Afraid of dying.....

[Mrs-M]

Are you afraid of dying? (Yes I know, between this thread topic and my other living/dying one, cremation versus burial, you're all probably starting to wonder if Mrs-M is a morbid person. To answer that question for you, no, I'm not. :)

In speaking for myself I do find comfort in knowing so many others have passed before me and made the journey , but somehow there's still a level of fear and concern I possess over the thought of what happens afterwards and, where do I go.

I don't fixate or dwell on it, but it does enter my mind on occasion, like right now.

[goldensmom]

Yes, I'm beginning to wonder about you Mrs. M., cremation, obits, fear of death, however they are things I think about also. No, I am not afraid of dying. I believe what the Bible says about life and death so have no fear of it. What does concern me is if I die before my husband dies, will he remember to feed the dogs.

[Kestra]

I'm afraid of dying but it's more about not knowing when it's going to happen, rather than the pain or what happens afterwards. Strangely, I feel I'd rather die of an illness than suddenly in a car wreck or something. Something about being a control freak and wanting to "mentally prepare" for anything new. Also, I'm really scared of dying young or my husband dying young. I try to remind myself that most people I know are older than me and also still alive. Doesn't help that much.

[happystuff]

I'm not afraid of dying. I've been reading The Tibetan Book on Living and Dying. Wonderfully insightful.

[Stella]

I am not afraid of death, but maybe a little afraid of the dying process. Like goldensmom, I believe what the bible says and in a way look forward to death, but I dislike suffering. I am willing to suffer, though. I am just afraid I wouldn't handle it well.

[Simplicity]

My worry, fear and fixation is on the loved ones I leave behind. I can't bear the thought of the pain DH and DS will go through. I don't fear death itself, and actually look forward to "going home", as I always think of it, but I can't bear the thought of leaving DH and DS. Kind of a strange way to look at it, but I think of this quite often, and always get a little panicky about it.

[benhyr]

Not afraid of death... not interested in pain. When it comes, I hope it's fairly easy going. As a long-time swimmer, I've always been terrified of drowning; it seems like an unpleasant way to go... although not as bad as many other options I know.

[catherine]

I am not afraid of death--perhaps because of my role models. I had a greataunt who, at 92, knew she was dying. I was her "summer companion" and I had just dropped her off at her apartment 2 days before. Apparently, she had a sense it was her time, so she asked her housekeeper to spend the night with her, and on one of those nights she went to the hospital and died..but not before she laid out important papers like her driver's license and her will. I still can't believe her presence of mind and her dignity.

My mother was much the same--dying from emphysema and heart failure at the age of 69. We held hands, and she slipped me her life savings--$60 in cash. She told me she loved me and I said the same and she slipped off.

I really don't know what my death will be like, but I have no fear.

[loosechickens]

I have no fears about "what happens afterward" or "where I go", but I do think I have some dread of the process, i.e., the pain and suffering department. If I knew I'd be dying quietly and peacefully, not a problem. After all, we begin the dying process when we arrive in the world, and since every living thing goes through the same process, it's obviously the natural order of things, so not really all that scary.

And at this point, I've had 69 good years, so even if it were tomorrow, I had a pretty good run, something denied to many, as we know lots of people who died at much younger ages.

after all, where were you before you were born? How scary was that?

I don't have any belief in God, heaven or an afterlife, but I do find myself comforted by the fact that every molecule in the Universe is still being recycled, and the molecules that make up this entity I call "me" will be, as well. Who could ask for more?

[happystuff]

I've been reading The Tibetan Book on Living and Dying.

Wow - replying to my own post - that's a new one. :-)

I should have mentioned in the original post that this book actually talks about the "process" of dying - the occurring steps of death. While it is definitely from a Buddhist philosophy, it explains how the process of dying can be prepared for/practised/learned of (not sure of the term that fits best here) regardless of religious or after-death beliefs. I've found it very reassuring and actually hopeful! Now to get a close friend or family member to read it so that someone will be aware of how I would like my dying and death attended to.

[Kat]

I am not afraid of dying, either. I believe what the Bible says about death and feel like this life is only temporary. I do, however, fear the death of my loved ones. My greatest fear is probably my husband dying.

[Sad Eyed Lady]

Like others have expressed here, I am not afraid of dying - I am afraid of WAYS of dying. I hope for a easy peaceful end, but I know that is not always granted us. A car crash? A house fire? Horrible, horrible ways to go, but we don't get to choose (unless suicide of course).

[goldensmom]

Others have mentioned the methods of death which reminds me of my first transatlantic airplane trip. I told my traveling companion that I didn't mind dying if the plane went down but I did not want to end up hurt and I cannot swim. She replied 'don't worry the fall will kill you', quoting from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

[Tammy]

It's normal to think about death, but we often don't talk about it. I think it enters my mind several times a week. always has. and i think that it not abnormal.

[Mrs-M]

I'm comforted by everyone's words. I believe what bothers me most about death, is not knowing if there is an afterlife or not. (I mean really know). Like many here, I have my beliefs, but I also have many doubts... Death is like sleeping, and sleeping never bothers me, but if I allow my mind to start to play on me over the thought of never waking up again after one is gone, for forever and ever, now that is what doesn't sit well with me.

[Gardenarian]

I had my daughter late in life and I hope to be around to see her grow up. I also have red tape that I need to take care of. So I guess I'm more afraid of what I'll leave behind than I am in dying; there are things I must take care of and have put off.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I am terrified of dying. I have been since I was a very young kid. Now, while there have been times I have obsessed about death, I generally don't, because I can't, I just can't. I NEED to repress it, it's a necessary repression, necessary for my sanity and contentment.

There's a book about this that I read decades ago called "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker, not exactly cheery stuff to read so I don't expect anyone to. As a reviewer sums up: "Countless times Becker makes the point that the way most people live with these paradoxes is a "lie in the face of reality." That is, starting from childhood most people use all kinds of repressions to pretend that they aren't going to die. Much of society is based on symbolic systems for people to feel heroic, because when we achieve heroism we feel that we have transcended our mortality." Yep, yep, yep. But the need for such grandiosity in itself does damage to people's actual lives IMO. So .... hmm. I admit I still seek heroism.

I can deal with death on the surface level, oh yes life has an arc and a definite end point. But if I truly let that thought sink in .... really let myself be conscious of it, that there will come a day I will not be, and will never be again EVER (once and that's it *EVER* for all time), it floods all capacity to deal with it. No, I don't believe there's anything afterwards. It floods all ability to play social games too. I don't mean it makes me nihilistic, it doesn't. It does make me intolerant of stupid formalities. It makes me unable to for instance: pretend some deadline at work or something is the end of the world. A deadline, I'll show you a deadline, my life .... ticking away slowly toward it's end point :P

Oh I get that death is part of the life process, it's the Ouroborosm (the snake that eats it's own tail). I guess we only could have evolved to this level of sophistication because we are mortal. Every breath we take takes in necessary oxygen but the oxygen molecule itself spawns free radicals destroying cells, so does necessary eating.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Death is like sleeping, and sleeping never bothers me, but if I allow my mind to start to play on me over the thought of never waking up again after one is gone, for forever and ever, now that is what doesn't sit well with me.

EXACTLY. Wakes one up at night. Thus it is necessary for me to repress it.

My favorite poem on death (um read it at my funeral? or I'll read it for my father when he goes, hopefully not anytime soon - because he hated death):

Dirge Without Music (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

"I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."

[Oceanic]

That's a lovely poem.
I've been thinking a lot about dying lately, as my grandmother is dying in hospice right now. She is accepting and at peace, but I am not.
I'm not afraid of death as much as I am afraid of the pain that death causes the living.

[reader99]

I'm comforted by everyone's words. I believe what bothers me most about death, is not knowing if there is an afterlife or not. (I mean really know). Like many here, I have my beliefs, but I also have many doubts... Death is like sleeping, and sleeping never bothers me, but if I allow my mind to start to play on me over the thought of never waking up again after one is gone, for forever and ever, now that is what doesn't sit well with me.

As long as I wasn't conscious of not waking back up, I'd be fine with it. A neutral non-conciousness of non-existence is ok with me, since I wouldn't be aware of it.

[SoSimple]

I have no fear of death itself. More of a curiosity about what comes after (if anything). I have had my fair share of pain so have some idea of what to expect in that regard. I'm actually most afraid of infirmity and/or disability - being alone and too sick to care for myself, or losing my mental faculties. My grandmother had Alzheimer's and it was a terrible thing to watch - the slow deterioration of a smart, funny, engaging woman into an empty, confused, frightened husk that didn't even recognize her son. My aunt (by marriage) has Huntington's Chorea - another awful disease that has slowly robbed her of her ability to control her body and communicate, and now is beginning to affect her mind.

Having no kids and a small and widely dispersed family I do wonder what will happen when I am old and frail. I am an introvert and have many acquaintances but few friends that I truly feel I could rely on. Almost none, in fact. I have DH, but one or the other of us will be alone eventually, and I do worry about it.

But death itself? Nope, no worries at all. In fact, if I deemed it to be the best choice, I'd have no qualms in hurrying it along.

[Mighty Frugal]

It makes me unable to for instance: pretend some deadline at work or something is the end of the world. A deadline, I'll show you a deadline, my life .... ticking away slowly toward it's end point :P



Hahaha that is brilliant!! I love this. So true!!! I may steal this

[Mrs-M]

Thank you everybody for all the great entries.

[Fawn]

I'm not afraid of being dead...though a couple of the ways of getting there give me pause... (i.e. fluid overload from IVs which leads to drowning in my own respiratory secretions or setting myself on fire while lighting a cigarette from the gas stove with my oxygen on....)

I am more afraid of not living well, or fully with this life that I have.

I have read the Tibetian Book of Dying, about 10 years into my hospice nurse practice. It seemed a little too regimented, too structured to relate to my experience. Kinda of like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's "stages" of dying, which with more research and mindfulness are more like "possible responses to....."

Almost everyone I have know over the age of 80-90 or so anticipates their death. The down side of living so long is that you have buried almost everyone that you have loved.

[Tenngal]

for some strange reason, I am not afraid at all. I am such a worry wart and tend to over analyze everything, but dying does not bother me. My worry is always that my 24 yr old baby will still not have found anyone and will be left alone.

[The Storyteller]

I don't really believe people who tell me they do not fear death. Not that I think they are lying to me. Only to themselves. They just don't know. I say this because most of them don't really know what it is like to be suddenly at death's door. When you are there, you fear it.

I would say that would be different for those who have faced death over a long period as it approaches and gone through the Five Stages.

Right this minute, I do not fear death. But for me, it is not an abstract thing. I have died before. It is therefore very very real to me. I was afraid when it did. Terrified, in fact. So, I know when it comes to me again, I know in my heart I will fear it. That is just in our biological makeup.

I'm not really worried about afterward, except for what happens to my family, especially my children and grandchildren.

Because there is no afterward.

[Mrs-M]

Lots of great points Fawn.

Tenngal. Wish I could say the same. Like yourself, I too think about my family who would be left behind.

The Storyteller. Just the thought of there being no afterlife/afterward, is what bothers me the most. I know it's a lot to ask and more than likely something that would be too involved and complicated to explain, but could you touch on dying and coming back? Even just a little?

[Tenngal]

if I could choose, I would like to know ahead of time, I would have so much to plan and do before the time comes.

[LDAHL]

Who was it who said, "I don't fear death. I just don't want to be there when it happens"?

[Mrs-M]

Tenngal. I've given thought to (many times) being able to know beforehand, but somehow the thought of the unexpected sits more comfortably with me than actually knowing.

LDAHL. I like that saying. Wish there was a place one could sign up. :)

[Fawn]

I don't really believe people who tell me they do not fear death. Not that I think they are lying to me. Only to themselves. They just don't know. I say this because most of them don't really know what it is like to be suddenly at death's door. When you are there, you fear it.

I have been present with/witness to many (hundreds) people who faced their own death w/o fear.


I would say that would be different for those who have faced death over a long period as it approaches and gone through the Five Stages. See my above note about Kubler Ross' stages being "possible reactions to...." There are many, many more possible responses to impending death other than the ones that Kubler-Ross enumerated....


Right this minute, I do not fear death. But for me, it is not an abstract thing. I have died before. It is therefore very very real to me. I was afraid when it did. Terrified, in fact. So, I know when it comes to me again, I know in my heart I will fear it. That is just in our biological makeup. You did not die, by definition, as you are posting on line about your experience....you had a near death experience....or whatever label you want to put on it....but you are not dead, you did not die.....



Because there is no afterward.

This is a belief system. Just like believing that there is a form of consciousness that survives death.....Nobody knows for sure.

[The Storyteller]

You did not die, by definition, as you are posting on line about your experience....

Well, duh. Thanks for pointing that out. I feel much better now.

It doesn't really matter whether or not Kubler Ross was right (although I find her convincing). The point is the people you observe dying had plenty of time to make peace with their own mortality, so whether they went through the five stages isn't really relevant to my point. At some point they had to deal with their fear of dying. It just wasn't at the time you observed them.

And I did more than watch someone die. I experienced sudden death myself. Not clinical death, of course, but medical death, as close as you can come and not actually die and survive with some brain function to relate your experiences later. To this day even doctors, firefighters, and other EMS personnel are astounded I survived. Because they see so few like me who do. My heart attack was so severe that only about 5% of those who reach my stage survive, and only 20% of those without major impairment. Aside from only running on 3/4 of a heart and just a little brain damage (at least that's what those who love me claim... maybe they are being kind), I'm fine and dandy and fit as a fiddle. Still running a part time farm and working full time as a reference librarian, putting in 60 and 70 hour weeks on the two.

But my point is I have faced sudden death, so I have come closer to it than probably everyone here, even those who have OBSERVED it hundreds of times. I am personally convinced by that very near death experience that everyone will fear it when faced with it, especially as it comes to them. Everyone. Maybe not at the very moment of death, if they have had time to come to terms with it (although you can't really know what a person feels inside... they could be terrified for all you know) but there will be fear. Especially if death is sudden but not so sudden you don't have time to contemplate it.

And yes, it is a belief system. I am only stating my beliefs, just like everyone else on this board. My opinion. A very informed opinion, although differently informed than yours. I have done more than observe someone's death, however. I have been right there, looking Death himself in the face.

I also happen to have a different kind of experience with death. I kill things. I kill predators that attack my animals, and I kill those animals for my family's food and for some in my community. I look into an animal's eyes and watch life leave it, a life I have taken. One moment they are conscious, the next they are not. Consciousness is the result of brain activity. Synapses firing. When that activity ceases, so does consciousness.

Yes, that is my belief. But science supports my belief.

[The Storyteller]

The Storyteller. Just the thought of there being no afterlife/afterward, is what bothers me the most. I know it's a lot to ask and more than likely something that would be too involved and complicated to explain, but could you touch on dying and coming back? Even just a little?

I fell out in a church parking lot ( a local megachurch we were passing, not my own) while services were going on. The pastor and assistant pastor came out to pray over me while my wife called 911. I remember looking into the pastor's face as I lie there and him looking very concerned and telling me to call on the name of the lord. I remember thinking, "Well, that can't be good." The next thing I remember it was 36 hours later in a hospital room, cracking jokes to people who were laughing. I am a performer from way back, but my wife said she wished she had a recorder because it was my best material. Doctors and nurses were coming in from the hallways for my performance.

The only thing I know for sure is death is a very dark place as you approach it. For months afterward I was terrified of the dark. I am convinced it was from that experience of total darkness, beyond night or beyond having your eyes closed. I'm convinced what consciousness there was available to me was very aware of the approaching darkness and a knowledge of what it meant... darkness forever. Nothingness. More than nothingness. Nothing, actually. And even nothing implies something, as there has to be a level of consciousness to even be aware it is nothing.

I drive my pastor nuts. He often preaches sermons on near death experiences and is truly troubled I did not see a light or a tunnel or relatives or the myriad other NDE cliches. Many people don't experience them at all. Science tells us these things are the results of synapses firing in strange ways. They can be duplicated in the lab by electrical stimulation to parts of the brain. He's an educated man, my pastor, with a Phd in psychology, but he doesn't want to hear that stuff.

[loosechickens]

As you said, Storyteller, you are an expert in your OWN experience of a near death experience, but that doesn't mean that others are affected in the same way.

When I was a young child, my mother, after surgery, was almost lost on the operating table, and had a classic "near death" experience, which she detailed as I was growing up, long before there was any publicity about near death experiences, tunnels with bright light at the end of the tunnel, etc., but in HER case, it removed her fear of death completely for the rest of her life.

Because in HER case, she was going down that tunnel, feeling light and peace at the end of it, and was called back into life by her young child calling her, and realizing that much as she wanted to leave, she had a responsibility back in the world that she had to fulfill, and all of a sudden found herself back in life.

Because she had that glimpse of what she felt was a good experience at the end of that tunnel (and she was not a religious person, so she wasn't expecting heaven, God, Jesus, angels, etc., just felt this huge peacefulness and calm and knew she wanted to go there, and felt no fear traveling down that tunnel, in several other life threatening situations in her life, a heart attack many years later, etc. she never wavered in her complete fearlessness about death.

Right up to her very peaceful end at age 91, quite suddenly, while getting ready to read her morning paper, and with no illness beforehand at all. She died with a very peaceful look on her face, and apparently left this world with the same calm that she brought to the subject of death her whole adult life.

SO......everyone's exposure and experiences may be different. One person, having a near death experience, might feel terror and dread death even more afterward, and another might experience calm and longing to arrive at that place during the near death experience, and lose their fear forever afterward, as my mom did.

One time, some years before she died, every time she got out of bed, she felt faint, and finally managed to take her blood pressure and it was 60 over 40. After a bit, she felt better and went on with her day. I asked her why she didn't try to call 911 or me or someone, and asked her what she was thinking, and she said, "well, I just sat there on the edge of my bed and said to myself, 'hmmmmmm.....I wonder if today is the day', but after a while, it seemed like it wasn't, so I just got up".

Maybe because of my mom, I have little fear of death itself. I am not a "believer", so have no illusions about a heaven/hell, etc., and if the lights just wink out and I'm no more, so be it. I hope that I don't die in some terrifying situation.....my sweetie knew a woman who died in a car fire after an accident, together with her ten year old son. No one could get near the car, they were screaming and terrified, and burned to death before the eyes of helpless witnesses. Something like that, I dread......the PROCESS of getting to death that might be painful and frightening, but the death itself, no.

Different strokes for different folks, I think.

[The Storyteller]

But you are still relating someone else's experience, not your own. You don't know you won't fear death when it comes. It is my belief you will.

Yes, based on my personal experience.

I am oddly at piece with death. Just my own awareness I guess. In one way it is no big deal. In another, I know I will fear it when it comes. Again, because of self awareness.

I will make you a promise... if you have a heart attack tomorrow, you will have fear. And the fear you will have will be of death, not the pain.

[Wildflower]

But you are still relating someone else's experience, not your own. You don't know you won't fear death when it comes. It is my belief you will.

Yes, based on my personal experience.

I am oddly at piece with death. Just my own awareness I guess. In one way it is no big deal. In another, I know I will fear it when it comes. Again, because of self awareness.

I will make you a promise... if you have a heart attack tomorrow, you will have fear. And the fear you will have will be of death, not the pain.

Storyteller, I am curious and if you don't mind me asking - did your heart completely stop and for how long? People don't usually have a NDE unless they experience complete cardiac arrest for a period of time. The darkness you speak of - I experienced that deep, solid black, complete darkness the last time I had surgery. No my heart didn't stop, but things weren't going well medically for me, and yes, I definitely had some fear there.

I know 3 people personally whose hearts did stop completely for a period of time during surgery. They have beautiful, wonderful, lovely stories about their NDE that they have shared with me. They said it was the most real thing they have ever experienced and they now have no fear of dying, that we are all going to a heavenly place. None of these friends are religious either. I would never discount their experience or yours. I find the whole subject of death and NDE fascinating. I happen to believe there is something more, but I have experienced some miracles in life that have led me to have alot of faith in this and no, I am not religious at all either myself.

[Mrs-M]

The Storyteller, LC, and Wildflower, thank you for sharing your personal stories. I don't think I will ever overcome my fear of dying.

[The Storyteller]

Storyteller, I am curious and if you don't mind me asking - did your heart completely stop and for how long?

Yes, three times. Once on the ground for several minutes (from 2 to 5 according to reports, but that isn't likely... probably just seemed that long), once in the ambulance, and once in the hospital. I was fortunate my wife knows CPR, and there was an off-duty firefighter and a pulmunologist in the crowd. My wife gave me mouth to mouth, the firefighter worked my chest, and the pulmonologist directed them until the ambulance arrived and zapped me.

It was my daughter who saved me as much as anyone, though. Everyone was standing around just praying when my daughter yelled at my wife telling her I wasn't breathing and that snapped her and everyone else out of it and into action.

One odd thing, and nobody has given me a satisfactory explanation, but at about the time my heart stopped and I stopped breathing, my right eye popped out of its socket and onto my cheek. It was a mystery to everyone. It was assumed I would lose sight in it but I can now see out of better than my left.

Got to play pirate for a few weeks. Frighten the women and children.

[Fawn]

Consciousness is the result of brain activity. Synapses firing. When that activity ceases, so does consciousness.

Yes, that is my belief. But science supports my belief.

Some science does, some science does not.

[Wildflower]

Thanks, Storyteller, for sharing your experience. So happy for you and your family that you survived all of that, and you're doing well today! :)

[Mrs-M]

So happy you pulled through too, Storyteller.

[mattj]

I have panic attacks now and then and am convinced that I'm dying and it's a horrible feeling. Philosophically, I don't mind the idea of being dead at all. Pain or trauma or other things freak me out... someone mentioned they were a control freak. I'm going to paraphrase something Richard Dawkins wrote, "We are the lucky ones who get to die. Because, of all the people who might have been ... we are here."

[Mrs-M]

Originally posted by Mattj.
I have panic attacks now and then and am convinced that I'm dying and it's a horrible feeling.Oh yeah, me too. More so with age. Not so much outright panic attacks, but moments (you might say) where I question my health. i.e. Wake up with an achy back with nothing solid to pinpoint how I got that achy sore back, suddenly I think- "I've got cancer, I'm dying". So ridiculous.