my fear of death
TW: mental health, anxieties, candid discussion of death and what comes before
This might be updated with more stuff as I find out more, either through life experiences or readings.
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I’m terrified of death. The pit in my stomach, the sinking in my chest, the headaches, the tears, the countless hours in fetal position worrying about when, how, and where it may occur, who I might be around. I spent a whole therapy session last month teary-eyed and exhausted.
For context — I have some anxiety, overthinking, and worst-case scenario mindset that I’ve been working on through therapy sessions and journaling that have been helpful. Statistics are typically my friend in most of these cases when I research, especially in my mid-twenties. Still, every year that passes, new aches in places in my body I hadn’t known the years prior, news talking about some new disease, and life (more on this later), can sometimes leave me weary.
Is this you as well? Some podcasts that I’ve listened to — namely one with Matt Damon and Dax Shephard talking about fear of airplanes when they were my age, another with Taylor Tomlinson and Pete Holmes discussing the prospect of the fear of the unknown of the “after” — these all help to let me know that I’m know that I’m not alone.
I heard someone say recently that it’s not that they have a fear of heights, it’s the fear of dying by falling from a height that consumes them when they go onto a rooftop, and that got me to thinking, well, maybe I should dig under the surface here too.
So let’s break up my fear of death. Instead of the oversimplified catch-all of death, I’ll break it up into the three parts that I’ve had to deal with:
- I fear an extended pain leading up to death
- I fear what I’ll leave behind when I die
- I fear what will happen afterwards
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I fear an extended pain leading up to my death.
This is one I still deal with. Imagining the days and months and years that folks spend in pain leading up to the end is hard to deal with.
I’ve had family members that have battled with Alzheimer’s and dementia. I’m comforted in knowing that it’s a down the line future problem I may possibly have to deal with and not a present / near future one.
But more than that, I’m terrified of living in agony.
I remember a few months ago, I had a bat that got in my apartment in the afternoon that I let out. And two weeks passed by until I read on Reddit about bats being potential carriers of rabies — and that it’d be entirely possible that I wouldn’t be aware of a bite. I got my vaccinations and assurances from doctors and other medical professionals over the course of the next few weeks. But still…
Just in case you’re unaware — once a person shows clinical symptoms of rabies (i.e. when it’s not incubating up the nerve fibers in your body), it’s irreversible. There is no cure to this age old disease, only palliative management of some of the symptoms, and a vaccine that isn’t even provided to most folks in the U.S. as a precaution. As you might imagine, this is still a furious subject for me, but it pales in comparison to the nightmares that I’ve had of the symptoms.
In any case, the days leading up to the eventual inevitable death are grueling, torturous, and mentally debilitating. Unless you live in an area that would assist your suicide, which in most areas of the U.S., you don’t, you’re alive through the agony. I’m terrified, I’m petrified of this.
And yet, even besides rabies — so many individuals faced this circumstance with COVID-19 during the pandemic — on ventilators in the hospital — potentially unconscious and sick — but before that, suffering through the illnesses that made their throats and lungs feel like broken glass.
And what strikes me is just the thought that there is no takeaway, no lesson to be learned, no strength to emerge through the battle. There is simply the pain before the end. What a contrast to the normal “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” aggressive optimism that is inherent in our contemporary society. Some things don’t make you stronger. All you can do is accept.
But I think part of my frustration has come through the fact that so many that I talked to have no concept of accepting — just minimizing or dismissing. When I bring up my anxieties, it’s considered at best boring, and at worst, a downer-topic. I feel like advice I’m provided is to manifest the “best case.”
“Suppose the branch were to fall on us, as we walked under the tree,” Piglet laments.
“Supposing it doesn’t.” Pooh replies.
But I’m unable to do that all the time.
I fear what I’ll leave behind in the wake of my death.
It’s not the mistakes that haunt me as much as the thought that I feel like I haven’t done anything or enough.
Sure I work and spend time with my friends and hobbies. On occasion I volunteer and vote.
But where has my craft led to lives saved? Where have I changed the way people think?
What the fuck is the point of my existence?
I’m responsible for myself — but that’s it. It occurs to me that I’m not supporting a family — as my parents did. I’m not supporting the education of kids.
All my life, I’ve lived for myself — but even that has been half baked. So much of my life, spent in a daze of the virtual illusions.
You see, I fear not leaving behind anything of substance. I know I won’t care when I’m not alive. I physically can’t reflect when I’m dead. But I care — I think now, and I am now.
I fear what will happen afterwards.
I have an atheistic perspective most of the time, so I imagine darkness … no rather, “just nothing.” An end to my consciousness, which I think is simply a construct of my senses + thoughts + experiences / a faulty memory database.
A nice long rest doesn’t seem too bad to me anymore.
I’m wistful that I won’t get to witness so many beautiful innovations, art, and the changing universe … and I likely won’t live long enough to see aliens and perhaps a civilization that’s cured major illnesses and has to deal with the ramifications of a society that has extended life past >100 years as the average (more on this in another article).
But, at the same time, there’s so many beautiful things I haven’t been able to witness before my birth… and I don’t feel as bad about them. And where there’s light, there’s darkness and hardship. I imagine that the new peaks of the future have even deeper and darker valleys.
*Sometimes, I like to imagine a more spiritual scenario, where the last beats of my mind construct a projection of paradise and time slows down and I live infinities within infinities in this place, as time becomes meaningless to me. But I figure that’s a pipe dream.
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There were days where I’d lie in my bed, exhausted and afraid. The irony that I’d whittle away what remaining time I’ve had was not lost on me — and yet, in my bed I remained, not paralyzed but unmoving until the pain and anxieties subsided.
You know what’s helped me thus far with reconciling these fears?
Therapy. My therapist is not part of those that have made me feel minimized — and I truly am grateful.
But also surprisingly, when my fears were being minimized, while frustrating (as I mentioned earlier), were also helpful indicators that I wasn’t exactly seeing the world objectively. Statistics were also helpful.
Reading, exercising (to the point that I don’t think of anything else), videogames, a good discussion with people. Losing yourself in a world that is independent from the fears and anxieties of your own is remarkable.
Taoism has been helpful to stop comparing myself to external individuals so much. Self-acceptance, while a journey of its own, is likely part of acceptance of death?
I guess reflecting that I have new perspectives (even though they’re associated with the same fears). I don’t fear losing my job as much. I don’t fear having to restart as much. I don’t fear trying new adventures (even if I still feel anxious) as much. The meaning of being in my twenties means a lot more. Let me dive in a new place. Let me jump out of a new plane. Let me fall on the ground. Just as long as I can pick myself back up.
But sincerely, I’m looking forward to not being as scared anymore.
