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I'm a very happy person and try to live each day to the fullest. However, when I think about death I start to panic and can't sleep and cry uncontrollably. I've dealt with a lot of death with friends and family members, but I think about death at night and barely sleep. I'm 37. Any advice?
First of all, I fear death. I fear it like the plague. I imagined I'd be over it when I'm older and everything and I still imagine I'd come to terms with it sometime in the future but my feelings and the dread of my own mortality keeps coming up. I try to meditate every once in a while but the thought that I'm going to stop breathing and that I'm no longer going to be conscious or anything like that keeps popping into my head. That state basically fills me with dread (excuse the rhyme).
My 29th birthday was this March. The thought of turning 30 kind of scares me because it's like a point of no return in my life. I'm never going to get any of the years that have already passed back and when I think of my age I imagine myself growing into an old man. Then I imagine me on my death bed. It scares me.
I have a basic idea about what many different religions say. Judeo-Christian belief systems say good people go to heaven after they die. Buddhism and other Eastern religions say people will be reincarnated all that other stuff. I'm not worried too much about what happens after I die. I'm afraid of the thing in between. The experience of death itself and the time between me being sick or too old to move and the time I stop breathing.
I've tried to live my life as best as I can and not think of dying but sometimes, when I'm alone, those thoughts about my own mortality and what will happen at that point come about.
Is there any advice that you could give or is this one of those "I'm overreacting" types of things?
yes, stop fearing something that is inevitable. i dont fear death, it is a natural part of life, just another step along the path.
that being said however, i will not go quietly into the night. when death shows up and smiles at me, i will smile back, grab death by the throat, and kick him in the testicles. then i will get mad. death wont take me without knowing it has been in a fight.
besides, once you have accepted the fact that you will one day die, and when you come to terms with that revelation, it gives you an edge over others who still fear death.
I had a near death experience at age 6....I am now 62....I was having eye surgery and back then they used ether for putting you out for the operation....At some point they must have given me a bit too much because I suddenly was looking down on myself on the operating table from above...I wasn't scared, I knew it was me and I just watched with odd fascination as the nurses and doctor scrambled abut trying to bring me back...
Suddenly I felt euphoria...I felt loved like I never had or ever have felt loved in my life....It was an overwhelming and beautiful experience...Since I was little when it happened I thought it was just a wonderful dream and it wasn't until I was in my 20's that I saw a movie that talked about near death experiences and realized it wasn't a dream....I started reading everything I could about NDE's and found out that some scientists believe what I and many others experienced was the brains natural process of shutting down and releasing endomorphines that create the happy feelings...
After being with both of my parents when they died, I am not at all afraid to die....My dad passed from cancer at home over 25 years ago and my mom just died last March from brain cancer while my brother and held her hand as she passed. My mom was scared to death of dying alone and the day she died I told her we would be right there with her and dad waiting for her....The fear on her face transformed into a beautiful smile as she looked up into the corner of the ceiling...She died with a look on her face like she was going to Disneyland...
I think the fear you have has more to do with realizing that once you lave your 20's you will never return to them again...The same is true of your 40's, 59's and so on....It is a write of passage we all go through...I just know that after my experience I look at life and appreciate the small things so much more....A flower opening, the smell of a puppy, and the glow of the sun after a summer storm....
The biggest fear is a death from violence....I cannot imagine the terror of being murdered or the frustration of dying in pain.
It is good advice to live today.....
The past is gone forever...
Tomorrow is uncertain...
Today is a gift!! That is why we call it "The Present"
I almost died a few years back in a car accident. Surprisingly I wasn't afraid at all while it was happening, it's like as soon as I saw where we were headed I just let go and fell into total peace/acceptance, became a observer. When I called my parents after (we crashed a few miles from my house, I was in the front passenger seat) my dad later said I sounded totally calm and it made him think it was a minor fender bender.
I sometimes wonder what it would've been like if I had been crushed by the tree. I have no logical reason for feeling this way but I feel like I would've been fine, even though my body would've been crushed. That's the place I was in when it was going down. And if not, it would've been over so fast, it's really nothing to worry about.
I try to avoid thinking about it so I'm not going to read through this whole thread but I saw your thread and I have been thinking about it a lot lately. I think it's because I don't have a job so I feel like I'm just wasting my life.
I guess when you get older it'll be easier but I can't imagine ever accepting it. I guess you could say in a way it's a blessing. I've led a very crappy life. I was so close to suicide one day but I thought "if I wasn't afraid".
But it's like I'm afraid to live because I'm afraid to die. I think ever since my grandma passed, that messed everything up. I said "goodbye" to her and ever since then it all flipped. I became aware of the concept.
I've let my permit expire several times because I'm afraid to get myself in an accident. I'm afraid of getting the last HPV vaccine because I've heard girls die from it. I've gotten better with lightning but I'm still eerie about being outside when I see streaks. It was the same way with sleep. I've gotten better with it I guess but sleep was like death to me. It still kinda is because if I feel myself going to sleep I'll freak out. Sometimes even the wind freaks me out when it blows in my face because I feel like I can't breathe. On occasion I'll wonder if I'll get esophageal cancer (which goes back to going to sleep. if my GERD acts up I'll be scared to go to sleep sometimes).
It's not just me I worry about though. If my dogs get sick I'll worry about them too.
I would never talk to a therapist about it either because they're not going to fix it. They'll just say it's inevitable. Forget it....I don't wanna be reminded that I or someone I care about is going to pass on someday. I wish I could just go back to when I was a kid and didn't know what it is. Sure my childhood sucked but at least I didn't know about the scariest thing in the world. I don't see how ceasing to exist makes sense but either way you slice it you're not living anymore. I don't know what it's going to "feel" like to leave and I don't want to find out. The only idea that might be comforting to me is reincarnation because I've often wished I was someone else due to my life but what if you end up as a bug or something? So even then I don't know.
I'm a very happy person and try to live each day to the fullest. However, when I think about death I start to panic and can't sleep and cry uncontrollably. I've dealt with a lot of death with friends and family members, but I think about death at night and barely sleep. I'm 37. Any advice?
As we get older, we start to realize that we are aging and our death is getting closer and closer, I think you're overthinking death a little and its perhaps because you feel happy and don't wish to die but then you're making yourself miserable thinking about it.
Why don't you visit a doctor and have him prescribe some anti-anxiety medication? you could benefit also from tons of physical activity (physical activity makes the mind busy)
Those overly concerned with their own death might want to look to Epicurus - he wisely observed 'Death is nothing to us' - in other words, when you're alive being dead is irrelevant, and when you're dead, there's nothing to be concerned about. Mark Twain didn't fear death either, he pointed out that before he was born there was no disadvantage.
The biggest thing that creates fear of death is being close to reality. the more you will be close to reality, the more you will fear dead. the more you will think logically, the more you will fear death.
we should have a childish thinking as far as fear of death is concerned.
when we fear one part of our mind tends to think opposite ( against the fear), what we have to do is to help that part of mind by Auto-suggestion.
Auto-Suggestion means keep giving you mind suggestions about eternity and immortality.
a time will come when your mind accepts this suggestion, and every thing will be fine.
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