# "All fears are really the fear of death" Agree or disagree? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 27, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284 "2017-07-27T20:46:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/21 "2017-07-28T03:04:24Z")
Disagree, as social animals we fear disgrace, humiliation and failure. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/22 "2017-07-28T04:05:53Z")
Fear is Living. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/23 "2017-07-28T07:51:06Z")
My fear is NOT dying, when it is my time. Being kept alive in pain or indignity. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/24 "2017-07-28T09:04:44Z")
It’s this on the surface : > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > No. A more clinically accurate generalization might be, ‘‘All fears are really the fear of fear.’’ > > Panic is induced by an unpleasant physical sensation that signals danger even in its absence. What we really fear is having that unpleasant physical sensation triggered and having to endure it. But deep down fear is precisely that : > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Yes I agree. I think all fears are at root a warning signal that something is going to reduce our survival chances. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/25 "2017-07-28T09:10:36Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > My fear of needles isn’t a fear of death, it’s a fear of losing control. > > Maybe all fears of death are just fear of losing control! Asking you randomly : do you have scenarios in your mind of what might happen if you’re stuck by a needle? And by fear of losing control, what do you mean exactly? Fear that the fear of needle will make you lose control like in reacting weirdly in front of strangers (for instance, you flee the operating room in panick to avoid the needle) or fear that after being stuck by the needle, something will happen to you that makes you lose control (no idea of a scenario, but, say, whatever is injected in your body will affect your brain functions and you’ll lose control of yourself). ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/26 "2017-07-28T09:21:29Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Fear is Living. In this vein, I think the biggest fear is the fear of the absence of death. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/27 "2017-07-28T11:13:20Z")
People fear a bad quality of life just as much as they fear death, if not more so. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/28 "2017-07-28T11:16:28Z")
I’m afraid not. Seriously. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/29 "2017-07-28T12:40:52Z")
There have been people in horrific circumstances for which death would have been a relief. There are worse things to fear than death. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/30 "2017-07-28T14:16:01Z")
Overthought, that little ditty is. Fear is physiological. Your body is afraid. What you’re “afraid of” – what you identify as the trigger – is a post-hoc rationalization for the fear your body is already experiencing. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/31 "2017-07-28T14:29:31Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Overthought, that little ditty is. > > Fear is physiological. Your body is afraid. > > What you’re “afraid of” – what you identify as the trigger – is a post-hoc rationalization for the fear your body is already experiencing. Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/32 "2017-07-28T14:31:21Z")
[Terror management theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory) may prove interesting reading for some. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/33 "2017-07-28T14:47:15Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Asking you randomly : do you have scenarios in your mind of what might happen if you’re stuck by a needle? > > And by fear of losing control, what do you mean exactly? Fear that the fear of needle will make you lose control like in reacting weirdly in front of strangers (for instance, you flee the operating room in panick to avoid the needle) or fear that after being stuck by the needle, something will happen to you that makes you lose control (no idea of a scenario, but, say, whatever is injected in your body will affect your brain functions and you’ll lose control of yourself). Last year I fled the ER when there was a suggestion that I be held down for a blood draw. I wish I knew why I had this reaction. I’ve been this way as long as I can remember, and I do believe I was held down as a child to get shots/blood draws. I know my father shot up in front of me and so did one of his wives when I was around six, and at the same time he was molesting me so maybe all that got mixed up together. I have serious control issues already. I’m not a fan of being touched, I identify as asexual because intimacy makes me feel like I’m losing control and it’s very, very rare that I ever feel any attraction to anyone… and it’s never sexual, just like fondness and a desire to be close, but I usually end up pushing people away. I have sleep issues. I struggle with letting go to sleep. I am not at all afraid of dying, I’m just afraid of that whatever-might-happen with the needles. When I was young it wasn’t just needles, it was ALL sharp objects, including pencils. I was stabbed in the neck with a pencil in seventh grade and that might be part of that fear. I don’t know. I was diagnosed with PTSD years ago and a preliminary dx of SPD and autism about a year ago but the doctor wanted to rule out other conditions before it was added to my list of diagnoses. That rule-out started and ended with “first let’s get some bloodwork”. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/34 "2017-07-28T16:23:53Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > My fear of needles isn’t a fear of death, it’s a fear of losing control. > > Maybe all fears of death are just fear of losing control! In some sense, for me. It bugs me that I don’t know when or how it will happen! And my panic is compounded by the “fear of fear” and fearing that this is happening without your control and you don’t know how bad it will get. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/35 "2017-07-28T16:56:10Z")
I disagree. For example, someone may have a fear of public speaking but I don’t think that equates to having a fear of dying. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/36 "2017-07-28T16:59:38Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I can’t buy it. Most fears, if not all, are the fear of suffering. Death ends suffering. Ergo, disagree with the OP. Very succintly put, and very well put. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/37 "2017-07-28T17:07:48Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Fear is physiological. Your body is afraid. > > What you’re “afraid of” – what you identify as the trigger – is a post-hoc rationalization for the fear your body is already experiencing. I disagree with this as well. If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying fear just happens spontaneously, we experience the fear, and then we ascribe a cause to it. I don’t think that’s correct. I think fear does have an external cause, even if it sometimes is irrational or unconscious. ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/38 "2017-07-28T17:26:41Z")
All my fears are fears of not completing my todo list. Death: won’t finish my todo list. Terrible Car wreck: won’t finish my todo list items on time. Snakes: Not getting bitten by a snake is #1 on my todo list! ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/39 "2017-07-28T17:27:15Z")
I disagree too, since whenever I feel anxious, the idea of suicide becomes comforting. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2017, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284/40 "2017-07-28T18:06:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I disagree with this as well. If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying fear just happens spontaneously, we experience the fear, and then we ascribe a cause to it. > > I don’t think that’s correct. I think fear does have an external cause, even if it sometimes is irrational or unconscious. I interpreted him differently, as saying that the physiological experience of fear is mistaken for the thing that we are afraid of. We’re not afraid of the stimulus itself, we’re conditioned to avoid the feeling of fear associated with the stimulus at all costs (since its presence indicates danger.) When we say, ‘‘I am afraid of snakes,’’ what we’re really saying is, ‘‘Snakes induce a physiological response that my body interprets as dangerous, and it’s a feeling I must avoid at all costs.’’ The problem is that when we avoid a non-dangerous stimulus, we make the anxiety worse. It’s our brain’s way of validating that the fear is justified. **gnoitall** might also be referring to generalized or free-floating anxiety. Some people just have hyperactive amygdalas _raises hand_ in which our brains are conditioned to just feel anxious for no damned reason. When that happens, when we experience anxiety, we look for things to justify our anxiety. I don’t fully understand the mechanisms behind things like generalized anxiety disorder as well as I do for acute disorders such as phobia. But when it comes to acute anxiety disorders, from a pure research perspective there is good evidence that the stimulus is not nearly so important as the response. All acute anxiety is the same. People can be taught to confront their fears within a controlled environment (exposure) in order to break down the pattern of avoidance-reinforcement-escalation that is so common in anxiety disorders. Some of the best evidence-based approaches toward the treatment of acute anxiety disorders are focused on teaching the sufferer to learn to tolerate fear. Some theorists hold that repeated exposure should result in a changed cognition that eliminates the fear response altogether (‘‘snakes aren’t really dangerous after all’’), and others have found that it’s not necessary for the fear response to disappear altogether, only for the client to learn to habituate to the experience of fear (‘‘fear itself isn’t really dangerous after all.’’) The part that seems more certain is that in the drama of the anxious mind, the stimulus is really playing second fiddle to the response. My husband is a behavioral psychologist who treats various anxiety disorders in children, and specializes in OCD, Tourette’s syndrome (which has a heavy anxiety component), and phobia. The whole point of therapy with these kids is to get them to understand that they can feel all those horrible anxious feelings without dying. There may also be a cognitive component in which he challenges the kids to do what they are most afraid of and find out that their worst fears will not come true. One kid believed that whatever he wrote down, no matter how awful, would come true, so as an opening volley, my husband instructed the kid to write ‘‘ **Dr. Weasel** is going to win the lottery tomorrow.’’ In this regard he was able to start by proving to the kid that his pen didn’t have special predictive powers. I think the next step was ‘‘ **Dr. Weasel** is going to catch a cold’’ and so on. The kid had legitimate anxiety that my husband was going to catch a cold, but he didn’t. Thus he learned that anxiety does not always signal danger. To use what will sound like an extreme example, I saw an exposure therapist documentary once in which the client was terrified that she might lose control and stab someone to death. As anxious obsessive thoughts go, this is relatively common. The therapist had the woman hold a knife to the therapist’s throat for the entire session. The woman was utterly convinced she was going to lose control and murder the therapist, the therapist was utterly convinced that she would not. The therapist was correct. The client now has one major experience that refutes her most irrational cognitions. My husband’s line of work is not generally so dramatic, but his professional Amazon expenses involve such purchases as: ‘‘giant stuffed tarantula,’’ ‘‘fake vomit,’’ and ‘‘pens that look like syringes.’’ (just for you, **Rushgeekgirl.** ) I’m always amused to check out his shopping list. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-fears-are-really-the-fear-of-death-agree-or-disagree/792284.md?page=3)