If one were conscious, I could get behind the idea…but if unconscious, I don’t see how that would be possible.
When my grandmother (suffering from alzheimer’s) was in hospice care, she held on for a freakishly long time. Until on day my mom had a talk with her and told her it’s okay to let go and that she would take care of James*.
The next day she passed away in her sleep.
*James was my schizophrenic uncle that my grandmother had always taken care of.
Plus I’ve heard tell from Nurses who work in homes like these that it’s not uncommon for the soon to be deceased to send their loved ones out of the room for something mundane like a soda or whatever, and then when the loved ones comes back they’re dead.
This is just more human cultural mythology about death. Surviving species survive because they are wired to “cling to life”, that is, evade or resist events that could lead to death, even if unconscious. That is the norm, and exceptions that willingly accept death are rare exceptions, and probably people who also exhibit societal eccentricities in other ways as well.
What really annoys me is calling someone brave or courageous (especially children) who do not just lie down and die when they sustain an injury, disease, or birth defect. As if they’d be allowed to, even if they wanted to.
This happened to my partner and her father just last week.
There are many famous examples of someone “holding on” until a particular date or event. Examples are John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both holding on until the 50th anniversary and then passing within a few hours of each other on the 4th. Similarly George Burns held on until his 100th birthday and then passed less than two months after turning 100.
Sort of the same thing in reverse. There are many people who die soon after their life partner. They sort of stop “holding on”
My MIL was dieing from hardening or the arteries of the brain for the most part with the resulting complications. The last year she was home she was devistated because she had forgotten my birthday; something she had never even come close to doing before that. Come the end of a February, the hospice worker told us it was a matter of hours or maybe a day. It was until March 6th; my birthday. My wife and I were there with her when she passed. Fate? Maybe. But you won’t convince us that it wasn’t her way of saying “I remembered this time”.
(My BIL died on my wife’s birthday and is buried with his parents. So we both have our birthdays, in the wrong location so to speak, on the same stone. Yeah - its a little freaky.)
I agree with the OP. If you’re conscious, why not? If not, then I don’t see how.
Another example were Will and Ariel Durant, the historians. She died October 25, 1981, and he died November 7, 1981, two weeks later. They’d been married for over seventy years.
It’s not about literally just continuing to draw in air and have a heartbeat, it’s about HOW someone approaches and handles life after these traumas occur.
I don’t buy it. I have no evidence to back this up, but some of the stuff I hear seems a little mean to me. The praise given people that fight their disease - what if you are ready to go? Why is that any less noble?
I think I’ve read that the willingness to “fight” cancer has little correlation to actual survivability, but not sure the accuracy of it. My guess is we tend to remember those situations where someone “fought” and won and forget those where they didn’t.
I couldn’t seem to will my appendix not to come close to bursting, or bronchitis to go away, or any of the other ailments I’ve had - I doubt I’ll be able to forestall death much if at all (of course I have really no way of knowing that my bronchitis wouldn’t have been worse without my willpower).
I mean aren’t there people that WANT to die of their disease - and are in horrible pain - and just can’t without help?
Seems to me this sort of “you have to think positive” attitude would really piss me off. If I had cancer I’d be thinking “fuck you I don’t want to think positive”.
Some people like that - and hey that is great for them, but for those of us that don’t - I don’t think we should be made to feel like we aren’t trying hard enough or something.
I’ll bet though that you can will yourself not to throw up when nauseous, and that if you do throw up it’s because you finally just gave in.
For myself, when I do give in and decide I’d be better off just getting throwing up over with …I’d better be within ten feet of the toilet, cause my body has a no take backs rule.
People can also will themselves not to pass out to an extent.
But I also understand the point of, how exactly are you staving off death, if the cause of death is something you really can’t stop like septic shock, organ failure, respiratory failure…the only thing I can think of is that perhaps it’s possible to ‘give up’ before being brought to the point of not having any choice in the matter.
I am 65 and have seen and heard of enough of these stories (including my parents) to believe that a conscious person can hold on or let go of life.
All told, this is simply “what you believe”. Until it is your time.
The one I cannot explain was the 12 year old boy who had a crush on a 14 year old girl who needed a new heart. He told (his mother? his parents?) that he was going to die so she could have his heart.
And he did. And she did.
Another cite: the ancient English song “Barbra Allen” “Sweet William died for me today; I’ll die for him tomorrow”
Gans & Leigh showed that the 1979 abolishment of the Australian inheritance tax caused a dip in death rates the week before the tax and a rise the week after, suggesting that death timing is somewhat choosable.
In another study, it’s reported that New York hospitals recorded 50% more deaths in the first week of 2000 than the last week of 1999.
I don’t think survival mode depends on consciousness. It’s like the threads on What Should I Do In A Fight? Believe me, you don’t have to think about it. Your body takes over and does everything it can to prevail. Same thing if you’re unconscious—your physical body will always fight to survive. It takes (maybe subconscious) thought to decide to give up, let go. Mind over matter? The two are linked and dependent on the stronger will.
I worked in a hospice for three years. I’ve been bedside at plenty of deaths and never once saw anything like this happen.
mmm
The bravery is often attributed to children immediately after their medical procedures, without waiting to see how they deal with it later on. Children are amazingly tolerant of adversity, and move on to become perfectly normal, well adjusted adults after suffering the most horrifying ordeals. Anecdotally, some don’t, of course, but children, as a matter of course, move on with their lives.
Back to the OP, I don’t think it’s as much a matter of ‘clinging to life’ as it is a matter of giving up or not.
Humans are hard to kill; a lot has to go way wrong before they finally succumb. So for the elderly or the dying there is a period of days, weeks, or months where things are precarious, trending nowhere but down however at an uncertain rate with an uncertain distance to total, irrevocable, failure.
Once a person gives up, things spin down much more quickly than they had been.
My mother-in-law was dying of cancer, and her husband and/or sister were by her side almost constantly for the last few days of her life. The only time they both left the room, for about 20 minutes, was when she passed.
She had also said previously that she didn’t want her daughters’ last memories of her to be weak and emaciated in a hospital bed, and they were both in flight to be with her when she died. I have to believe she chose her time.
Many people take a long time to die, but willpower has nothing to do with it.
It’s physiology.
There is a lot of confirmation bias on the part of loved ones at a deathbed, for obvious reasons.
But no, you can’t cling to life in the sense of willing your physiology to any significant extent.
True to an extent but why do they tell drug overdose patience “Don’t fall asleep!”?