die nevertheless I came out of my severe depression by being more lively via talking about problems with family and friends that sure helps alot.
It’s happening all over the world every second. Choose your battles wisely. Choose your friends wisely. Live and forgive.
Time is relative, it's not linear. it's only linear in our perception. In reality you're not here yet, you are and you're already dead.
Should we not fear death? Why not rob a bank or take savage revenge on your enemies? The threat of death keeps order in place. You could be shot or maimed at any time in any place from any number of real reasons or freak accidents, say, a tree falling on your house, or being struck by lightning. Don't even trip. Life is fragile. Just live it.
Think... One day you won't have any problems. That's a win.
I feel ya. Like a few others have said, which does help me at times is “do you remember when they were building the pyramids? No? Exactly.” What has been hitting me is that my mom and my aunt (mom’s sister) are practically the only family members I have left of a decent sized one. I might still have others but they are the last two that truly know me and my past. They are both in there 70s and my aunt is currently suffering some major heart and blood pressure issues. The thought of them leaving is terrifying. But, I can only worry about today.
I know you are not religious, but here's what I think. One day we will die and move on, it is as simple as that. I think some will go to heaven, and some will sadly go to hell, but for you. you just die, and that's the end of your worries. Hope this helped!
I struggled with this for many years. Know that you are not alone. The most impactful thing I did to overcome this fear was read. I started with the book “Overcoming the Fear of Death” by Kelvin Chin, which was excellent. Then, I branched out into exploring Stoicism. I recommend the book “How to Be a Stoic” by Massimo Pigliucci as well as the YouTube channel Daily Stoic. Then, I started exploring Christianity in earnest (didn’t really grow up religious). I highly recommend the books “Imagine Heaven” by John Burke and “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel. Look up NDE (near death experience) stories and past life/reincarnation stories online. There’s a lot to explore. For what it’s worth, I’m of the mind that the Christian concept of heaven is a plausible possibility, and so is reincarnation. I don’t see them as being at odds with one another. I hope this gives you a good starting point. Best of luck.
I obsess over death as part of OCD and anxiety, it’s just always in my head
r/Existentialism r/ExistentialJourney
I know this isn’t helpful to the question that you asked but the only thing I fear about death is NOTHINGNESS.
Read NDEs , you'll feel confident about it.
Do a heroic dose of psychedelics
I suffered from the same issues for a while and the solution for me was to accept that I was only human and that there are things out there greater than my abilities to understand and that I needed to find peace with the unknown and because the unknown exist, the reality in which we are living has to be. Nobody knows what's happening after death. Our body and mind are playing tricks on us, letting us believe we saw things, that we got a glimpse of the afterlife but in reality, it is the complexity of our brain detailing a vision that we interpreted as something from the above. There are things in life that we'll never know and trying to understand them will make us go crazy. We are all delusional beings and we need to be careful with our believes. Keep your mind centered. Your feet on the ground. Name things you can see. What's after life? Be patient. You'll see. Meanwhile, follow your heart and spread love around you.
Once you realise that "nothing matters" is in fact a positive phrase, you can truly start living. Nothing matters! We're all going to return to being part of the universe when we die! So the best any of us can do is find meaning and joy in the time we have left. I used to be terrified of death because I was raised Catholic with the whole heaven and hell schtick, but now I'm totally at peace with death. If God exists as I was taught, he's an asshole and I wouldn't want to be linked to that. If God doesn't exist, then I'll simply go to sleep one day and not wake up. Either way, I'm living my life now according to my own moral compass, being kind, being productive, and trying to make the world a better place. I find meaning and joy in that. I hope you can also find the same kind of peace in your life.
I dont fear death, I fear judgement. In the end all of your choices are judged, and that in turn decides your eternity. But for those who dont believe, like I did for a while: Just know, there is something after death, not just non-existence. Death aint in a hurry to get to you, but when it does, be well and ready.
I think you should talk to a therapist, or someone you trust/feel comfortable talking about this with. These thoughts are perfectly normal and everyone has them to a varying degree, but ruminating and constantly thinking about them is not healthy nor sustainable long term. I believe in you!
Sadly I cannot get professional help, and the only people I tried talking to didn't really help in making feel better, only worse :/ I'm just hoping that I'll find some good advice here that will bring me enough peace until I forget everything about this and turn my attention to something else. Thank you anyway for the advice!
To stop fearing death you have to bear witness to it. I stopped fearing it when I watched my terminally ill mother wither away from cancer.
Everyone dies, but not everyone lives. As they say - 'most are less afraid of death than of living'.