At what age did you start thinking about your own death? (anxiety, college)

[Javier77]

When I was young (from 0 to 30) death was just an abstract word like love, hate, or friendship. Yes, I knew death was there, we all gonna die and that stuff but I didn´t feel it as part of my life it was so distant, I didn´t pay much attention to the fact that we are here for a while.

My first contact with the death of a loved one was my grandfather when I was 6. I was too little to understand it, then my grandmother died when I was 20, but I lived the whole thing in a theoretical way, feeling what I thought I was supposed to feel, but not really feeling deep inside the weight of human death.


But it all changed when I turned 30. Dono exactly why, but I started to feel the presence of death.I surprised myself thinking about infinite. Infinte joy in Heaven, infinite pain in Hell, infinite nothingness in a black void, infinit reincarnations in infinite new lives.


Maybe God exists, maybe not. But one way or another, death will knock on our doors some day, and "something" will happen, whether we like it or not.

All this started filling my head in my early 30s, and it's been a recurrent subject in my mind since then. (I am 35 now).

I had a few anxiety attacks. I remember the past summer, I was walking into a mall and started looking at people.Old folk, children, women...dogs, cats, flies, flowers every single living creature some day will be gone "all this people walking by will die, I am walking around future death people,and so am I" and I felt so bad I had to walk out to the street and breath some air, almost fainted.


I guess being aware of death makes you value more life. Now I use my time more wisely than in my 20s, but at the same time I lived much more carefree in my 20s, so sometimes I miss those days.


I wonder at what age did you start worrying about death? (if you worry about death at all) Did that make you change your behavior, your priorities, your attitude?

[ukrkoz]

Well, the way it is, after birth, the physical atmosphere is with a human first; followed by psychic atmosphere that connects it at around teenage time; that is followed by mental atmosphere(around 30s) and the noetic atmosphere is the last to enter, which coincides with what is known as the mid life crisis, or roughly 40s.
I'd say, you about right on timing, mate.
Personally, my obsession with death started at around 15, when I had tremendously vivid sensation of being dead. Well, I still existed, as something that is completely dead may not have any sensations. But I was DEAD. Overpowering sensation, that lead me to the search to find the answer to the question - what exactly is that I am and what death is.
So I found it. It's all good now.

[Dollydo]

When my father died, I was age 63...thought about my own mortality.

[robertpolyglot]

When I saw peers from college listed in the obit section of the alumni magazine within 5 years of graduation, as in "Where did they go?"

[Macrina]

When I was 18. Was in a coma for two weeks after a horrendous car accident, and when I'd come up to a semi-coma state, was pretty sure I was going to die.

Something like this changes one's life forever. If it doesn't, something's wrong, because it should.

[Hopes]

28. That's when I became a mother, which happened to be the same time my mother died.

You fear dying when you have the responsibility of raising a child, especially when you realize that parents don't live forever.

[Mightyqueen801]

6-1/2. My cousin of the same age--she was a few weeks younger than I was--died of leukemia. I knew she was sick but I didn't realize she was going to die or that it was even a possibility. After that I had a very difficult time. I thought God/death was just waiting to snatch me, too. I knew that something that I called The Dark Thing was following me everywhere and I would whirl around really quick to see it, but it always disappeared before I could see it. I found out that I could prevent The Dark Thing from getting me by doing certain things, like taking exactly 18 steps to walk down the hall to my bedroom and saying certain words and prayers at certain times of the day. Wasn't till I was in my 40s that I told a shrink all this. I guess it worked, though. I'm 54 and The Dark Thing hasn't gotten me yet.

[va_lucky]

The age of 6. I would count numbers on my fingers until I couldn't count any higher and then I would run out. Since this is the psychology forum, does that mean there is something wrong with me?

[animalcrazy]

I remember touching my dead Grandfather in his coffin around 8 years of age. I couldn't understand why he was so hard and cold. It's always in the back of my mind but I prefer to focus on the here and now. Life is a wonderful adventure and thinking about death all the time takes away from the fun and joy. I'd say put your thoughts about death on the shelf for about 30 or 40 more years. You're too young to be thinking this way. Go out and live, make it an adventure.

[exnj1970]

Being an over dramatic teen, I have several attempts at suicide.The finality of death didn't hit me until my mid 30s.

When I was 38 my step mother died and it hit me like a ton of bricks.I've had others die.But maybe it was the suddenness of it.In June,she's normal,In July she's diagnosed with cancer.In August,she's gone.That still messes with me.