Venting thanatophobia

[Darkover]

Fear of Death did Ruin My Life for many years

I had severe thanatophobia, or a fear of death staring when i was 18, The dying part doesn't bother me - but the idea of going to sleep and never waking up is terrifying beyond belief.

I'm an atheist who believes that death will be exactly like before we were born - an absence of experience or feeling. I won't be lying there annoyed that I'm dead, or have any concept of time passing after me. I'll be gone.

the nothingness before I was born had an end. I woke up. I was born. Every time I sleep, I wake up. When I die, I believe I won't ever wake up again. Sleeping passes instantly, as did the time before I was born, but how can the time after death be as 'instant' if there's no waking up at the end of it? It's just eternal. I can't imagine what a 'lack of existence/experience' is like if it has no end.

i've learned to accept death and no longer fear death in fact i in brace it wishing to be nothing for all time

just wondering if anyone else here suffered with this before

 

[CantDoIt]

Fear of Death did Ruin My Life for many years

I had severe thanatophobia, or a fear of death staring when i was 18, The dying part doesn't bother me - but the idea of going to sleep and never waking up is terrifying beyond belief.

I'm an atheist who believes that death will be exactly like before we were born - an absence of experience or feeling. I won't be lying there annoyed that I'm dead, or have any concept of time passing after me. I'll be gone.

the nothingness before I was born had an end. I woke up. I was born. Every time I sleep, I wake up. When I die, I believe I won't ever wake up again. Sleeping passes instantly, as did the time before I was born, but how can the time after death be as 'instant' if there's no waking up at the end of it? It's just eternal. I can't imagine what a 'lack of existence/experience' is like if it has no end.

i've learned to accept death and no longer fear death in fact i in brace it wishing to be nothing for all time

just wondering if anyone else here suffered with this before

Oh definitely. Its incomprehensible to me and that's sort of why I don't fully believe that it's like before we were born exactly.
I feel almost like there will be something and that we wake up randomly, even if as a different person. I think I feel somewhat like each person has their own quantum identification or something where personal perception but maybe not identity is preserved. I know it sounds absolutely insane but it's simply because eternal oblivion doesn't "exist" for the person. It's super weird i guess it's just impossible like you, for me to understand, and because of that it's hard to believe in fully.
If it is like that the unfortunately we would be waking up immediately again. If not, it's hard for me to grasp as it is not a state of being.

 

[willitpass]

I'm the opposite. I fear the dying process. I can make some peace with death, though I do still have some fear around it. But the active process of dying terrifies. The conscious part, but also the unconscious part, if there is any. My near death experiences to date have been oblivion, but I always wonder if that's because I hadn't made it far enough in the process yet. I'm worried about if there is any light reaching out to you or anything of the sort. That concept scares me. I guess I'll have to just see.

 

[Darkover]

I think I feel somewhat like each person has their own quantum identification or something where personal perception but maybe not identity is preserved

i think everything we are is a result of these atoms that make up the machine we are i don't think anything of ourselves is preserved after death i think anything breaks down into fragments and dissolve into the environment

I feel almost like there will be something and that we wake up randomly, even if as a different person.

in that case coming back as anything even a rat is a possibility since it's all down to random chance i just hope to never exist ever again

 

[shame]

That's unimaginable for me.. and that's why I think it's must be sth "after"
Of course it's no proofs, just some my thoughts upon this..

 

[UsurpedByDepression]

I've been contemplating it lately because I'm plotting the final arrangements, and yes... the non-existence, the non-phenomenon of experiencing, capturing and producing any matter in any form; it's really disconcerting, so as far as I'm concerned, I also consider myself thanatophobic.
the truth is that I don't want to die, but in this reality, to achieve my desired result, the only available means is death, unfortunately;

the fact is that this leaves me bitter, because it is a double-edged sword, yes, on one side I do not suffer, but on the other side I will not be able to experience peace either, It's like a lobotomy which in turn is like curing a sore finger by completely amputating the arm that the finger belonged to, the pain disappeared but with it the entire peripheral nervous system that allowed me to detect sensations;

the bright side, and the solution to this problem, is that I have to take courage, I can take courage and taking courage is the only requirement, (at least in my case) unlike other problems in life, where courage alone is not enough.

anyway, who knows how many things your atoms were part of or constituted before they went into your father's testicles giving shape to the sperm that later gave life to you, just because you don't remember what the perspective of those objects was like doesn't mean they didn't have it, you will probably continue to exist until the collapse of this universe, before then, your atoms will perpetuate the cycle of transmigration from object to object and so on, the point is that from a human perspective, you have a central nervous system, you have a memory and a conscience, it's a very receptive perspective, but I like to think that there are different perspectives, with different implications, I, what constitutes my person will die, my identity will be dissipated into the ether but I will continue to be part of this world, adopting in the long run new perspectives all disconnected from each other as I always did before being born with the human perspective, this fragmentation of perspectives creates the effect of non-existence, especially if most of these are perspectives devoid of intelligence, I am sure that the sun, the stones they don't perceive anything but in the end they are the same atoms, quarks, that are inside me, I don't know it's a very complicated concept I'm just a limited monkey, it's probably even a delusional speech.
the only certainty is that god does not exist, all the earthly gods invented by man do not exist, the only unknown is a deistic philosophical god, in his senses, I am agnostic, but it is a superfluous unknown, because even if he was to exist it is as if he did not exist, given that according to quantum physics he could not even interact with this universe if he was omniscient, (Laplace's demon) and if he wasn't omniscient, well, I doubt he knows about my existence and he wouldn't care anyway, if he didn't, he would have definitely let us know in an unequivocal way, and then I find the idea that there must necessarily be a superior entity, a creator demiurge, very anthropocentric, only a homo sapiens could think of such a thing.

forgive the long-winded text but I was gathering my thoughts as I wrote, freewheelingly.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I'm the opposite. I'm not scared of death and I think that death is blissful and peaceful. However, I am scared of dying due to how the only methods that I can access are the brutal, painful ones and I only get one attempt at them otherwise I'd become a permanent prisoner to life. I'm also scared of the pain caused by dying because humans have regulated death so much to where the only methods that I can do are full of pain and suffering. Humanity has the technology and intelligence to design a pill that will peacefully kill us but they'll never design such a thing because the government wants as many wage slaves as possible

 

[untothedepths]

i think earlier i was the same. i was naive into thinking i would become more responsible and stable with my life, but i didn't have the tools or environment to really effectively heal from the abuse and mental damage my parents caused, and i guess genetics too. i needed mental health so badly to help me succeed, maybe even a new home, ,but thats just not my story. i never got help, and here i am. a failure of a person who wants to be the best version of myself but thats not going to happen. it never will. it doesnt matter how good i am, ill somehow fuck everything up in the end no matter what choice i made. im pretty sure i was suppose to be a miscarriage or aborted, because it feels like life itself is telling me i dont belong, but somehow im still here. i swear, i wish i had a firearm. i would be so gone by now its not even funny. one less mouth to waste oxygen and food for.

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

the truth is that I don't want to die, but in this reality, to achieve my desired result, the only available means is death, unfortunately;

This reply was a good read if I may say so. Lots of neat concepts you've stitched together. Thinking of death as a matter of practicality leaves me bitter too. It will have be transcended by me either way. I don't feel like there's a guarantee with living or dying and that's perplexing.

When I die, I believe I won't ever wake up again.

I've read thing thing called the Boltzmann Brain Hypothesis. Something about there being 0% chance you would ever had come alive which means a 100% chance of blipping back into consciousness.

 

[Darkover]

I've read thing thing called the Boltzmann Brain Hypothesis. Something about there being 0% chance you would ever had come alive which means a 100% chance of blipping back into consciousness.

The Boltzmann Brain hypothesis is primarily a way to point out the paradoxes in cosmology and probability theory. It's not suggesting that we are all definitely Boltzmann Brains, but it's a challenge to our understanding of the universe's structure and probability.

it only suggests that, in an infinitely large or eternal universe, strange things like this could happen—but they are still extremely improbable. The hypothesis raises philosophical questions about what it means to exist, but it doesn't mean you should expect to spontaneously pop into consciousness again after death.

 

[MyTimeIsUp]

It's perfectly natural to fear the unknown.

I used to fear death until very recently. Now I've accepted it and at peace with it

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

but it doesn't mean you should expect to spontaneously pop into consciousness again after death.

I know it's just supposed to be a thought experiment but the concept has wedded itself to quantum immortality in my mind just adding to my own thanatophobia.

 

[Gustav Hartmann]

The inevitable not existing anymore in the not so far future gives me an unpleasant feeling, when I thing about this topic. But like most people I am a champion of denial. I am immortal, every day except for the last one. I guess this is the way how evolution allows us to live without going crazy and having a survival instinct on the other hand. In connection with suicide this last day is the problem, when the survival instinct becomes stronger and stronger, the closer we are to the planned time of death, this was at least my experience. Though, when I plan to kill myself, I appreciate the idea of not existing anymore, because there will be nobody and nothing that could regret anything. For me it would be a worst-case scenario, when I would have to regret my suicide in hell.

Concerning the duration of eternity after death I like, what Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
"Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits."