This just happened to me again, it always happens in the middle of the night lying in bed and I just realise again that one day I’m going to die, and I wont remember any of my life or anything because I’ll just be nothing and idk. It’s just very scary…. Like what about my family, or my boyfriend or the fun things I like to do. It doesn’t matter because I’ll be dead and I won’t even be able to know that it happened. Idk if this makes sense tbh, it’s the middle of the night.
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Yes. I’m terrified of what happens.
More like several times a week for me. Kicks me into gear, at least. I’m really motivated to make the most of life because I know how short our time here really is. Could be because a close friend of mine died young. Sometimes I’m really haunted by how little it all matters, but a year or so of CBT Therapy and lots of existentialist literature has basically made me embrace a "fuck it, we ball" mentality because that’s all we really can do
Opposite for me. I can’t wait for it to finally happen!
Yes but like once a week.
Don’t fear death. This is only the probationary time to prove yourself. We have the promise of eternal life in the next stage of life. ‘Dumb and Dangerous’ is the fact that all the signs are here. Time to prepare for life to get worse and Trust in God. Keep your eyes on what truly matters. Everyone must change in the way you see the world. We must remember to end the hate, anger, and violence, to care and help each other, love and reach out, this is a message from God. You can even see it in the animals. Has your dog or cat changed lately? They know what is coming, so you should too. Please read your bible and pray. Let’s all go to heaven.
Honestly, I get a little excited. Then I have to try and temper that anticipation with the reality that I probably have a whole lot more life left. And I gotta find a way to be ok with that, which should really make the time fly by.
Full on panic attack.
I get upset about it just about every week as well as the thought of my parents dying. I cry about that probably 2 times a week. I see a therapist and I am in medicine for my anxiety and depression but the thoughts just creep in /:
I’m 60. It weighs heavy on my mind. Multiple times a day as I go through my day to day mundane existence it will just overwhelm my mind- holy shit! I can die anytime now, I havent done this or experienced that . Too many nights I can’t fall asleep worrying about it
Probably like once a month. I try not to dwell on it because it’s a very scary overwhelming feeling and that its really nothing you can do about it
Remember nobody KNOWS what happens after. We have a variety of religions which disagree with each other, a variety of tentative ideas like”nothingness” or “I won’t remember my life”. But nobody actually knows.
A couple? A year??
It happens to me once every week. It’s a fucking scary feeling to wake up to in the middle of the night! Sometimes I even wake up my family because I’m screaming of fear.
r/existentialism
No, I am completely accustomed to dying a couple times a year. You get used to it.
Yes I spiral for a couple mins n then I just be like fuck it and go about my day
I do think about dying maybe once a month, but I’m at peace with it. I think about what my family or friends might think of things they find when going through my stuff, what few things they might keep. I’m young still, but I’ve told my closest friends things like “when I die, I don’t want to be buried, dress colorfully and not in black, cremate me, spend the least amount of money possible!”
I THINK about it, but I don’t dwell on or fear it. When it happens, it happens. I don’t know what happens after, but I know, speaking in terms of physics, energy isn’t destroyed, it’s gotta be converted or transformed somehow, so however that is, I’m here for it. Death is part of life. I’m making the most of this life while I’m living it in my human body.
💕
Exactly. So just try your best to enjoy it and stress as little as possible.
Do you remember what it was like before you were born? It’s basically the same thing as dying.
Yea totally! And I start thinking about like what about my things, like, who’s gonna know where everything goes (it won’t matter lol) and I think a lot of my OCD kicks in here too. I appreciate you posting bc I didn’t really know how to put this experience into words and I feel less alone now.
I dont really care about dying. Im very afraid of becoming more disabled than I already am. We dont actually fear death, but the pain and confusion in the moments leading up to death. What I really am afraid about of isnt dying in a car accident, but waking up afterwards.
Biggest fear. The thoughts creep in all the time. It’s terrifying. Idk how to deal without crying.
No, for some reason I never worry about it
Honestly I believe that the material world isn’t the only/true reality. Our ability to love and create makes me believe in an idea of a soul. I believe there are true mediums that exist and that are accredited check out “hello who said that” online and give it a crack. I think there’s a lot of bad media on spirituality like there can be for anything. Anyone willing to talk more about this I’m more than happy to share my opinion.
Happens to everybody, I don’t stress it. World’s going to shit anyway, I’d be no good in a collapsed society
Yep, I’m 31. I feel like I re-learn this about life at least once a year. When my grandpa died a few months ago, I sank into it deep and it was devastating. I thought I’d never be able to enjoy life again.
I’m trying to just lean into making my life feel meaningful, I guess.
i have extreme OCD and this is one of the things that I heavily struggle with. I have a insane panic attack at least once a week about it. I get so scared about someone I love finding me i.e. my partner, or vise versa me finding them. since we never know when it’s going to happen it scares the every loving sh out of me. sometimes if I think about that and my brain starts to get that fear, depending on how I’m laying I will convince myself that the position I’m laying in is no longer safe because what if I accidentally suffocate myself. it’s bad. it’s scary.
I’m 52. Dyeing doesn’t bother me for a second. As long as I don’t leave the people I care about in a financial burden. That’s what I worry about. “Loans paid” “life insurance paid and in force”. I know my amazing wife will miss me, but she would start to hate me if I didn’t plan correctly.
Sometimes, yes. Especially once I became a parent.
I’ve been feeling this a few years now. I get scared everytime I hear another person in my generation get cancer, or die suddenly or whatever. I want to live to be an old woman, warm in her bed, with a life full of accomplishments so that I can feel ready to move on. If I were to die tomorrow I’d have so many regrets and would feel bitter that I was taken too soon. I have shit insurance so one bad accident can be devastating
honestly no bc I’m ready to go
I used to do this. I think it could still happen, but something my grandmother told me changed the way I feel about it. She told me she was legally dead once and the paramedics needed to resuscitate her. She said that when they did she was mad at them because for once she had felt completely at peace and it was glorious.
I imagine that something happens during that transition that causes these feelings, but also once you are dead you don’t have to worry about paying bills or losing friends or childhood trauma or mental illness or worrying about death. I look forward to that peace now.
What scares me more is infinity. I remember getting freaked out when I was young and still believed in heaven. Not because I was afraid I would go to hell but the idea of an eternity anywhere filled me with dread.
Now I don’t really buy ideas of paradise but think absolute peace is somehow tangible, just not in this life.
I get upset when I think about the prospect of dying before my mom or best friend. I’m not so much worried about what death will be like or what happens afterwards, but the idea of inflicting that amount of grief and pain on any of my loved ones makes me want to bawl my eyes out. I don’t want them to put their lives on hold. I just don’t want to put anyone through that. In my mind, there are kind of three ways that it could go, and all of them seem like they would have a profound negative effect on anyone who cares for me. Either: they find my dead body unexpectedly, they unexpectedly find out from a third party, or they watch my condition slowly deteriorate before I finally pass. All of those seem horrible for different reasons. But, such is life, I guess. Could just as easily be me in the other position. So I really just have to remind myself to try to make the most of life, tell people that I love and appreciate them as often as possible, and remind myself that they are strong people who can and will get through the pain. Remind myself that happiness cannot exist in the absence of sadness or fear or pain or anger inherent , and it’s best to try to sit with the bad feelings instead of wishing them away. Not easy and I am by no means "good" at it yet, but I try, and it’s helped.
No. I did when I was a kid, it used to keep me up at nights really often. Me dying, my family dying, friends… it was unthinkable and I would just lie there panicking.
From about fourteen years old though I had fairly moderate suicidal ideation. Right up until about 33 or so, and even now that I don’t really have that problem any more, I think it inoculated me against a fear of death.
This has been happening to me since I was like 6 years old. Comes and goes. Sometimes I’ll go months without really thinking about it. It usually happens to me when I’m driving. It’s the inescapable reality of it, like there’s absolutely nothing I can do to avoid it. I’ll have a mini panic attack and scream and slam my fists against something and then it passes in like 20 seconds. My only goal in life is to find peace with my mortality lol.
It terrifies me. I’m going to be really upset if it’s just lights out after we die. So much suffering and pain in life just for it to go DARK after?? I don’t believe in god or anything like that but I just can’t comprehend having one life and just being shit outta luck with what you got.
I read this as “DAE get upset about dying A COUPLE of times a year,” as in you had already died several times this year and you thought it was annoying lol. I was like, man this motherfucker just unlocked the power of resurrection lmao
All the time. I’ve lost my dad, uncle, aunt and stepdad so far and all I have left are my mom and grandma. My mom is 63 my grandma will be 95 in July. I’m 27. I have 3 kids of my own and I think about my own death and the death of my loved ones all the time, especially my mom because that’s my rock in this world. The idea of dying myself is fucking terrifying but I’m even more afraid to get old and be alone in this world without her because she’s really been the best mom and always been rock solid. It disgusts me and keeps me awake at night. Entropy and mortality are horrifying
Honestly, I just don’t want dying to be painful or traumatizing. Dying is the thing that scares me. The being dead part, not so much. I figure it will be the same as before I was born, which doesn’t seem scary at all.
Watching my kids go through life amplifies this a lot. I hate it
If by a couple you mean hundreds then yes
Yes all the time. Since I was about 10 I’ve had these thoughts. Eventually they turned into panic attacks, and I mean panic disorder omg I’m dying right now type panic attacks, not the crying hyperventilating panic attacks because someones boyfriend dumped them panic attacks you see on TV. I mean, full-blown convinced the world is ending, feeling of dread, shitting yourself, wanting to vomit, feeling faint, heart attack at the same time type of dread. It doesn’t always happen when im thinking of dying, it could be days or weeks later when I’m out to movies with friends, going for a walk with my dogs… sitting on the toilet… seemingly harmless times and I’m overcome with the sudden urge of dying right then and there.It is AWFUL!!! ive become quite the hypochondriac because of it. Which then of course, just sets my panic attacks off thinking I’m dying at the slightest unusual sensation in my body.
And yes, 90% of the time, it is late at night lying in bed when I’m over tired that I’m plagued with the thoughts of my mortality. That I’m going to die and leave everyone and everything behind. That I’ll never get to listen to music again, hug anyone, smell things, taste things, it will all just be nothingness, and I won’t even know it, like before I was born, before I existed. I will be nothing. Everything I know will be nothing. It’s completely terrifying. And to make things worse I’m so afraid of dying that I’m afraid of living, I play everything safe, I don’t take any risks and so I feel that at the same time I’m just wasting the life I have because I’m afraid of death.
Please go speak to a counsellor, psych, therapist, etc. If you aren’t already. It helps a lot – I’ve particularly found EMDR and EFT really helpful with my fear. I’ve gotten now to the point where I’m a little bit more comfortable with it and actually go around to schools doing talks on panic attacks and mental health and my struggle with a fear of dying. Please get help, it gets worse if you don’t- take it from someone who found out the hard way; I didn’t talk about it until I was 22 and it had manifested awfully when life got stressful (and sometimes still does if I try to just ignore it)
Sending lots of love, care, and wishes for a happy, healthy life,
A scared 31yo Aussie ❤️
I would be upset too…I don’t even die once a year. I can’t imagine dying more than once. I couldn’t cope with even dying the one time per year, let alone a couple times.
Um no. I honestly can’t wait to die and be done with whatever this was
Oh god yes. I remember once being on holiday looking out at a sky filled with stars, and it hit me – I’m really, definitely going to die one day and there’s no escape. I felt so panicked I couldn’t breathe. I’ve had this sensation a few times, but the everyday humdrum realities of life tend to numb the fear somewhat
Yes… and I panic about my best friend dying about once a month