How do you deal with fear of death?

[Prophetic Spirit]

>atheist
>pray

You're right, I am a little confused.

It's my way to say: "i can't decide my own death with accidents since just happens"

 

[BelUwUga]

I've been blessed with some bad luck that has lead to me having the nickname "Garfield" because I seem to have 9 lives like a cat. I've almost died too many fucking times now. That said, a silver lining is it has given me a unique perspective in that I see my time as a bit of a "bonus" now. By I rights I should be buried in the ground several times over now, but I'm not so I might as well make the most of it. None of us are making it out of this alive friend.

Edit: as far as clinging to life- at a certain point you're either going to lose consciousness control or you won't. The pain will still be there and pushing to survive is equally as intolerable as simply letting it happen. I also thought about how sad it would make my mom to bury me. That brought a lot of motivation when I needed it.

 

[Poppavalyim Andropoff]

I don’t fear death … death fears me

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Just don't think about it, that's the only thing you can do. The only alternative is to delude yourself into thinking there is an afterlife.

 

[Weeb_Killer]

With humour and levity. Treat it with the same indifference you probably treat living.

Aside from that, best thing you can do is live as healthily as possible, so that when death comes, it comes sudden.

 

[weegrumpy]

I’ve known death for a long long time. I lost my mum at nineteen to breast cancer, and dad no so long after. I’ve had the privilege in my career as a CSW, and RN of trying my goddamn best to provide the easiest and most comfortable deaths to patients.
i used to have a terror of death, and now, I’m ambivalent to the idea of my own. I had depression so hard I wasn’t afraid, and I’ve enjoyed life with bringing up my sons, that I’m scared. I only find comfort in common sense that thus is the nature of the cycle of life. I know what my wishes are to do with this wee aging body is done.
there is so many methods these days of funerals. I’d like to be carbonised into a diamond, which gives me comfort that in some form, that a part of me would be around forever.Heh don’t judge I like shiny things lol.
id like to say to OP as you get older, you‘ll find your own ways of coming to terms with your own mortality. Live your life in the now, try to enjoy what you do have. My mum always said that there’s folk out there that have it worse than you.
look into it and reasearch any information, the more you know.
as for the current situation, I wish there were words to comfort you. Hope and copuim are all i suggest. Or grab your favourite vice or alcoho, put your brain on pause for a short time and enjoy

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

I get very anxious.

I'm anxious now. Thanks OP!

 

[Techno Angel]

I like to simply let go and appreciate what will remain once I am gone. Buddhist philosophy has really opened my mind when it comes to thinking this way, in my opinion.
We are so obsessed with ourselves that we attach our ego to superficial ideas and materialistic concepts. But in the big cosmic show of the universe, it all is bullshit. There was nothing when you were born, then over the years as your brain developed, you began to perceive your now and it's illusion of reality. Then, you are dead, and will return to that inconceivable void, null of pleasure and pain- true reality. This thought alone frightened me a lot before, and honestly it should. But I think once you inherently understand the things that make you suffer, then death almost becomes welcoming.
The beauty and pleasure of life will still be seen and experienced by the people who will live beyond you, as it is not going away any time soon, even in times of hardships. Be happy for other people's happiness, and if you train your mind enough to think this way, I believe you will die living yourself through others.
I dunno, I took Buddhism in college and now I think I'm enlightened or some shit (obv not). I am sure I'd fear death once it is right in front of me, but why should I worry about things that I cannot control. Hopefully what I said made sense.

 

[The Curmudgeon]

I accept death as a natural and inevitable event. On the same note, I'm okay with eternal oblivion. I'm grateful to be alive and I want to live my life to the very end, but I understand that everything has an expiration date.

I don't fault anyone else here for believing in an afterlife. Personally, I don't want an afterlife, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Dysnomia]

When I was seven I almost died from a combination of pneumonia and strep. If I hadn't got to the hospital that night I wouldn't be here right now. I spent a week severely ill in the hospital I was born in. I could have quite literally died where I had been born. A priest came to see me. It was pretty bad.

I've never been too attached to myself. Even as a small child I was very introverted and not very interested in me as a concept. This life just feels like a truck stop or something. By the time I was four I was already questioning my existence. Like how I can even be there.

And while I didn't understand death too much as a seven year old I did know that it meant you didn't wake up or come back. My mom was heavily into that end of the world stuff Hal Lindsay wrote books about. So from a young age I thought that we'd be nuked by Russians anyway. Years later I thought back to my near death experience and figured I already tasted it once and was spared. It doesn't seem like there was any grand reason for this. If I did something that was important or haven't yet... Yeah. Who knows. Things like that might not actually look too earth shaking at face value. If there was a reason you didn't die from something that reason might not even be obvious to you at all. You might not be meant to know. I think it's better if you don't know. You should instead find real mortal meaning in your life instead of focusing on some grand plan from the universe. Otherwise you miss the whole point of having an individual life.

I do believe in reincarnation. But I think that it's like general anesthesia. Blink out/blink in.

If I die I die. It's ok because whatever reason I was here would have been concluded in that moment anyway.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

Before becoming Christian again in 2018. One day in February 2017 I had to same experience as you and I really became worried about death. I've come to realize that Atheist's interpretation of death is so denigrating and pessimistic. An end where nothing and nothing happens. I'm happy from what the signs I have been seeing from the occult to the remains of the tower of babel is that this will never be the case. I honestly do think reincarnation is worse than death. Heaven is the only refuge from all these problems. But even if death is eternal oblivion, in many way's it's kind of better than life. But to me it's impossibly not because I want it to be impossible but because I am convinced it is impossible. Don't get me wrong. I am grateful that I get to live life and explore it's possibilities and it's beauty and it's always tampered with problems. I remember at a trip in Mexico in 2021. I met with people who were in their 60s and we talk about heaven and how beautiful and exciting it would be. There is a reason why the most hardcore Christians don't fear death. Being able to relax in a permanent renaissance is one I'll be in line for. So I totally accept death as a part of life. The only thing I worry about is if I die a really painful one. I remember my father told me about someone who jumped in the tracks of the Calgary Metro and told me he died a really painful death. Right next to the hospital I was treated for anxiety.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

I'm scared to death by the prospect of the cessation of me. I didn't evolve the ability to understand that I'm the main character for nothing. The ego exists, it exists for a purpose, and that purpose is to keep my corporeal form alive. If I am wrong, then truly this is a universe born out of pure malice and spite directed towards all life. I will leave the mortal coil kicking and screaming because I am simply too important to go.

Religion has made this worse for me. I try to be a Christian, and largely due to the fact that Atheists provide extremely poor answers to the eternal questions of life, by comparison. I do not want them to be right. Frankly, I don't really want most religions to be right either, because they are very confusing and disjointed in places. I might never know what it feels like to be one of those people who look like they're having an orgasmic experience in a pew row while reaching their hands up to touch god while some christian contemporary rock hits an audience participation point. It has always looked ridiculous, but I envy them. The alternative is that Reddit is right, and it truly isn't worth trying to improve yourself, because we're all gonna be dust, Morty. If the afterlife has any possibility of existing, I want a part of it, because it means I will have some kind of continuity.

Back to the concept of death itself, I can say this from the bottom of my heart, and with complete confidence; Nobody who says that "death is beautiful", "death is just a part of life", or any variant thereof, believes their own bullshit. Not a single fucking one. All of that is a cope. Death is objectively the worst thing that can happen. It's the end of being. Even prospects of an afterlife are of extremely little comfort. It isn't that the absence of being is unfathomable, it's that it's fucking horrible.

There is no way to rectify this, and anyone who is made truly aware of it will never know a moment of peace for the rest of their lives.

Why would you be scared of something that is out of your control?

Probably because it is the most ancient instinctual fear and a million billion years of evolution can't be wrong.

 

[Osmosis Jones]

Back to the concept of death itself, I can say this from the bottom of my heart, and with complete confidence; Nobody who says that "death is beautiful", "death is just a part of life", or any variant thereof, believes their own bullshit. Not a single fucking one. All of that is a cope. Death is objectively the worst thing that can happen. It's the end of being. Even prospects of an afterlife are of extremely little comfort. It isn't that the absence of being is unfathomable, it's that it's fucking horrible.

Why wouldn't anyone believe their own bullshit on that? Do you honestly believe there are no worse things in life - no torture too severe, no rape too humiliating, no chronic suffering of the mind, heart, body, or soul - that can make death seem like a beautiful or desirable event? I think what you're saying here is the true cope. You can only be certain of your own fears. Your certainty that everyone else fears death is to your own comfort. Death isn't hard to imagine, only hard to perceive. You can imagine a 'before' and there will be an 'after'.

Death isn't so horrible. It happens one time, you essentially fall asleep and probably dream or hallucinate for a while (based on natural death and our assumptions based on research) and then you just don't wake up again. I won't assume it's painless or even comfortable but I've seen people die natural old age deaths too, and it doesn't seem like it's particularly horrible. I can think of a thousand things right off the top of my head that would be worse than just dying outright.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

Why wouldn't anyone believe their own bullshit on that? Do you honestly believe there are no worse things in life - no torture too severe, no rape too humiliating, no chronic suffering of the mind, heart, body, or soul - that can make death seem like a beautiful or desirable event?

Under the proviso that you have an able body and mind, no, I don't think there's anything worse than death. Loss of function is different, but death is neither beautiful, nor desirable. It's just the next best thing to what you're dealing with. If you are youthful and complete, then death is objectively the worst thing that can happen. If you're not, you were barely alive anyway.

 

[Roast Chicken]

I feel anxious about any pain that may come before, but as for death itself? Ahh, an earthy blanket will cover me forever and a slab of stone will be my headboard. 'Tis but a dreamless, uninterrupted sleep.

 

[Pheenbean]

I get what your saying. After I lost my daughter tragically , i stopped fearing the process of death . I looked it intimately in the eyes and that kinda took the edge off of it for me . what I fear now though is the people I leave behind . I am not ego driven enough to think I am not replaceable ...but i hate the thought of people grieving me ...being in pain from my loss....i am not sure how to conquer that one .....

 

[Stoneheart]

Im just not smert enough for thinking about it.

 

[Isaac]

"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

When we die, we are simultaneously killed and born. I am going to die, and I'm going to lose everything. After death, I will both be truly myself and nothing of myself.

We are composed of silt and sand and as we are washed in the Blood of The Lamb, the Blood shall drain and the precipitate shall remain.

Death is Foxist, and very good.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

If there's no afterlife, one won't know it because there won't be the ability to experience the lack of experience.

If there's a good afterlife, then it's a good afterlife.

Hopefully no hell like "eternal recurrence", "reincarnation", nor "traditional hell" follows death. Speaking of, I heard the odd idea floating around that the tunnel with the light at the end of it - as seen in "near death experiences" - is really a "soul trap" that makes anyone who falls for it reincarnate, with prayer being the way out.

I honestly do think reincarnation is worse than death.

Given enough lives, any horrible thing that could happen would happen. One could be born to be a lolcow and/or a child molester.

And who really wants to be trapped in this limited world of decay and suffering over and over and over?

 

[Therapy Dog]

I don't fear my own death at all, but I do fear losing people I care about deeply (and frankly, there are only so many of those). That said, I appear to be very non-chalant about death in general and have been for a long time; I remember feeling very awkward at my grandfather's funeral because I didn't appear to be anywhere near as broken up as those around me, especially my brother and my cousins, all of whom were crying or were at least teary-eyed. I find funerals to be extremely odd and uncomfortable. I was about 13 at the time.

My grandmother passed recently, but she suffered from dementia and... wasn't really the person we knew at all. I was relieved that she was dead, since she frankly wasn't really "living" any kind of life at all.

I'm not religious in the slightest (which may explain some of the above), so the way I view it is that I'm literally an expert at being dead, because before I was born, I was in the exact state of non-existence for approximately 13.6 billion years, or whatever the current consensus of the age of the universe is.

Joking aside, I view it in the exact same way as I do being asleep or unconscious.

All of that said, I'm not a psychopath or a sociopath or anything, I feel empathy etc. but I feel empathy BECAUSE I know a living, conscious person is capable of suffering and feeling pain. Dead ones aren't.