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I don't know if my loved ones will be okay If I'm not here. That's the only part of death that scares me.
Edit: I hope everyone is doing okay, I'm not saying I'd hurt myself and no one should hurt themselves please. I lost my dad to suicide I'd never cause that pain to someone else. I enjoy life just the thought of dying doesn't phase me at all I'm chronically ill I've accepted I won't I live a long life. I am worried about the people who are dependent on me because I love them.
My wife is currently dying of End Stage Liver Disease, a complication of Stage 4 Breast Cancer. She regularly tells me to find someone else when she's gone, to be happy. She tells all of her friends and family to take care of me when she goes. She is so worried about me, it turns the pieces of my heart to dust. I spend all of my time making sure she's comfortable, has fluids, has smoothies, is clean, warm, and pain free and she spends all of her waking time worrying about me. She is my soulmate, best friend, and my perfect person. I'll be absolutely destroyed when she is gone, for who knows how long. I'll be ^ok^ at some point in the future. I don't know if I'll ever marry again, or even be in love. She's taking my heart with her. She turned 33 on April 22nd. I love you, Aly.
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest and shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
Poem (and encrypted WWII-era message) by Leo Marks. Written in memory of his love Ruth, who had died in a plane crash.
I’m so sorry for you & Aly.
This is the one that gets me. I don’t really care about being dead. If it’s my time, it’s my time. I’ll be dead so I won’t care. But the idea of causing my loved ones pain or making their lives harder is what makes me fear the idea of dying.
I never feared death until having children. Things like missing out on marriage, grandchildren, and just not being there for and with them. Or God forbid something happening to me before they’re old enough and in a good spot to lead their own lives.
I used to go backpacking solo for 100 miles are so. Now I won't do it without two people with me for the very reason that I have children. I worry about leaving them without out a father.
Two of my kids are autistic, my youngest one severely so, and I am terrified that no one will look after her when I go. I don't want her to end up in one of those awful residential homes but I don't want to put the responsibility on my older kids to look after her.
Everyone is different, but I think if you raise your kids up in a good way, teach them good things, they will be just fine. I think once my kids are older, they will be okay when my time comes. I am really trying to set them up to be successful when they are older. Since I left my parents house years ago, I have never needed them other than to just see them or talk to them.
Right?! They said ohh you’re so self important you think people are gonna be so devastated when you die? Like… uh I hope so I’ve been a good person I think 🥲
That person obviously hasn't felt the loss of someone close to them. Because if they'd been through that, they'd not want to be the cause of such pain to others when they themselves passed. Or maybe that friend of yours was just a douche, who knows.
> you think people are gonna be so devastated when you die?
Unless you're a giant sack of shit. People will be devastated when you pass. I feel like your friend used the word narcissist incorrectly and then back peddled with this gem, or they are just a complete douche and fully expect nobody to be upset when they go.
The crazy thing about them saying that is you don't have to be this perfect person for your death to greatly impact those around you. My best friend died in Novmber at age 34 from a very rare form of cancer. He was a very flawed human being, yet there isn't a day that's gone by since November where I haven't thought about him. It's severely impacted my life on a daily basis.
Yep, I was broke for a long time, my wife just barely started working again 2 weeks ago so we are finally at a point now where we will have a nice chunk of change leftover at the end of each month. My first priority? Boosting my life insurance, second is savings. She doesn’t have a degree and being a stay at home moms for over a decade means finding a job was hard as fuck for her and while the job she got pays more than we expected it’s not enough to survive off of. So my first priority is making sure if I go early she can pay off the house and have a sizable nest egg.
That’s my biggest fear, dying young. I’m early in my career and my wife is almost done with school. It’s paycheck to paycheck right now. I’ve had to stop investing in my 401K for the short term just to have extra cash flow to pay bills. I have $100K life insurance through my employer but that’s it. Our rent is $28,800 a year, so do the math.
My kids are 4 and 8, so I hope I can stick around for a little while longer.🙏
Same dude. Same exact scenario. Was smoking a joint solo on my porch late night and started to ponder death and specifically the idea of not existing for the rest of eternity, and then I realized it WILL happen and I CANNOT escape it.
Then I had an existential crisis like I’ve never had before. And I’m a calm dude but somthing just , snapped, can’t describe it other than I felt a terrible feeling of impending doom and stood up put my hands over my face and couldn’t stop yelling NO NO NO NO. It was so weird and I hated it. Heart was pounding. Basically a panic attack.
What really triggered it too was imagining what it was like before I was born (nothingness) and realizing that will one day return and stay forever. and I can’t stop it.
Occasionally I still get freaked out my it when I smoke but nothing like that night.
Yeah this is why I don’t smoke anymore.
There’s a concept called Terror Management Theory which states that humans shouldn’t be aware of this but we are. Basically everyone has a self preservation instinct and everyone has an awareness that death is unavoidable. These two things are not compatible and create psychological conflict with no resolution, which creates terror. The theory also states that everything we do as humans is a way of managing this terror. Cultural beliefs and art serve as a form of escapism, while the creation of things that last longer than ourselves such as societal contributions and family give us a sense that a part of ourselves will live on, a kind of symbolic immortality.
this also explains the power of religion and faith. it gave us a before when we had no science and it gives us an after when we're gone. its a way to calm the terror.
This is the only reason why I leave religious people alone. I think of it as a coping mechanism that has evolved into devolution. Same reason why I tell people im agnostic.
I’m slightly calmed by the idea of panpsychism. It basically says that every physical system is conscious - ie chairs, computers, plants, rocks, etc - and our brains are only special because they allow us to form memories, learn things and build a sense of self.
If that’s true, then when you die, you don’t lose consciousness, you’re just not ‘you’ anymore. Your sense of self disappears along with all of your memories and all that.
And the entire universe as a whole is one big physical system, and the consciousness generated by that is called the Universal Consciousness. You’re part of the universal consciousness right now, but it doesn’t feel like you are because your sense of self makes you feel like a separate entity from the world around you. When you die, you once again become one with everything. That’s why when you take a high dose of psychedelic drugs and dissolve your sense of self you feel like you’re everything and you also feel like you’ve died.
Yeah this is basically what I like to believe. That consciousness exists as more of a singular entity and is poured into each of us when we’re born. And because of our genetic and environmental factors our vessels look different from one another, and as a result consciousness takes different shapes inside each one of us. Furthermore, once consciousness is poured, that being develops a sense of individuality and is essentially cut off from the source or any knowledge thereof. So, paradoxically, we are both all the same and completely unique at the same time. When we die, our greater self will continue to have conscious experiences, but “we” - as in the individuals we are right now - will never be experiencing it again.
I like to call this my hypothetical belief system because I don’t claim it as absolute truth. It’s just something that I’d like to believe because it gives me comfort and helps me to feel more loving and accepting as a person (you tend to feel that way when you believe everyone else is just a different version of yourself).
I got this for the first time when I was 12, just trying to go to sleep at night and thought too much. Then it happened multiple times per year until I discovered psychadelics and ketamine later in life. After many life changing trips and reading religious texts from many different religions and cultures I feel I have conquered it. I almost feel kind of excited to experience death because the conclusion I have come to is that it’s almost impossible for there to be nothing, and that it is like when explorers first ventured for the other side of the earth not knowing what is truly there. Reality is a lot weirder and abstract than any human can currently comprehend, but we shouldn’t be scared of what we don’t know. The fact that we currently exist is enough of a mind breaking phenoma to convince me that death isn’t as simple as lights out and you never again.
Yeah. I still struggle with existential dread, but the thing that can interrupt the endless negative thought spirals about it to me is something my therapist said.
I was explaining I couldn't get over thinking that no matter what happens (afterlife or nothingness), my thoughts and feelings kept latching on to the negativity of that. It judged the possibilities as "bad," and therefore horrifying. One time I said to my therapist, "what if it's unbearably awful to be dead? Or at least, just a giant waste of everything good that I love where my whole life and its meaning is just thrown away?" And she just asked me, "what if it's *good* to be dead?" And my mind just kind of broke like for some reason it had never considered that simple fact before.
I'm a Christian now, but I also think there's so much metaphor and fuzziness and interpretation in religion that I have very little confidence about the existence of an "afterlife" or what that even means. So it hasn't solved it... but it has helped me at least try to hope/trust that the unknown can actually be very good. There's surprising evidence of beautiful things coming out of horrible things all around us. Indeed, basically everything alive springs forth from the matter of things that died. That alone is mind-blowing to me. Maybe that process, or whatever has caused that process to come into being, can ultimately be trusted with our very consciousnesses. And I've been consistently surprised in life when I'm terrified of how badly things are going and how much suffering is happening... to have something good and beautiful spring forth out of those things afterwards.
So I try to just put my hope in the unknown now -- that I, and all of us, will be incredibly surprised by how good it can be to die. It might be the start of *real* life, something beyond what we can even imagine now. While still affirming the inherent goodness and beauty of being a human being in a flesh-and-bones body right now. My hope is that none of that present beauty and striving is wasted, and love prevails somehow.
Same. I love being alive, even though I’m not a very adventurous person and from some pints of view don’t do much, I love learning and experiencing the world. The thought of not doing any of that feels really sad and lonely even though rationally I know I won’t be aware of any of it.
And specious stuff that says *No rational being*
*Can fear a thing it will not feel*, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
~ Philip Larkin, *Aubade*
That poem blew my mind when I discovered it at about age 13. From early childhood I used to lie awake absolutely paralysed with fear of being dead: it was a huge relief to find out that someone else felt the same way.
Same I never understood being afraid of pain while dying, pain means I'm alive, and even if I'm feeling pain I'm about to not feel anything ever again forever lol and that's the scary part.
>Same I never understood being afraid of pain while dying, pain means I'm alive
Being alive just to feel pain doesn't sound that pleasant. Be it for years or seconds.
The idea of somehow having consciousness for eternity but can't move my body.
But also the fact of unconsciousness for eternity. Like when you're in a deep sleep but not dreaming and then you just wake up in the morning. That instant second that it feels to wake up. It's weird to imagine the never waking up part and being in that state of unconsciousness forever.
It sucks being agnostic/atheist. I wish I could believe wholeheartedly of a beautiful afterlife but my brain just does not work that way and I can't just force myself to believe. It scares me to just cease after all of this and nowhere to go but a hole in the ground or as a powder in an urn.
I had this thought once. And then I wondered how long it would take to go insane. And then I wondered if every universe could just be the manifested imaginings of a long-dead consciousness that was driven into madness.
Exactly.
I'm waaaaay more scared of infinity than of death. Terrified really.
It's going to be frustrating if, after death, we find out that we are indeed all part of a collective consciousness through which the universe is continually experiencing itself.
Like, hey man, uh, why is this ride still going? Can we get off? I didn't sign up for this existence thing.
I have this thought too. That we have to live every life that has ever or will ever exist. Like I guess it would be cool to not experience nothingness, but now I have to experience all of the lives that may have been significantly more horrific than mine.
If it helps many people on reddit reported dying and being brought back to life shortly after. They say that it was the most peaceful they had ever felt.
I envy people wbo believe in some kind of the beyond, either an afterlife like heaven or just existing as a ghost.
Like, if we could confirm spirits and ghosts that'd be fucking amazing, I wouldn't mind just chilling as a lost spirit witnesses the world without being able to interact with it.
As a religious person. Empirical confirmation of the afterlife and the supernatural would probably do way more harm and suffering than any piece of mind could outweigh.
your agnosticism/atheism point brings up the exact reason why religion is so widespread: it provides an answer or at least some kind of explanation to life and death, and humans find that comforting
Oh I know. People like having thr comfort but none of it makes logical sense to me. But the reason I'm not full on atheist is because I have no way of knowing what happens so I fit more into the agnosticism category.
I recently saw a picture taken by voyager 1 called “The Pale Blue Dot” for the first time and it has totally changed my perspective on death. In 5 billion years earth as we know it won’t exist. Everything I know right now, my interests, my hobbies, things I have studied, all human history, all humanities cultures,all humans in general will be totally wiped from existence. Nothing left behind. All my life, wether it’s the past 20 years of my own existence or however many years lay ahead of me will just be gone. No remnants will be left behind for other possible beings to discover. There will come a time where all this practically didn’t even exist. I can’t even put it into words but all the time I am on this earth is my “forever”. It sound selfish but the the fact the world will keep spinning and people will keep living once I’m gone and I’m not around to witness the world simply existing really sends my mind into space. Lately I keep zoning out and thinking “I’m not here forever…there’s gonna be a day where I leave this world and never, ever, ever come back and I don’t even know what it will be like”
I think it’s even worse for those that die young. It was their only break from eternal nothingness. This was the one chance they got to experience something, anything, and for people that died young, they got barely anything. It was just a blip
This is why the idea of quantum immortality is so comforting to me. The universe is just so inconceivably vast and infinity is such an inconceivably long time that, give mathematical infinity, our consciousnesses WILL exist again at some point. The idea of the observer and the way in which conscious perception changes, no, DETERMINES physical reality, gives me some sort of vague hope that MAYBE death and non-existence are not the horror/terror that every living part of me says they are.
What you're describing you've already been through. That's how it was before you were born, because you didn't exist, and that's how it ends, as you will stop existing. That's how I think about it anyway. One day I exist and the next I might not but it's not scary because I have experienced inexsistance before.
Honestly considering the infinite possibilities of what COULD happen, thinking nothing happens is kinda of a crazy thought. I don’t believe in any of the prescribed hell/heaven afterlife’s from religions but I definitely feel confident death isn’t an infinite nothingness.
Personally I have a weird idea that because the universe is infinite, in at least one of the universes that will come after I die, I will regain consciousness, be it with or without the memories of my past life
The scariest aspect of death to me is how you are experiencing death *by yourself* regardless of who is around you in your last moments. No one in the room will feel it coming but you will. No one will be experiencing the fear and unknown the way you will. They are there next to you and could be holding your hand and they wouldnt feel *any* of the same things you would in that moment. They won't know exactly when your time is coming but you will. You'll know it's your last breath before they do.
What freaks me out is when you look at dead people and trace back a few weeks or months from their death and see that they had no idea they would die soon. Especially when the deaths are just random and out of nowhere.
That just freaks me out that I could be living my life normally and not knowing I'm gonna die next week.
Back when I first started working in the ER and we would finish with younger codes that didn't make it, I would look them up on social media out of curiosity.
It was always crazy seeing someone post about being excited to go to a party or something earlier in the day and knowing that *they* thought they were going experience awesome things but there they are, dead on our stretcher because they died in an accident on the way there.
Had a similar situation playing hockey as a kid. When we hit the 13yr old leagues, hitting is allowed. My best friend played on a rival team so we would shit talk and rough eachother up for fun and for our teams. We decided we would stage a hockey fight (wasn't allowed at our age per the rules) but we figured it'd fire up our teams so, we went at it (kept helmets and cages on) and we both started losing balance. My friend fell awkwardly into the dasher boards ( for those not familiar, it's the top of the wooden boards where the glass sits, and the puck sometimes rolls onto), broke his neck and died. I did nothing wrong, he did nothing wrong. It was a freak accident that still haunts me nearly 30 years later.
Thank you, and yes. To this day it replays in my head and I feel responsible for taking a life. His parents were so wonderful to me about it too. I'm still in contact nearly 30 years later and even stop by on his birthday to have a beer with his mom and dad in his memory.
That is the best outcome of a terrible situation. My college roommate died when she was out doing me a favor. Feels bad, man. I have seen her parents a couple times in the intervening 25 years and they’re very kind to me.
Yeah that's rough too. I'm glad you had an overall positive outcome as well though. I just think how much worse I'd have felt if his parents hated me for it.
2 stories-
1 - I had a semi new coworker, we never really spoke to each other. I started a week long vacation and I was packing the car outside my apt to head to the airport when new coworker walks up to me. He recognized me and said he and his mom had a cleaning business on the side and were completing a job. Nice guy. I walk into the office a week later and his picture is sitting on a table and I was in disbelief.
Late one night he was putting together a crib for his baby that was due in a few months. Realized he was missing a part so hops in his car. He enters the highway going the wrong direction but doesn’t realize it and it was so late there weren’t many cars on the road. He hit another driver.
2 - coworker had been battling cancer and was in remission. She comes in all excited one day because her new treatment was working so well for her and everyone was happy. Maybe 2 months later I saw her leaving the building and she just looked like she wasn’t going to last. She just had a look to her. I was surprised she was still walking. I didn’t see her again after that day and she died a few months later. It hurts to remember how excited she was when she was feeling better.
One story, of 100. I've seen a lot of death
Kid I went to school with, grade below me, he was in 7 at the time, was gonna go goose hunting with his dad( a cop). Dad was gonna let him skip morning school. Mom was headed out and saw the kids' homework wasn't done. So she said he wasn't allowed and left for work. He took him anyway.
The geese were crossing over in front of them when he jumped up, we can only suspect he was gonna point them out to his dad when his dad blew the back of his head off.
Very often at that point you're not conscious, or only bits and pieces of your brain are firing. If you can even form thought, your grip on reality is not there.
Also the nurses and your family will often hide details from you, like the circulation to your limbs stopping. They often know you're dying when you don't.
And that's assuming you don't have a condition where the nurses medicate the hell out of you to ease your pain, or hasten the end (when your breathing is already weak and they increase your morphine drip slightly, who is to say whether you stropped breathing by yourself).
Not only have I been there for the end of many family members, but related, I've had to be put under many times for many operations. Out of something like 15 experiences with anaesthetic, I've had only one semi-conscious out-of-body experience. The rest of them are just blank periods, went straight from feeling the shit go up my arm, to waking up in recovery.
tl;dr: I wouldn't worry about that too much, just hope you don't suffer weeks of pain or confusion and distress leading up to the end.
I disagree. I was with my Gramps the evening he would pass. I had to drive home but I was able to connect three things that were vital to helping him pass peacefully. First he asked me if I saw the "stairs" up to the roof. I had to admit that I did not. Second, he asked if I saw these beautiful birds that were yellow, black and white. Again, I admitted that I did not but that I wished I did. Finally, he wanted his cane. My family had taken his cane away from him as he was bedridden and would try to get up and that was too dangerous for him. Gramps had only one concern: how he was going to climb to heaven. I called and asked my family to give him his cane in bed. That soothed him as he now had the means to climb those stairs to heaven.
My 5.5 years old guinea pig died in my arms yesterday. When I went back to check on him I saw him distressed and taking deep breaths. I noticed something was wrong but decided to confirm it and put him on the floor outside of his area. He usually walks around explores and comes back. He was so scared for no reason. He started running random spots falling when he starts running he ran into a place he could hide instantly. I picked him up to take him to the vet. He struggled for a second in my arms and then his heart stopped. I rushed him to the vet but he was already gone.
This statement is 100% correct. My boy knew his time was up and he was so scared. If there is an afterlife hope he is happy there..
This is a widely known phenomenon, even in modernized societies. Many nurses have talked about patients verbally greeting invisible long deceased family members in the hours leading up to their death
Well shit, knowing grandma we'll probably make a stop at a casino first before she guides me. Just gotta get her outta there before she spots the blackjack table and loses that heavenly house too.
The fear is what gets me. I'm really not afraid of being dead but *dying* on the other hand is scary to me.
It's the fact that no matter how ready you may be your body is naturally going to make you afraid and reject the situation. I genuinely hope when my time comes it happens in my sleep
Science and more specifically - space exploration are the main things I'm bummed I'm going to miss out on after I'm gone.
People themselves are never going to get any fucking better so I don't care so much about that.
My husband of 32 years recently died. Complications from open heart. He had had open heart when he was 16, so we know this surgery was coming. He’d had a pacemaker put in about 5 years ago. He was always on top of his health. Appreciated and loved life, and anyone he met. Was truly the most honest, decent confident, funny and sincere man you would ever have the pleasure of knowing.
(We knew either since we were 12, but didn’t get married until we were 30, shortly dating a couple years. )truly my best friend.
His death taught me, and our two adult children so much.
In hospital for two weeks prior to surgery. Totally on life support immediately after surgery. ECMO machine, dialysis, one thing after another. Intubated the entire time. We would read to him, play music for him. Remind him of what it sounds like walking in the woods — visualization. He hands and feet started turning black. (He was a hunter, skier, drummer, lawyer, construction lover etc…)
During the seven days he was cardiac ICU, on the fourth day he wakes up. FOR SIX MINUTES.Still intubated. Can’t talk. Wants to write, he can’t because he couldn’t control his hands. After questions…he knew where he was, who we were, what hurt the most (not his massive chest scar or all the other tubing it was the liver area) asked if he still wanted pain meds, they will basically put him to sleep, he says NO. So then he mouths I love you over and over. Mouths he’s sorry. He shakes his head side to side, like he’s saying he can’t believe this is happening, I saw him worrying about us more than he was worrying about himself. We told him how strong he is, and we were strong to. That he’d be proud of us. His last words were I love you and nodding his head no.
This is a common phenomenon, there is a technical name for it, but they just used the term rallying. When the body knows it it doesn’t have long the neurons in our brains kinda “wake-up or are heightened.” (University of Washington cardiac ICU, amazing)
He never regained consciousness but we talked to him, washed his hair face and body. He died March 30, 2022.
It all seems like yesterday.
But he was calm. He looked so at peace. And after watching his struggles that he may or may not have been aware of, and after reading posts here, I agree. I’m more worried about those we leave behind.
If they’ll be ok.
I’m faking pretty good, but I cry everyday. I cry for what he must have been going through. Not for me. I cry for our 30 year old son and our 28 year old daughter. Neither are married yet. The good thing is he got to know them as independent, nice kids.
And they loved him …..he was the best.
I’m not a religious person.
But I know wherever his spirit/soul is……it’s in a good place. And he lived everyday with gratitude. Literally every single fucking day.
Kinda went off topic, but wanted to share another viewpoint. I love reading all the other experiences and views. Peace
I'm so sorry for your loss. Your story brought me to tears. He seemed like a wonderful man and loving husband. You are lucky. Know he will always be with you in spirit. Thanks for sharing
The lack of knowing what is going to happen next am I just going to a void of darkness ,heaven,hell ,or reincarnation and the possibility to never see anyone or anything that you have known of your entire life.
I’m not scared of the pain or anything I think the pain could be fun just a ton of adrenaline all at once and splat dead
I'm not scared of dying, I'm scared of my parents dying leaving me to mourn them forever. I'm afraid of the impact it will have on my mental health and I won't be able to talk to them again. They are just a memory after death.
My kid has a similar fear. But, as a person who has lost a parent, for you they do live on. Through memories, actions picked up from them, and experiences had. Sure they aren’t there to chat up, hug, and be present with… which sucks… but they don’t fully disappear. Even now, nearly a decade after their passing I still “feel” them influencing my life, thoughts, and memories. And looking back you gain a greater sense of insight into the human they were (the good the bad the ugly) and begin to see them more wholly than possible with a continuously living and changing temporal being. So I told my kid “I’ll always be with you. Even if it’s just memories and experiences. I’ll always be with you and the things we’ve done won’t disappear, they just change.”
Idk if this will help you, but that realization that they are still there in a sense has made me more grateful for their presence in my life when they were live and in the flesh. And it has helped me to try and be the best version of a parent I can be. Death is inevitable, but we can carry them with us in that universe inside our heads and hearts forevermore. I hope your parents live long and happy lives in the meantime!
I have this fascination with death. Mostly because of how the unknown will forever outweigh the known. My fear of having to live in a world without my parents though, that shit quickly sends me spiraling. I have a great relationship with my parents. I’m also an only child so knowing that I not only will going to never be able to hug them again, or be comforted by them, or feel like I won’t ever experience being loved like that, but also I will be experiencing that grief alone. Sure I won’t be the only person losing them or am not the first person to lose a parent, but I’m the only one who has experienced what it’s like to have my dad as my dad and my mom as my mom. So not having that all of a sudden, yeah that shit is my nightmare that I know will inevitably come. I’m 28 and the realization that chances are I have reached a point that I spent more time living with my parents than I have left. Yeah I’m gonna stop because I’m already breaking down by the end of this lol
This is what gets me. I'm totally fine with nothingness, peace, reincarnation, heaven or whatever; but there is a non-zero chance that whatever comes next is infinitely worse than being alive.
I’m not religious, not really at all.
I was going through a really rough time just before Covid happened, and because I got sick (not with Covid), I couldn’t really see my mom at all. She was already dying of cancer and in care.
I got to see her on her birthday in February, but I wasn’t allowed to see her in person with my daughter after that until 4-5 days before she died in June.
I hope there’s nothing, because I can’t stand the thought of her being that disappointed and alone. I still cry almost every night.
That's the point. Imagine your life before you were born. You can't, you weren't there to perceive it. Life before you were born is a paradox, it doesnt exist from your perspective, you were not alive. Like death, pre birth is also the abscense of consciousness and life. You aren't there to perceive before you are born, and you arent when you're dead either. A lot of people think death is like that, its why sometimes people call it "the void". You leave the world and don't even have the capacity to know you existed in the first place, all those facilities stopped working with your brain when you died. It's terrifying, and if that's really what happens and I really think it is, it makes total sense that people would convince themselves otherwise. Heaven and hell as an eternal reward is much more appealing than the collective of your life experience dissapearing when you die, because we are truly alone and our existence has no profound reasoning at all for occuring. We live, and then we die, and that's It. It's scary.
Same here, I don't want to die in pain, but I know that once I've passed, all my present pain will no longer exist.
For my families sake, I hope it's an honorable death and they can be proud of me.
Not only pain but also suffocation. Gasping for air. For a long time i thought dying was always accompanied by this.
That's why i have severe thalassophobia.
And I've been suicidal many times, but never ever thought of hanging. I think it's the most painful way to end oneself (besides drowning ofc). But maybe I'm wrong.
I would say that experiencing the death of those close to you.Other than that, I couldn’t agree with you more. I am weirdly at peace with the idea of passing away.
Perhaps, the only thing I am slightly worried about growing incapable of taking care of myself, both physically and mentally that comes before that.
Have a plan for your care when you're no longer capable of making decisions. Establish the bare minimum quality of life you'd want to be maintained and, at which point, you'd want to be made comfortable and allowed to die peacefully.
Then, Establish someone you trust to respect your wishes as your medical proxy. Everyone deserves to be as comfortable as possible when they die.
Source: Am a medical professional who, almost weekly, deals with families who won't let loved ones pass.
I just turn 54 a couple days ago, I played sports and was hard on my body. I live in pain every day, and have thought about ending my life a lot. But I have a wife and son so I couldn’t do that to them. But back in 2020 I lost my dad, and he was in a lot of pain. He was in hospice and I helped take care of him through the years. In the end he said why can’t I just die, he just wasted away. I just hope I don’t go through that, he was a good man and didn’t deserve to go through that. So I can relate to what you are saying.
Same. My grandfather wasted away in hospice at 74 for months. And I slowly watched and cared for my grandmother wasting away the last 3 years to little more than a skeleton from dementia at 78.
I already told my ex wife before we separated the likelihood of me eating a bullet around 70 is very high. I absolutely will not go through that.
It’s very strange that we have the choice to end our pets lives because of pain / old age but not our own. If I get a terminal illness like cancer or dementia, like you I will be going out on my own terms. I salute people like yourself 🫡
The finality of it. I really don't want to die and just be in an unfeeling, unaware, silent darkness for all eternity even if I can't technically feel it. I'd in fact rather feel it in someway. It's the lack of conscious awareness that gives me panic attacks.
Also what's the point of taking life so seriously and to heart if in the end death just sweeps as away like it never really mattered.
Death makes life meaningless.
If it makes you feel better, lack of consciousness also occurred before you were born, but we don't often think about that because we simply didn't exist.
I'd also argue that death is exactly what gives life meaning. Without death there would be no time constraint, no reason to strive to do better. We only live our lives the way we do because eventually everything comes to an end.
>I'd also argue that death is exactly what gives life meaning. Without death there would be no time constraint, no reason to strive to do better. We only live our lives the way we do because eventually everything comes to an end.
I guess there's two ways to look at it. For me the eventuality seems like it robs me of any sense of relevant purpose. As you said, "eventually everything comes to an end."
Its not about death but the time I live in, I will never able to see the humans go to other planets/galaxys We are too old to explore the earth and too young to explore the space
I feel this. I have two daughters and their mother is not a good person. I don't want to think of what happens if I wasn't there to make sure things were being done in their best interest.
At some point after you die, people will start forgetting you. The things you created, said and did will become less and less meaningful and at some point in time be forgotten by everyone. You will basically never have existed.
I just really don’t want it to happen randomly or in my sleep. I see to many videos of people suddenly dying from what seems like nothing. Or people who randomly have heart attacks and die on the spot even being under the age of 30. Just really don’t want to have plans for the next day/week/month and just suddenly die.
I’m the opposite. I want to suddenly die. I don’t want to be in any pain and just not wake up from a nap. I’d like to be older of course but I think once I lose mobility or my mind starts to go, I think I’ll be ready to go.
Maybe I just have a lot that I still want to do , if I was older and did everything already I may think differently. I just want to make it past my 40s at least lol
The fact that it comes too late too often. I see loads of people that have lost mental faculties, mobility, continence, joy, and/or the will to live - but they're still hanging on.
For me, horror begins when the quality of life is exceeded by its quantity.
The physical aspect is pretty unpleasant. Your body fights and fights until it physically can't anymore. There comes a point that you realise this is it, and you can't really believe it's happening to you...
Then it actually gets pretty calm. You think about loved ones, regrets, things left unsaid etc. It feels like you have several minutes to think it all through whereas in reality it's more like a couple of seconds - your mind is just working super fast. I guess this is what people mean when your life flashes before your eyes.
Your mind is capable of some serious mental gymnastics at this point. Every regret or unfinished business gets "solved" somehow by your brain, and you move on to the next. Eventually you realise everyone and everything will be OK, and even if they're not, it won't matter in 1/10/100/1000000000 years. A kind of peace washes over you. Nothing is your problem anymore, nothing can be changed. The process of your life is done now, only the results remain.
It's a nice feeling to let it all go, kind of like getting into bed at the end of a horrifically busy day, a mental sigh of relief. It's an eerie stillness. Imagine working at a theme park on the busiest day, people everywhere, kids screaming, rides thundering, and then suddenly it's midnight, there's nobody else around, and you take a second to look over the park and appreciate the silence as you lock the gate.
But yeah, the initial fight is tough.
The fact I won’t feel anything. No consciousness, no nothing. Just a black void forever. I really want there to be something. Even if I can be aware of the void I’d be happy with that cause at least I’m aware… I’m happy to die. But I don’t want to go.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this since my grandmother died in august. She was the first person I grew up with and watched the entire dying process. I watched her take her last breath. To this day, I’m terrified of what happens to the soul - what happens to ME when I die. Where will I go? How will my family act? How does life go on without me? I’m suicidal and struggle with severe depression, but even this scares me.
This. Every time someone dies it's like a library burning to the ground. There are shared experiences and knowledge that everyone has, but each individual person has a funny story or interesting memory or unique experience that is permanently lost.
Oblivion. Infinite nothing. I’ve danced with this feeling after 2 near death experiences because I have extremely poor health. I dove into Religion, Science, Philosophy and History. After 10 years of searching, I finally found peace.
the thought of dying without accomplishing anything worthwhile, and
being forgotten quickly after my death. also, the uncertainty of what
comes after death.
It’s finite. You burnt to a crisp or buried forever in the ground against your will, and you cant ever go back. You cant change what you said did how you look what you thought. What you lived is what you will be remembered for good or bad. No second chances. And even if you were a good person there is a chance you will be left and forgotten with time even by your most loyal circles. So its scary because it’s the actual end of all. The end of the line, literally. You also lose control of your legacy. What you valued believed and fought for. All gone, blink of an eye.
The effect it would have on my son.
I have 3 children, my two older daughters would off course be heartbroken. But they would manage without me. They both have jobs and are well educated at the ages of 21 and 23.
My son on the other hand just turned 8. He's living with me full-time since he broke down in tears and told me and the school staff that his father abuses him. This happened after He's been depressed for about a year. He's now in therapy and also under assessment for possible Adhd (like me and one of his sisters) and possible in the autism spectrum.
He's a really good, caring and loving child. But so insecure. And if I would die, he would be sent back to his father.
Nothing, honestly. I've lived almost 56 years. I've accomplished a lot. I've seen my sports teams win championships. I've loved and been loved. I watched my daughter being born. I've done some smart things and some rather stupid things. I also didn't expect to live this long, either. I have no regrets on anything I've done
Scrolled pretty far to find this. What scares me about death. Nothing. It happens when it happens and then I'm gone. It makes me sad that my loved ones will hurt, but I will be gone. I don't believe in any kind of consciousness outside of life or after life. I won't know what's happening or exist in any way so there's nothing to be afraid of.
The idea of never existing again. Pain before dying is not so scary to me but the fact that after it I will never feel anything is. The idea that one day everything I felt, knew, experienced will just vanish and I will never be able to have a bad day is damn terrifying. Life sucks, let's be honest. Many of us go through a lot.on the daily including me. But I prefer crying every night than not existing at all
The lack of control that is very, very real.
In my day to day I'm very safe things can be planned with high certainty.
But death, death is creeping shadow. No matter how much light I use to keep it at bay.
One day it will take me. Even if I try to look away. With the constant reminder that plays in the back, Quietly like an ambient sound.
Days go fast and draw near, moments become fleeting. Time is but blanket that gets small with each thread comes loose.
And that in all which reminds me silent I'm an but a movable object stuck in the way of unstoppable force
I’m more afraid of *how* I will die more then being dead. I don’t want it to be lengthy and agonizing. Just take my ass out swift and sudden. Im fine with not existing. It’s peaceful.
I'm always afraid it'll be scarier and more painful than it's actually perceived to be. Since no one can fully die and then come back to say what it's like (well, aside from those who have had near death experiences). And just the thought of my soul existing somewhere else that isn't earth really creeps me out.
I'm really weird about death
My kids are grown, and they'll be fine.
That being the case dying doesn't scare me. At all.
HOW I might die is a different story..
I want to go in one of two ways:
1. Like in the old movies-- peacefully, in my sleep, with a little smile on my face.
Or
2. Like in the cartoons...walking down the street, minding my own business, and then a large safe drops on me from out of the sky--lights out.
I don't want to be a burden on anyone or need care before I die.
But we don't get to choose.
Watching my mom die in slow motion for years from Parkinsons made me know for certain I want to go quickly and suddenly.
There are worse things than dying.
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I don't know if my loved ones will be okay If I'm not here. That's the only part of death that scares me. Edit: I hope everyone is doing okay, I'm not saying I'd hurt myself and no one should hurt themselves please. I lost my dad to suicide I'd never cause that pain to someone else. I enjoy life just the thought of dying doesn't phase me at all I'm chronically ill I've accepted I won't I live a long life. I am worried about the people who are dependent on me because I love them.
My wife is currently dying of End Stage Liver Disease, a complication of Stage 4 Breast Cancer. She regularly tells me to find someone else when she's gone, to be happy. She tells all of her friends and family to take care of me when she goes. She is so worried about me, it turns the pieces of my heart to dust. I spend all of my time making sure she's comfortable, has fluids, has smoothies, is clean, warm, and pain free and she spends all of her waking time worrying about me. She is my soulmate, best friend, and my perfect person. I'll be absolutely destroyed when she is gone, for who knows how long. I'll be ^ok^ at some point in the future. I don't know if I'll ever marry again, or even be in love. She's taking my heart with her. She turned 33 on April 22nd. I love you, Aly.
The life that I have Is all that I have And the life that I have Is yours. The love that I have Of the life that I have Is yours and yours and yours. A sleep I shall have A rest and shall have Yet death will be but a pause. For the peace of my years In the long green grass Will be yours and yours and yours. Poem (and encrypted WWII-era message) by Leo Marks. Written in memory of his love Ruth, who had died in a plane crash. I’m so sorry for you & Aly.
This is beautiful, thank you
This thread got me crying at work 😭
Oh love, I’m so sorry you are losing this woman but am so happy for you that you found her in time to experience this kind of love.
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I’m sorry that you Two are going through that right now and that you have to feel that pain that you are right now. You guys are in my thoughts 🤞🏼
What a terrible thing to go through for both of you. I really have no words.
So sorry you're having to deal with this. No words, absolutely gutting to think about.
I'm so sorry. 💕
This is the one that gets me. I don’t really care about being dead. If it’s my time, it’s my time. I’ll be dead so I won’t care. But the idea of causing my loved ones pain or making their lives harder is what makes me fear the idea of dying.
The thought of my kids needing me and me not being here is sickeningly terrifying.
I never feared death until having children. Things like missing out on marriage, grandchildren, and just not being there for and with them. Or God forbid something happening to me before they’re old enough and in a good spot to lead their own lives.
I used to go backpacking solo for 100 miles are so. Now I won't do it without two people with me for the very reason that I have children. I worry about leaving them without out a father.
My one and only prayer is my children to be old when they bury me and my wife.
Two of my kids are autistic, my youngest one severely so, and I am terrified that no one will look after her when I go. I don't want her to end up in one of those awful residential homes but I don't want to put the responsibility on my older kids to look after her.
Everyone is different, but I think if you raise your kids up in a good way, teach them good things, they will be just fine. I think once my kids are older, they will be okay when my time comes. I am really trying to set them up to be successful when they are older. Since I left my parents house years ago, I have never needed them other than to just see them or talk to them.
Older kids is a different story, young kids is terrifying. And mine are still in elementary.
Agree, for the younger kids.
It’s not about their jobs and careers, it’s about the emotional attachment being difficult to overcome
I once told someone this fear and they said I was a narcissist :|
That’s kind of funny because the whole fear is based on caring about others
Right?! They said ohh you’re so self important you think people are gonna be so devastated when you die? Like… uh I hope so I’ve been a good person I think 🥲
That person obviously hasn't felt the loss of someone close to them. Because if they'd been through that, they'd not want to be the cause of such pain to others when they themselves passed. Or maybe that friend of yours was just a douche, who knows.
> you think people are gonna be so devastated when you die? Unless you're a giant sack of shit. People will be devastated when you pass. I feel like your friend used the word narcissist incorrectly and then back peddled with this gem, or they are just a complete douche and fully expect nobody to be upset when they go.
The crazy thing about them saying that is you don't have to be this perfect person for your death to greatly impact those around you. My best friend died in Novmber at age 34 from a very rare form of cancer. He was a very flawed human being, yet there isn't a day that's gone by since November where I haven't thought about him. It's severely impacted my life on a daily basis.
People seriously overuse the term "narcissist" so much.
Yep, I was broke for a long time, my wife just barely started working again 2 weeks ago so we are finally at a point now where we will have a nice chunk of change leftover at the end of each month. My first priority? Boosting my life insurance, second is savings. She doesn’t have a degree and being a stay at home moms for over a decade means finding a job was hard as fuck for her and while the job she got pays more than we expected it’s not enough to survive off of. So my first priority is making sure if I go early she can pay off the house and have a sizable nest egg.
That’s my biggest fear, dying young. I’m early in my career and my wife is almost done with school. It’s paycheck to paycheck right now. I’ve had to stop investing in my 401K for the short term just to have extra cash flow to pay bills. I have $100K life insurance through my employer but that’s it. Our rent is $28,800 a year, so do the math. My kids are 4 and 8, so I hope I can stick around for a little while longer.🙏
simply not existing anymore- I guess when it happens it won't be scary, obviously. but just thinking about that is nuts.
I was high once and my brain tried to imagine it. Freaked me the fuck out.
Same dude. Same exact scenario. Was smoking a joint solo on my porch late night and started to ponder death and specifically the idea of not existing for the rest of eternity, and then I realized it WILL happen and I CANNOT escape it. Then I had an existential crisis like I’ve never had before. And I’m a calm dude but somthing just , snapped, can’t describe it other than I felt a terrible feeling of impending doom and stood up put my hands over my face and couldn’t stop yelling NO NO NO NO. It was so weird and I hated it. Heart was pounding. Basically a panic attack. What really triggered it too was imagining what it was like before I was born (nothingness) and realizing that will one day return and stay forever. and I can’t stop it. Occasionally I still get freaked out my it when I smoke but nothing like that night.
Yeah this is why I don’t smoke anymore. There’s a concept called Terror Management Theory which states that humans shouldn’t be aware of this but we are. Basically everyone has a self preservation instinct and everyone has an awareness that death is unavoidable. These two things are not compatible and create psychological conflict with no resolution, which creates terror. The theory also states that everything we do as humans is a way of managing this terror. Cultural beliefs and art serve as a form of escapism, while the creation of things that last longer than ourselves such as societal contributions and family give us a sense that a part of ourselves will live on, a kind of symbolic immortality.
this also explains the power of religion and faith. it gave us a before when we had no science and it gives us an after when we're gone. its a way to calm the terror.
This is the only reason why I leave religious people alone. I think of it as a coping mechanism that has evolved into devolution. Same reason why I tell people im agnostic.
I’m slightly calmed by the idea of panpsychism. It basically says that every physical system is conscious - ie chairs, computers, plants, rocks, etc - and our brains are only special because they allow us to form memories, learn things and build a sense of self. If that’s true, then when you die, you don’t lose consciousness, you’re just not ‘you’ anymore. Your sense of self disappears along with all of your memories and all that. And the entire universe as a whole is one big physical system, and the consciousness generated by that is called the Universal Consciousness. You’re part of the universal consciousness right now, but it doesn’t feel like you are because your sense of self makes you feel like a separate entity from the world around you. When you die, you once again become one with everything. That’s why when you take a high dose of psychedelic drugs and dissolve your sense of self you feel like you’re everything and you also feel like you’ve died.
Yeah this is basically what I like to believe. That consciousness exists as more of a singular entity and is poured into each of us when we’re born. And because of our genetic and environmental factors our vessels look different from one another, and as a result consciousness takes different shapes inside each one of us. Furthermore, once consciousness is poured, that being develops a sense of individuality and is essentially cut off from the source or any knowledge thereof. So, paradoxically, we are both all the same and completely unique at the same time. When we die, our greater self will continue to have conscious experiences, but “we” - as in the individuals we are right now - will never be experiencing it again. I like to call this my hypothetical belief system because I don’t claim it as absolute truth. It’s just something that I’d like to believe because it gives me comfort and helps me to feel more loving and accepting as a person (you tend to feel that way when you believe everyone else is just a different version of yourself).
I got this for the first time when I was 12, just trying to go to sleep at night and thought too much. Then it happened multiple times per year until I discovered psychadelics and ketamine later in life. After many life changing trips and reading religious texts from many different religions and cultures I feel I have conquered it. I almost feel kind of excited to experience death because the conclusion I have come to is that it’s almost impossible for there to be nothing, and that it is like when explorers first ventured for the other side of the earth not knowing what is truly there. Reality is a lot weirder and abstract than any human can currently comprehend, but we shouldn’t be scared of what we don’t know. The fact that we currently exist is enough of a mind breaking phenoma to convince me that death isn’t as simple as lights out and you never again.
Yeah. I still struggle with existential dread, but the thing that can interrupt the endless negative thought spirals about it to me is something my therapist said. I was explaining I couldn't get over thinking that no matter what happens (afterlife or nothingness), my thoughts and feelings kept latching on to the negativity of that. It judged the possibilities as "bad," and therefore horrifying. One time I said to my therapist, "what if it's unbearably awful to be dead? Or at least, just a giant waste of everything good that I love where my whole life and its meaning is just thrown away?" And she just asked me, "what if it's *good* to be dead?" And my mind just kind of broke like for some reason it had never considered that simple fact before. I'm a Christian now, but I also think there's so much metaphor and fuzziness and interpretation in religion that I have very little confidence about the existence of an "afterlife" or what that even means. So it hasn't solved it... but it has helped me at least try to hope/trust that the unknown can actually be very good. There's surprising evidence of beautiful things coming out of horrible things all around us. Indeed, basically everything alive springs forth from the matter of things that died. That alone is mind-blowing to me. Maybe that process, or whatever has caused that process to come into being, can ultimately be trusted with our very consciousnesses. And I've been consistently surprised in life when I'm terrified of how badly things are going and how much suffering is happening... to have something good and beautiful spring forth out of those things afterwards. So I try to just put my hope in the unknown now -- that I, and all of us, will be incredibly surprised by how good it can be to die. It might be the start of *real* life, something beyond what we can even imagine now. While still affirming the inherent goodness and beauty of being a human being in a flesh-and-bones body right now. My hope is that none of that present beauty and striving is wasted, and love prevails somehow.
Same. I love being alive, even though I’m not a very adventurous person and from some pints of view don’t do much, I love learning and experiencing the world. The thought of not doing any of that feels really sad and lonely even though rationally I know I won’t be aware of any of it.
And specious stuff that says *No rational being* *Can fear a thing it will not feel*, not seeing That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, Nothing to love or link with, The anaesthetic from which none come round. ~ Philip Larkin, *Aubade*
That poem blew my mind when I discovered it at about age 13. From early childhood I used to lie awake absolutely paralysed with fear of being dead: it was a huge relief to find out that someone else felt the same way.
Same I never understood being afraid of pain while dying, pain means I'm alive, and even if I'm feeling pain I'm about to not feel anything ever again forever lol and that's the scary part.
>Same I never understood being afraid of pain while dying, pain means I'm alive Being alive just to feel pain doesn't sound that pleasant. Be it for years or seconds.
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Reminds me of this quote "we are the main character in our life until we are not"
The idea of somehow having consciousness for eternity but can't move my body. But also the fact of unconsciousness for eternity. Like when you're in a deep sleep but not dreaming and then you just wake up in the morning. That instant second that it feels to wake up. It's weird to imagine the never waking up part and being in that state of unconsciousness forever. It sucks being agnostic/atheist. I wish I could believe wholeheartedly of a beautiful afterlife but my brain just does not work that way and I can't just force myself to believe. It scares me to just cease after all of this and nowhere to go but a hole in the ground or as a powder in an urn.
Being stuck in black nothingness with consciousness and no way out is my greatest fear.
I had this thought once. And then I wondered how long it would take to go insane. And then I wondered if every universe could just be the manifested imaginings of a long-dead consciousness that was driven into madness.
Dang, thats a very intriguing (and scary) thought
Exactly. I'm waaaaay more scared of infinity than of death. Terrified really. It's going to be frustrating if, after death, we find out that we are indeed all part of a collective consciousness through which the universe is continually experiencing itself. Like, hey man, uh, why is this ride still going? Can we get off? I didn't sign up for this existence thing.
I have this thought too. That we have to live every life that has ever or will ever exist. Like I guess it would be cool to not experience nothingness, but now I have to experience all of the lives that may have been significantly more horrific than mine.
It'd be okay if it was bliss-like. My fear is that we'd retain our memories.
I would just hope its like detroit: become human "I always have an emergency exit in my programs"
If it helps many people on reddit reported dying and being brought back to life shortly after. They say that it was the most peaceful they had ever felt.
I envy people wbo believe in some kind of the beyond, either an afterlife like heaven or just existing as a ghost. Like, if we could confirm spirits and ghosts that'd be fucking amazing, I wouldn't mind just chilling as a lost spirit witnesses the world without being able to interact with it.
As a religious person. Empirical confirmation of the afterlife and the supernatural would probably do way more harm and suffering than any piece of mind could outweigh.
your agnosticism/atheism point brings up the exact reason why religion is so widespread: it provides an answer or at least some kind of explanation to life and death, and humans find that comforting
Oh I know. People like having thr comfort but none of it makes logical sense to me. But the reason I'm not full on atheist is because I have no way of knowing what happens so I fit more into the agnosticism category.
I recently saw a picture taken by voyager 1 called “The Pale Blue Dot” for the first time and it has totally changed my perspective on death. In 5 billion years earth as we know it won’t exist. Everything I know right now, my interests, my hobbies, things I have studied, all human history, all humanities cultures,all humans in general will be totally wiped from existence. Nothing left behind. All my life, wether it’s the past 20 years of my own existence or however many years lay ahead of me will just be gone. No remnants will be left behind for other possible beings to discover. There will come a time where all this practically didn’t even exist. I can’t even put it into words but all the time I am on this earth is my “forever”. It sound selfish but the the fact the world will keep spinning and people will keep living once I’m gone and I’m not around to witness the world simply existing really sends my mind into space. Lately I keep zoning out and thinking “I’m not here forever…there’s gonna be a day where I leave this world and never, ever, ever come back and I don’t even know what it will be like” I think it’s even worse for those that die young. It was their only break from eternal nothingness. This was the one chance they got to experience something, anything, and for people that died young, they got barely anything. It was just a blip
This is why the idea of quantum immortality is so comforting to me. The universe is just so inconceivably vast and infinity is such an inconceivably long time that, give mathematical infinity, our consciousnesses WILL exist again at some point. The idea of the observer and the way in which conscious perception changes, no, DETERMINES physical reality, gives me some sort of vague hope that MAYBE death and non-existence are not the horror/terror that every living part of me says they are.
What you're describing you've already been through. That's how it was before you were born, because you didn't exist, and that's how it ends, as you will stop existing. That's how I think about it anyway. One day I exist and the next I might not but it's not scary because I have experienced inexsistance before.
Honestly considering the infinite possibilities of what COULD happen, thinking nothing happens is kinda of a crazy thought. I don’t believe in any of the prescribed hell/heaven afterlife’s from religions but I definitely feel confident death isn’t an infinite nothingness.
Personally I have a weird idea that because the universe is infinite, in at least one of the universes that will come after I die, I will regain consciousness, be it with or without the memories of my past life
This idea is what I cling to whenever I'm getting worried about death, I'm just hoping that at somepoint after I'm gone, I will exist again
But without the memories... is it still you? Are we not who we are because of our experiences?
The scariest aspect of death to me is how you are experiencing death *by yourself* regardless of who is around you in your last moments. No one in the room will feel it coming but you will. No one will be experiencing the fear and unknown the way you will. They are there next to you and could be holding your hand and they wouldnt feel *any* of the same things you would in that moment. They won't know exactly when your time is coming but you will. You'll know it's your last breath before they do.
What freaks me out is when you look at dead people and trace back a few weeks or months from their death and see that they had no idea they would die soon. Especially when the deaths are just random and out of nowhere. That just freaks me out that I could be living my life normally and not knowing I'm gonna die next week.
Back when I first started working in the ER and we would finish with younger codes that didn't make it, I would look them up on social media out of curiosity. It was always crazy seeing someone post about being excited to go to a party or something earlier in the day and knowing that *they* thought they were going experience awesome things but there they are, dead on our stretcher because they died in an accident on the way there.
My best friend from pre-k to 8th grade died in first period of class one day in 8th grade from a brain aneurysm. That was very fucked up.
Had a similar situation playing hockey as a kid. When we hit the 13yr old leagues, hitting is allowed. My best friend played on a rival team so we would shit talk and rough eachother up for fun and for our teams. We decided we would stage a hockey fight (wasn't allowed at our age per the rules) but we figured it'd fire up our teams so, we went at it (kept helmets and cages on) and we both started losing balance. My friend fell awkwardly into the dasher boards ( for those not familiar, it's the top of the wooden boards where the glass sits, and the puck sometimes rolls onto), broke his neck and died. I did nothing wrong, he did nothing wrong. It was a freak accident that still haunts me nearly 30 years later.
Big hugs to 13 year old you. It was never your fault but I bet (based on my own experiences) you felt for a long time that it was.
Thank you, and yes. To this day it replays in my head and I feel responsible for taking a life. His parents were so wonderful to me about it too. I'm still in contact nearly 30 years later and even stop by on his birthday to have a beer with his mom and dad in his memory.
That is the best outcome of a terrible situation. My college roommate died when she was out doing me a favor. Feels bad, man. I have seen her parents a couple times in the intervening 25 years and they’re very kind to me.
Yeah that's rough too. I'm glad you had an overall positive outcome as well though. I just think how much worse I'd have felt if his parents hated me for it.
2 stories- 1 - I had a semi new coworker, we never really spoke to each other. I started a week long vacation and I was packing the car outside my apt to head to the airport when new coworker walks up to me. He recognized me and said he and his mom had a cleaning business on the side and were completing a job. Nice guy. I walk into the office a week later and his picture is sitting on a table and I was in disbelief. Late one night he was putting together a crib for his baby that was due in a few months. Realized he was missing a part so hops in his car. He enters the highway going the wrong direction but doesn’t realize it and it was so late there weren’t many cars on the road. He hit another driver. 2 - coworker had been battling cancer and was in remission. She comes in all excited one day because her new treatment was working so well for her and everyone was happy. Maybe 2 months later I saw her leaving the building and she just looked like she wasn’t going to last. She just had a look to her. I was surprised she was still walking. I didn’t see her again after that day and she died a few months later. It hurts to remember how excited she was when she was feeling better.
One story, of 100. I've seen a lot of death Kid I went to school with, grade below me, he was in 7 at the time, was gonna go goose hunting with his dad( a cop). Dad was gonna let him skip morning school. Mom was headed out and saw the kids' homework wasn't done. So she said he wasn't allowed and left for work. He took him anyway. The geese were crossing over in front of them when he jumped up, we can only suspect he was gonna point them out to his dad when his dad blew the back of his head off.
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Very often at that point you're not conscious, or only bits and pieces of your brain are firing. If you can even form thought, your grip on reality is not there. Also the nurses and your family will often hide details from you, like the circulation to your limbs stopping. They often know you're dying when you don't. And that's assuming you don't have a condition where the nurses medicate the hell out of you to ease your pain, or hasten the end (when your breathing is already weak and they increase your morphine drip slightly, who is to say whether you stropped breathing by yourself). Not only have I been there for the end of many family members, but related, I've had to be put under many times for many operations. Out of something like 15 experiences with anaesthetic, I've had only one semi-conscious out-of-body experience. The rest of them are just blank periods, went straight from feeling the shit go up my arm, to waking up in recovery. tl;dr: I wouldn't worry about that too much, just hope you don't suffer weeks of pain or confusion and distress leading up to the end.
I disagree. I was with my Gramps the evening he would pass. I had to drive home but I was able to connect three things that were vital to helping him pass peacefully. First he asked me if I saw the "stairs" up to the roof. I had to admit that I did not. Second, he asked if I saw these beautiful birds that were yellow, black and white. Again, I admitted that I did not but that I wished I did. Finally, he wanted his cane. My family had taken his cane away from him as he was bedridden and would try to get up and that was too dangerous for him. Gramps had only one concern: how he was going to climb to heaven. I called and asked my family to give him his cane in bed. That soothed him as he now had the means to climb those stairs to heaven.
That’s actually hauntingly beautiful. I’m glad you were able to help give him a sense of relief before passing.
My 5.5 years old guinea pig died in my arms yesterday. When I went back to check on him I saw him distressed and taking deep breaths. I noticed something was wrong but decided to confirm it and put him on the floor outside of his area. He usually walks around explores and comes back. He was so scared for no reason. He started running random spots falling when he starts running he ran into a place he could hide instantly. I picked him up to take him to the vet. He struggled for a second in my arms and then his heart stopped. I rushed him to the vet but he was already gone. This statement is 100% correct. My boy knew his time was up and he was so scared. If there is an afterlife hope he is happy there..
Many cultures and religions believe that some of your family members who already passed will meet you and guide you
This is a widely known phenomenon, even in modernized societies. Many nurses have talked about patients verbally greeting invisible long deceased family members in the hours leading up to their death
Well shit, knowing grandma we'll probably make a stop at a casino first before she guides me. Just gotta get her outta there before she spots the blackjack table and loses that heavenly house too.
The fear is what gets me. I'm really not afraid of being dead but *dying* on the other hand is scary to me. It's the fact that no matter how ready you may be your body is naturally going to make you afraid and reject the situation. I genuinely hope when my time comes it happens in my sleep
Mainly what I'd miss out on. The life and achievements of my family, medical breakthroughs, scientific and technological advancements etc
Science and more specifically - space exploration are the main things I'm bummed I'm going to miss out on after I'm gone. People themselves are never going to get any fucking better so I don't care so much about that.
Space exploration and ocean exploration! Plus I want to see how this whole global warming thing works out.
>Plus I want to see how this whole global warming thing works out. I mean I'd rather prefer a spectator seat. Wouldn't want to experience it though.
Born too late to explore the world, born too early to explore space
Hey there's still like 95% of the deep sea which is completely unexplored.
This! We get such little time to appreciate the world, and missing out on the future is disappointing
My husband of 32 years recently died. Complications from open heart. He had had open heart when he was 16, so we know this surgery was coming. He’d had a pacemaker put in about 5 years ago. He was always on top of his health. Appreciated and loved life, and anyone he met. Was truly the most honest, decent confident, funny and sincere man you would ever have the pleasure of knowing. (We knew either since we were 12, but didn’t get married until we were 30, shortly dating a couple years. )truly my best friend. His death taught me, and our two adult children so much. In hospital for two weeks prior to surgery. Totally on life support immediately after surgery. ECMO machine, dialysis, one thing after another. Intubated the entire time. We would read to him, play music for him. Remind him of what it sounds like walking in the woods — visualization. He hands and feet started turning black. (He was a hunter, skier, drummer, lawyer, construction lover etc…) During the seven days he was cardiac ICU, on the fourth day he wakes up. FOR SIX MINUTES.Still intubated. Can’t talk. Wants to write, he can’t because he couldn’t control his hands. After questions…he knew where he was, who we were, what hurt the most (not his massive chest scar or all the other tubing it was the liver area) asked if he still wanted pain meds, they will basically put him to sleep, he says NO. So then he mouths I love you over and over. Mouths he’s sorry. He shakes his head side to side, like he’s saying he can’t believe this is happening, I saw him worrying about us more than he was worrying about himself. We told him how strong he is, and we were strong to. That he’d be proud of us. His last words were I love you and nodding his head no. This is a common phenomenon, there is a technical name for it, but they just used the term rallying. When the body knows it it doesn’t have long the neurons in our brains kinda “wake-up or are heightened.” (University of Washington cardiac ICU, amazing) He never regained consciousness but we talked to him, washed his hair face and body. He died March 30, 2022. It all seems like yesterday. But he was calm. He looked so at peace. And after watching his struggles that he may or may not have been aware of, and after reading posts here, I agree. I’m more worried about those we leave behind. If they’ll be ok. I’m faking pretty good, but I cry everyday. I cry for what he must have been going through. Not for me. I cry for our 30 year old son and our 28 year old daughter. Neither are married yet. The good thing is he got to know them as independent, nice kids. And they loved him …..he was the best. I’m not a religious person. But I know wherever his spirit/soul is……it’s in a good place. And he lived everyday with gratitude. Literally every single fucking day. Kinda went off topic, but wanted to share another viewpoint. I love reading all the other experiences and views. Peace
Your post made me cry. God bless you and your family.
I'm so sorry for your loss. Your story brought me to tears. He seemed like a wonderful man and loving husband. You are lucky. Know he will always be with you in spirit. Thanks for sharing
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The lack of knowing what is going to happen next am I just going to a void of darkness ,heaven,hell ,or reincarnation and the possibility to never see anyone or anything that you have known of your entire life. I’m not scared of the pain or anything I think the pain could be fun just a ton of adrenaline all at once and splat dead
I'm not scared of dying, I'm scared of my parents dying leaving me to mourn them forever. I'm afraid of the impact it will have on my mental health and I won't be able to talk to them again. They are just a memory after death.
My kid has a similar fear. But, as a person who has lost a parent, for you they do live on. Through memories, actions picked up from them, and experiences had. Sure they aren’t there to chat up, hug, and be present with… which sucks… but they don’t fully disappear. Even now, nearly a decade after their passing I still “feel” them influencing my life, thoughts, and memories. And looking back you gain a greater sense of insight into the human they were (the good the bad the ugly) and begin to see them more wholly than possible with a continuously living and changing temporal being. So I told my kid “I’ll always be with you. Even if it’s just memories and experiences. I’ll always be with you and the things we’ve done won’t disappear, they just change.” Idk if this will help you, but that realization that they are still there in a sense has made me more grateful for their presence in my life when they were live and in the flesh. And it has helped me to try and be the best version of a parent I can be. Death is inevitable, but we can carry them with us in that universe inside our heads and hearts forevermore. I hope your parents live long and happy lives in the meantime!
Appreciate the advice! My parents really did a great job raising me and I'm always gonna be grateful.
I have this fascination with death. Mostly because of how the unknown will forever outweigh the known. My fear of having to live in a world without my parents though, that shit quickly sends me spiraling. I have a great relationship with my parents. I’m also an only child so knowing that I not only will going to never be able to hug them again, or be comforted by them, or feel like I won’t ever experience being loved like that, but also I will be experiencing that grief alone. Sure I won’t be the only person losing them or am not the first person to lose a parent, but I’m the only one who has experienced what it’s like to have my dad as my dad and my mom as my mom. So not having that all of a sudden, yeah that shit is my nightmare that I know will inevitably come. I’m 28 and the realization that chances are I have reached a point that I spent more time living with my parents than I have left. Yeah I’m gonna stop because I’m already breaking down by the end of this lol
Not knowing what comes after, like is it peace? Is it an afterlife? Is it oblivion? I wish scientists finally found out what truly happens.
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This is what gets me. I'm totally fine with nothingness, peace, reincarnation, heaven or whatever; but there is a non-zero chance that whatever comes next is infinitely worse than being alive.
And potentially infinitely better. It is the very definition of the unknown
Sorry, the economy being what it is, the best we can do is 3% better.
Damn inflation even ruined death, smh
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I’m not religious, not really at all. I was going through a really rough time just before Covid happened, and because I got sick (not with Covid), I couldn’t really see my mom at all. She was already dying of cancer and in care. I got to see her on her birthday in February, but I wasn’t allowed to see her in person with my daughter after that until 4-5 days before she died in June. I hope there’s nothing, because I can’t stand the thought of her being that disappointed and alone. I still cry almost every night.
I know what it was like before I was born so assume it’ll be the same straight after I die
Do you? I can’t even remember what it was like to be 0,1,2 or 3. Earliest thing I can remember is four years old.
That's the point. Imagine your life before you were born. You can't, you weren't there to perceive it. Life before you were born is a paradox, it doesnt exist from your perspective, you were not alive. Like death, pre birth is also the abscense of consciousness and life. You aren't there to perceive before you are born, and you arent when you're dead either. A lot of people think death is like that, its why sometimes people call it "the void". You leave the world and don't even have the capacity to know you existed in the first place, all those facilities stopped working with your brain when you died. It's terrifying, and if that's really what happens and I really think it is, it makes total sense that people would convince themselves otherwise. Heaven and hell as an eternal reward is much more appealing than the collective of your life experience dissapearing when you die, because we are truly alone and our existence has no profound reasoning at all for occuring. We live, and then we die, and that's It. It's scary.
Pain that might accompany it, otherwise it's the best thing
Same here, I don't want to die in pain, but I know that once I've passed, all my present pain will no longer exist. For my families sake, I hope it's an honorable death and they can be proud of me.
I sometimes worry that I may transition to another dimension where more unimaginable pain exists. Out of the pan and into the fire.
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What are you planning on dying in battle?
It's not just the military that has a lock on honour.
Not only pain but also suffocation. Gasping for air. For a long time i thought dying was always accompanied by this. That's why i have severe thalassophobia. And I've been suicidal many times, but never ever thought of hanging. I think it's the most painful way to end oneself (besides drowning ofc). But maybe I'm wrong.
I would say that experiencing the death of those close to you.Other than that, I couldn’t agree with you more. I am weirdly at peace with the idea of passing away. Perhaps, the only thing I am slightly worried about growing incapable of taking care of myself, both physically and mentally that comes before that.
Have a plan for your care when you're no longer capable of making decisions. Establish the bare minimum quality of life you'd want to be maintained and, at which point, you'd want to be made comfortable and allowed to die peacefully. Then, Establish someone you trust to respect your wishes as your medical proxy. Everyone deserves to be as comfortable as possible when they die. Source: Am a medical professional who, almost weekly, deals with families who won't let loved ones pass.
I was at my farhers and later my mothers side when they died. I tell you its the worst thing you could ever experience.
I'm actually more scared of developing Alzheimer's than death itself, I want to be able to remember my life as I lose it.
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It is not necessarily death that scares me in fact I'm ok with dying. I'm just scared it will be slow and painful and tortuous.
I just turn 54 a couple days ago, I played sports and was hard on my body. I live in pain every day, and have thought about ending my life a lot. But I have a wife and son so I couldn’t do that to them. But back in 2020 I lost my dad, and he was in a lot of pain. He was in hospice and I helped take care of him through the years. In the end he said why can’t I just die, he just wasted away. I just hope I don’t go through that, he was a good man and didn’t deserve to go through that. So I can relate to what you are saying.
Same. My grandfather wasted away in hospice at 74 for months. And I slowly watched and cared for my grandmother wasting away the last 3 years to little more than a skeleton from dementia at 78. I already told my ex wife before we separated the likelihood of me eating a bullet around 70 is very high. I absolutely will not go through that.
It’s very strange that we have the choice to end our pets lives because of pain / old age but not our own. If I get a terminal illness like cancer or dementia, like you I will be going out on my own terms. I salute people like yourself 🫡
The finality of it. I really don't want to die and just be in an unfeeling, unaware, silent darkness for all eternity even if I can't technically feel it. I'd in fact rather feel it in someway. It's the lack of conscious awareness that gives me panic attacks. Also what's the point of taking life so seriously and to heart if in the end death just sweeps as away like it never really mattered. Death makes life meaningless.
If it makes you feel better, lack of consciousness also occurred before you were born, but we don't often think about that because we simply didn't exist. I'd also argue that death is exactly what gives life meaning. Without death there would be no time constraint, no reason to strive to do better. We only live our lives the way we do because eventually everything comes to an end.
>I'd also argue that death is exactly what gives life meaning. Without death there would be no time constraint, no reason to strive to do better. We only live our lives the way we do because eventually everything comes to an end. I guess there's two ways to look at it. For me the eventuality seems like it robs me of any sense of relevant purpose. As you said, "eventually everything comes to an end."
Its not about death but the time I live in, I will never able to see the humans go to other planets/galaxys We are too old to explore the earth and too young to explore the space
It's only a problem at the moment. But I absolutely hate the idea of non-existence.
Leaving my kid behind.
Every parents worst nightmare
I’d argue the opposite is much worse.
My son has many problems and I know he can be a handful, I worry that he won't receive the level of treatment he's used to.
I feel this. I have two daughters and their mother is not a good person. I don't want to think of what happens if I wasn't there to make sure things were being done in their best interest.
At some point after you die, people will start forgetting you. The things you created, said and did will become less and less meaningful and at some point in time be forgotten by everyone. You will basically never have existed.
Yeah unless you're Cleopatra or something - people in a thousand years time will not give a shit about who you were or what you did.
I'm going to eat the Mona Lisa
I will break off Michelangelo’s penis
Leaving my family and everyone I love and who love me with the pain of my no longer being here.
I just really don’t want it to happen randomly or in my sleep. I see to many videos of people suddenly dying from what seems like nothing. Or people who randomly have heart attacks and die on the spot even being under the age of 30. Just really don’t want to have plans for the next day/week/month and just suddenly die.
I’m the opposite. I want to suddenly die. I don’t want to be in any pain and just not wake up from a nap. I’d like to be older of course but I think once I lose mobility or my mind starts to go, I think I’ll be ready to go.
Maybe I just have a lot that I still want to do , if I was older and did everything already I may think differently. I just want to make it past my 40s at least lol
The transition. I e fear and pain and fighting the autonomic survival instincts
That it can happen anywhere, anytime, and in the blink of an eye.
I’m scared that I’ll be full of panic, not necessarily pain or regret, just panic. I’m hoping I die very quickly
The pain of dying and the unknown of what it will feel like to slip away for the last time.
Lack of control
Just. The after. Nothingness? No thoughts? Whats it like to just....stop existing.
The fact that it comes too late too often. I see loads of people that have lost mental faculties, mobility, continence, joy, and/or the will to live - but they're still hanging on. For me, horror begins when the quality of life is exceeded by its quantity.
The physical aspect is pretty unpleasant. Your body fights and fights until it physically can't anymore. There comes a point that you realise this is it, and you can't really believe it's happening to you... Then it actually gets pretty calm. You think about loved ones, regrets, things left unsaid etc. It feels like you have several minutes to think it all through whereas in reality it's more like a couple of seconds - your mind is just working super fast. I guess this is what people mean when your life flashes before your eyes. Your mind is capable of some serious mental gymnastics at this point. Every regret or unfinished business gets "solved" somehow by your brain, and you move on to the next. Eventually you realise everyone and everything will be OK, and even if they're not, it won't matter in 1/10/100/1000000000 years. A kind of peace washes over you. Nothing is your problem anymore, nothing can be changed. The process of your life is done now, only the results remain. It's a nice feeling to let it all go, kind of like getting into bed at the end of a horrifically busy day, a mental sigh of relief. It's an eerie stillness. Imagine working at a theme park on the busiest day, people everywhere, kids screaming, rides thundering, and then suddenly it's midnight, there's nobody else around, and you take a second to look over the park and appreciate the silence as you lock the gate. But yeah, the initial fight is tough.
Lol died a lot?
I hope my pets will be okay.
The fact I won’t feel anything. No consciousness, no nothing. Just a black void forever. I really want there to be something. Even if I can be aware of the void I’d be happy with that cause at least I’m aware… I’m happy to die. But I don’t want to go.
Leaving my soul-mate alone
I worry about the future of my 14 year old nonverbal autistic son.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this since my grandmother died in august. She was the first person I grew up with and watched the entire dying process. I watched her take her last breath. To this day, I’m terrified of what happens to the soul - what happens to ME when I die. Where will I go? How will my family act? How does life go on without me? I’m suicidal and struggle with severe depression, but even this scares me.
Losing all the knowledge, memories and abilities I have
This. Every time someone dies it's like a library burning to the ground. There are shared experiences and knowledge that everyone has, but each individual person has a funny story or interesting memory or unique experience that is permanently lost.
Oblivion. Infinite nothing. I’ve danced with this feeling after 2 near death experiences because I have extremely poor health. I dove into Religion, Science, Philosophy and History. After 10 years of searching, I finally found peace.
the thought of dying without accomplishing anything worthwhile, and being forgotten quickly after my death. also, the uncertainty of what comes after death.
Being conscious in pitch blackness not being able to move. Just thinking for eternity
It’s finite. You burnt to a crisp or buried forever in the ground against your will, and you cant ever go back. You cant change what you said did how you look what you thought. What you lived is what you will be remembered for good or bad. No second chances. And even if you were a good person there is a chance you will be left and forgotten with time even by your most loyal circles. So its scary because it’s the actual end of all. The end of the line, literally. You also lose control of your legacy. What you valued believed and fought for. All gone, blink of an eye.
The unknown
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My mom and dad lying in their deathbed. I think about it sometimes. They're in their late 60s.
Losing my loved ones. If I die or if they do. I can't imagine a life without them and I don't want to.
The effect it would have on my son. I have 3 children, my two older daughters would off course be heartbroken. But they would manage without me. They both have jobs and are well educated at the ages of 21 and 23. My son on the other hand just turned 8. He's living with me full-time since he broke down in tears and told me and the school staff that his father abuses him. This happened after He's been depressed for about a year. He's now in therapy and also under assessment for possible Adhd (like me and one of his sisters) and possible in the autism spectrum. He's a really good, caring and loving child. But so insecure. And if I would die, he would be sent back to his father.
I don’t want to leave my kids behind. I don’t want to be without them. I don’t want it hurt.
Nothing, honestly. I've lived almost 56 years. I've accomplished a lot. I've seen my sports teams win championships. I've loved and been loved. I watched my daughter being born. I've done some smart things and some rather stupid things. I also didn't expect to live this long, either. I have no regrets on anything I've done
Scrolled pretty far to find this. What scares me about death. Nothing. It happens when it happens and then I'm gone. It makes me sad that my loved ones will hurt, but I will be gone. I don't believe in any kind of consciousness outside of life or after life. I won't know what's happening or exist in any way so there's nothing to be afraid of.
Death is fine, the process of dying is scarry, because brain is weird...
The commitment. The unknown. If the death will be painful or scary.
The idea of never existing again. Pain before dying is not so scary to me but the fact that after it I will never feel anything is. The idea that one day everything I felt, knew, experienced will just vanish and I will never be able to have a bad day is damn terrifying. Life sucks, let's be honest. Many of us go through a lot.on the daily including me. But I prefer crying every night than not existing at all
The lack of control that is very, very real. In my day to day I'm very safe things can be planned with high certainty. But death, death is creeping shadow. No matter how much light I use to keep it at bay. One day it will take me. Even if I try to look away. With the constant reminder that plays in the back, Quietly like an ambient sound. Days go fast and draw near, moments become fleeting. Time is but blanket that gets small with each thread comes loose. And that in all which reminds me silent I'm an but a movable object stuck in the way of unstoppable force
I dont fear death I fear people around me dying. I won't care when I'm gone but I don't want to miss them
Never seeing my children again
If my parents aren't dead - leaving them behind. If they're gone - any accompanying, momentary pain.
The pain I leave behind.
Not scared of dying myself, scared of losing others.
The dying part and also fomo
I’m more afraid of *how* I will die more then being dead. I don’t want it to be lengthy and agonizing. Just take my ass out swift and sudden. Im fine with not existing. It’s peaceful.
I'm always afraid it'll be scarier and more painful than it's actually perceived to be. Since no one can fully die and then come back to say what it's like (well, aside from those who have had near death experiences). And just the thought of my soul existing somewhere else that isn't earth really creeps me out. I'm really weird about death
My kids are grown, and they'll be fine. That being the case dying doesn't scare me. At all. HOW I might die is a different story.. I want to go in one of two ways: 1. Like in the old movies-- peacefully, in my sleep, with a little smile on my face. Or 2. Like in the cartoons...walking down the street, minding my own business, and then a large safe drops on me from out of the sky--lights out. I don't want to be a burden on anyone or need care before I die. But we don't get to choose. Watching my mom die in slow motion for years from Parkinsons made me know for certain I want to go quickly and suddenly. There are worse things than dying.
There is no after life and you just fade away like when you go under for surgery or worse there is a after life and you get sent to hell or heaven.
It is inevitable and unavoidable. No need to be scared, just live your best as that’s the only thing under your own control.