- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 1y
Fear of death
I have a big fear of dying and death. Is there anyone out there that isn’t afraid of this? If so, can you please give me your perspective on it?
I have a big fear of dying and death. Is there anyone out there that isn’t afraid of this? If so, can you please give me your perspective on it?
Sharing my experience here since I've had the same fear when I was younger, I was petrified of idea of death but what I noticed is that fear slowly started to fade with time as I grew older and my perspectives about life started changing and I realized that death isn't as bad as people think, it's apart of life and there's no way around it, sooner or later we gonna hit that stop and get out of the bus which is life.
Yea, I can relate! I’m not a super religious or spiritual person which makes me more fearful of death. I’m actually struggling with an episode right now of harm OCD which a big part of it for me is being scared of dying so much that it causes a lot of panic and anxiety. I’ve tried to become more religious to become more familiar with the concept of death, which has helped a little. Overall, it’s definitely scary, so I do try to live day by day and think about what I can control in the present rather than worry so much about the future. The truth is we don’t know when we are going to die, but I rather keep living and be in the present than have this fear consuming my life. Still working on taking my own advice tho lol.
@Anonymous I’m the same way. I would love to believe that something is out there, but I’m not necessarily religious. I wish I was because i probably wouldn’t fear it as much! But I’m glad you can relate with me. 🤞
If u need any kind of advice to dismantle this fear I'm here, you'll be alright.
@Moha🍃 Thank you I really appreciate it. I noticed it kind of comes and goes. But everything related to my OCD is related to death or losing someone. So in a way, I’ve been indirectly thinking about death my whole life. I hate it though, I hope my perspective can change
@Anonymous Oh it will, but it won't be overnight, it'll take longer than we'd like and you gonna have to sit with discomfort now and then but it's doable!!
@Moha🍃 Thank you 💕
I’ve definitely struggled with this, sometimes I still get random waves of realization that holy crap, death is completely inevitable and I have no clue what’s waiting on the other side, or if there even is one. I think I just started to realize that it’s normal to fear the unknown, and the things we can’t control, but if there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it, is stressing really going to change anything? If I spend my life worrying about death, I’ll still die, and if I don’t worry about it, I’ll still die but at least I didn’t spend my life worrying about it. I know it’s all cliche to say, but if we can’t fix the outcome of our lives, we might as well just focus on all the things we can do now, right? I also found reading up on different cultures/religions perspectives on death a helpful thing, even if I don’t completely believe in any specific religion, I found it fun to learn about instead of only viewing death through a negative lens!
@Uphamia Thank you! This helps change my perspective a little bit! It’s definitely still really hard but I do want to try to stay in the moment. Thank you :)
At first, it just started as harmless questions, curiously exploring the universe and what life and death mean as a human. Then it became an obsession about death and the afterlife. I’m a Catholic-turned-agnostic who recently took an interest in religion again, trying to redevelop a relationship with God without letting the fear of not being good enough and possibly going to Hell taking over me. Instead, my brain latched onto the possibility that there is no God, that there’s eternal nothingness after the short time we have here on earth and that everything means nothing. My love for my friends and family. My desire to achieve my goals, and to be happy for the people I love achieving theirs. I’m haunted by the feeling that it will all be for nothing, that I will never be reunited with those that I love, that the people I love who have passed on have ceased to exist and one day, so will I and everyone else. I can’t function now. I’ve made myself physically ill over this. I’ve lost my appetite. As someone who once took pride in how much love I have for my job as a daycare teacher, I come into work and feel numb. I go home and feel numb. I’ve obsessively started telling the people in my life how much I love and appreciate them because for the past three days, I’ve been sick thinking about how one day, either I’ll leave them or they’ll leave me. It feels like nothing matters. It feels like everything is in vain. I’ve tried so hard to reframe my mindset, to rewire my brain to not think that way. I’ve tried ERP techniques of allowing myself to sit with the discomfort that the fear brings. To try and desensitize myself to this fear. Nothing seems to work. I’m so lost. I’ve been this way for three days, with yesterday and today being worse than the day it started. It’s like the obsession is morphing into depression in a way. I’m scared I’ll never feel enjoyment in any form again. I don’t know what to do anymore.
I’ve been perturbed for a couple of months now with incessant thoughts about aging and dying. I really am not sure what to do. This feels like other OCD themes, but also really different, because this time, what I’m afraid of is sure to happen. I will either die, or age and then die. It’s been so difficult to enjoy anything lately. I just want to pull a blanket over my head and wait until death comes. Has anyone else felt this way? I feel quite alone. I am trying to enjoy life, but I just remember that it will all be gone in a flash. Nothing really seems to help me feel better. The only escape I have is in my dreams where I can fantasize about never aging or dying. Or at least being able to rewind the clock to have more time.
Okay so for context to assist anyone who wants to give advice to me, I am religious (catholic) but I also believe in science, the reason I believe in both in simple terms is the math don’t math for me. Yes we know the big bang theory happened, but the theory is it started from a singularity kind of like what you would find in the center of a black hole, no one knows what happens if you go through it. So out of this point and singularity, there sprung an explosion that created the universe and in that universe out of all odds a planet was created (the only one we know of right now, though I think it’s highly likely there are other life forms out there) that just so happened to have to develop the exact right conditions for life to develop. And how did that life even develop, primordial soup, the earth’s bodies of waters just so happened to get the exact chemical compounds in the exact amount needed to create organic compounds such as amino acids. So my point in this science brief is that everything we experience and exist in is a statistical anomaly, to many anomalies to make sense for me. Maybe the way I understand religion ends up being correct or not, I hopefully won’t know for a really really really long while, I go with what makes sense to me, but I do know that there has to be some sort of higher power that I don’t understand that in my opinion must be at work within the universe. Despite all I know about science and all I know about religion (my own and others) I cannot shake my existential dread, I can’t shake the awful fear of death. I can’t even enjoy basic milestones in life like birthdays or weddings for people because it always creeps in. It even doesn’t help if I try to think about the concept of heaven and just radically accept that as my answer for what happens after, because then I feel so much fear and dread of seeing the people who traumatized me when I get there. My adopted mom once asked me when I would stop being scared of my abuser ever finding me or interacting me and I told her when the woman is dead, now that’s not even true. I can’t even feel of safety in religion because then I become terrified I’ll be in eternity with that woman, and I’m not even going to start on my religious OCD themes right now. It’s affecting my OCD horribly and I’ve had multiple panic attacks at this point and so so many compulsions, it’s like they never end. For those with death anxiety, what are things you’ve tried that I could try to help? Are there any specific therapies for death anxiety that I could try? I want to be able to take control of my life and be able to enjoy things without always having this creep up in the back of my mind, so I’ll gladly hear any suggestions or things others have tried that could help. Thank you!
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