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fear of dying
Dec. 6th, 2023 02:10 am i've been once again having thoughts about my own mortality. a few months ago, i had a horrible existential crisis triggered by my own thoughts about death. what happens after? is it nothingness? what is nothingness?
no one can answer those things, and the possibility that there truly may be nothing more to death than infinite oblivion completely terrified me. i became a sobbing mess, and i had to be put under medication. i still occasionally get thoughts about what dying feels like, but they don't make me cry anymore, and i can live my life as normal.
today came the thoughts again, but not just in passing. i felt a horrible anxiety, and i thought i might have a panic attack. i didn't, thankfully, but it was still unpleasant.
how do i come to terms with death? it's one of the heaviest burdens i can think of, and it's something we all must go through. i find that talking about death makes me feel better, so that's why i'm writing this.
there's two main possibilites when it comes to dying: either there's something or there isn't. to give myself some peace of mind, i want to examine my feelings on both.
let's assume that there is something after death. what exactly that looks like is unknowable, so i do not find it helpful to ponder on the after life for very long. either it's something nice or it isn't, but i tend to assume it's likely nothing bad. but again, because none of us have crossed to the other side, we don't know, so i do not find it a very helpful thing to think about. there's a million possibilities and they are all equally unprovable.
so let's instead look at our second option: there is nothing after we die. this is what scares me. this is what i find myself thinking about. when i get anxious thinking about death, it's always some form of "what if there's nothing?"
and well, that's a lot scarier to me than an unknowable something. because at least then, i can understand the concept of me experiencing that something, me still being there. with nothingness? well, i've never been nothing. i don't know what that feels like. people sometimes say to this "it just feels like a time before you were born" but how can i imagine that? i wasn't there to feel it, and feeling is all i've ever known.
nothingness is also unverifiable, but considering whatever essence inside of us seems to vanish when we die, and we have no proof of it going anywhere, it does seem like the likeliest choice. do i believe there is nothingness? maybe. i'm an agnostic, so i think i'll give the most agnostic answer ever and say i don't know.
here are some thoughts that make me feel better when i find myself thinking about death:
-there is no real way to distance ourselves from the universe around us. we are a part of the universe, and when i die, that will still exist. if i am the universe, and the universe will continue to be there after my death, then i am still there in some way.
-death is natural. it happens to all of us, and i think something my body is made to experience can't possibly be bad, it just is.
-part of what scares me about nothingness, is that it will last forever. but you cannot feel time in the nothingness, so eternity will not be anything to me.
whatever is out there, something or nothing, is impossible to imagine, so i guess thinking about it too hard is a little pointless, even if inevitable. but in the mean time, i think i can find comfort in the idea that death isn't anything bad inherently, or something like that. not that it doesn't still scare me.
no one can answer those things, and the possibility that there truly may be nothing more to death than infinite oblivion completely terrified me. i became a sobbing mess, and i had to be put under medication. i still occasionally get thoughts about what dying feels like, but they don't make me cry anymore, and i can live my life as normal.
today came the thoughts again, but not just in passing. i felt a horrible anxiety, and i thought i might have a panic attack. i didn't, thankfully, but it was still unpleasant.
how do i come to terms with death? it's one of the heaviest burdens i can think of, and it's something we all must go through. i find that talking about death makes me feel better, so that's why i'm writing this.
there's two main possibilites when it comes to dying: either there's something or there isn't. to give myself some peace of mind, i want to examine my feelings on both.
let's assume that there is something after death. what exactly that looks like is unknowable, so i do not find it helpful to ponder on the after life for very long. either it's something nice or it isn't, but i tend to assume it's likely nothing bad. but again, because none of us have crossed to the other side, we don't know, so i do not find it a very helpful thing to think about. there's a million possibilities and they are all equally unprovable.
so let's instead look at our second option: there is nothing after we die. this is what scares me. this is what i find myself thinking about. when i get anxious thinking about death, it's always some form of "what if there's nothing?"
and well, that's a lot scarier to me than an unknowable something. because at least then, i can understand the concept of me experiencing that something, me still being there. with nothingness? well, i've never been nothing. i don't know what that feels like. people sometimes say to this "it just feels like a time before you were born" but how can i imagine that? i wasn't there to feel it, and feeling is all i've ever known.
nothingness is also unverifiable, but considering whatever essence inside of us seems to vanish when we die, and we have no proof of it going anywhere, it does seem like the likeliest choice. do i believe there is nothingness? maybe. i'm an agnostic, so i think i'll give the most agnostic answer ever and say i don't know.
here are some thoughts that make me feel better when i find myself thinking about death:
-there is no real way to distance ourselves from the universe around us. we are a part of the universe, and when i die, that will still exist. if i am the universe, and the universe will continue to be there after my death, then i am still there in some way.
-death is natural. it happens to all of us, and i think something my body is made to experience can't possibly be bad, it just is.
-part of what scares me about nothingness, is that it will last forever. but you cannot feel time in the nothingness, so eternity will not be anything to me.
whatever is out there, something or nothing, is impossible to imagine, so i guess thinking about it too hard is a little pointless, even if inevitable. but in the mean time, i think i can find comfort in the idea that death isn't anything bad inherently, or something like that. not that it doesn't still scare me.
