topic Does anyone else have an extreme fear of death? in Anxiety

Does anyone else have an extreme fear of death?

Monicas — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 03:15:06 GMT

Hi. I have realised that my anxiety disorder is ultimately the fear of death.
Does anyone else have this fear? This could be causing your anxiety as well.
For me I personally am challenging that fear of death by developing a good belief system about the after life like the many religions believe in. I also use CBD oil.
It is very helpful for me.
It be nice to know others are dealing with the Same thing.
Let's talk

Does anyone else have an extreme fear of death?

Croix — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 11:55:20 GMT

Dear Monicasanduw95~

I'm not sure if my experience is of any help, but it might at least give another person's perceptive.

I guess up until a couple of years ago I would have said, on the times when I was not weighed down by mental issues (including anxiety) my fear of death was pretty average. Which I guess means I mostly put it out of my mind.

Then I had a spot on my lung, came up in an MRI, and as biopsy was not possible had to wait 3 months to find out if it was cancer. As up until around a dozen years previously I'd always been a heavy smoker I convinced myself that I was going to die.

There was an initial surge of panic and great fear, however this changed quite quickly, and became one of an acceptance, with a great deal of thinking about what was really important, and what was not. Similarly what my duties in life realy were, which was much less than I'd imposed on myself.

You mentioned that you had found a belief system to help you, something an awful lot of people believe in. Perhaps talking regularly with like-minded people will also help reduce the fear

Croix

Does anyone else have an extreme fear of death?

Malaalsieh — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 12:12:12 GMT

I’ve had this for the past year. I cried for 6 months thinking I was going to die of some sort of cancer. You are not alone. I started praying and got in touch with my faith and things have gotten better with my thoughts. I have children so it makes it so hard because I always wonder who’s going to take care of them. It’s a hard one but I promise you it doesn’t get easier

Does anyone else have an extreme fear of death?

Zed612 — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 18:58:44 GMT

Hi! I have an extreme fear of death! It is, by far, my biggest fear and I avoid thinking about it as much as possible. Ever since I was younger and learnt about death, I have experienced anxiety whenever thinking about it.

My skin becomes uncomfortable, I hyperventilate, my thoughts crowd my head and make it hard to hear anything, I feel the strong urge to cry and sometimes I do cry, I can’t sit still, my heart beat speeds up, my chest becomes tight and I can’t focus on anything. I Try to distract myself by thinking of positive things or by talking to someone - but I usually experience this anxiety when I am alone or in early hours of the morning when no one is awake.

When I was younger I talked to my sister about this fear and she told me about her religious beliefs. I would have been about 10-11 years old and for some reason after this talk, I actually accepted death and felt like God had a plan for me.

However, I struggle with religion because I’ve always been very skeptical. I have to see proof before I believe, so I am not very religious at all.

For a couple of years after this conversation with my sister, I did not experience anxiety over death at all! Then all of a sudden when I was about 14-15 years old, the anxiety just came back!

Now I experience the anxiety every now and then, I am 21. I have to try to talk to myself and distract my mind. I’ve tried a lot of mindfulness techniques recommended to me by a counsellor that I saw in school. I usually like to talk to someone and just have a conversation about anything to get my mind off death. However, ultimately nothing helps! Either way, I’m going to die one day and I don’t know what happens after death. I am most afraid that it is just going to be nothing - like when I sleep. Just darkness. This thought makes me SO uncomfortable.

Even when I try to think that we’ll be in spirit form, I then freak out because one day the world will end and then what will happen?! Our spirits can’t exist on a world that is gone! I just don’t want to die and I don’t want to be nothing!!

I was having anxiety about this when driving home from work this morning and I had no one to talk to, so for the first time I looked to one of these forums...

Writing this post has not helped but I would love to hear if anyone else experiences this too and if anything helps you?

Thank you for reading 🙂