How can I get over the fear of growing old and dying?

[ThelmaLou]

@panache45

I’m 65, and no longer have time to read such a lengthy OP.

Ditto on both counts.

I HATE the idea of growing old(er) and dying. YOU CAN’T MAKE ME! Or at least you can’t make me like it.

[panache45]

I’m not at all afraid of death . . . as long as it’s not my own.

[silvermist]

I think we fear growing old because it means losing our capabilities and suffering with painful conditions. Everyone would fear that I assume. Dying is different. I have often wished for death to gain relief from suffering, mostly emotional.

When I had a heart attack, I remember lying down and thinking, “Is this what dying is like?” After half an hour the pain stopped and I got up. I went about my business at home for two days with pain in different spots that was not as severe, and finally asked my niece what she thought I should do. She took me to the ER and they said that the heart attack had initially happened two days before and was still ongoing. Then I was hooked up to two IV’s and pumped full of drugs for the night. Also given various pills to thin blood etc.

In the morning, the cardiologist told me that he would have to do a procedure that I knew to be very risky. It could result in paralysis or blindness or both and he wanted me to take meds that would cause me to become psychotic. I decided then that death didn’t look so bad and got dressed and left the hospital.

I still don’t have a problem with dying, my unhappiness is with everyone withdrawing from me. I understand why they feel the need to distance themselves emotionally but it doesn’t make me feel any less alone. Since I don’t know when the next attack will come and I can’t exert myself much, I am worried about finding something worthwhile to do in the meantime. I don’t want to be unhappy when I go.

[Leaffan]

@panache45

I’m not at all afraid of death . . . as long as it’s not my own.

“I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Woody Allen

[AngelSoft]

I’m definitely not ‘old’ to most people, but I feel at 35 my best days are behind me. I’m very pessimistic about life and death in general and honestly am terrified about dying. Some nights I can’t sleep because I’m afraid I’ll die in my sleep. I’m terrified of moving out on my own with my daughter and her finding me dead one morning. I’ve never experienced death at all, outside of pets, at this point in my life and the thought of anyone I love dying sends me into a panic attack. Even now, writing this out, I’m starting to cry and feel it coming on. My coping mechanism is to just not think about it. Because if I think about it too much, I start to spiral. So I’d suggest that to you, though I’m not sure that’s the healthiest response to your concerns.

[Shodan]

I don’t know how atheists can do it. Because all the things they say about living for the moment and valuing life even though it’s brief sounds like an embodiment of the quote from Neil Gaiman -

Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don’t last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.

Regards,
Shodan

[TriPolar]

An old man was walking down the street and saw a little boy sitting on the curb, crying. He asked the little boy why he was crying and the boy answered “Because I can’t do the things the big boys can do!”. So the old man sat down next to the boy, and started to cry also.

[Stoid]

I’ve started thinking about in terms of “turns”. We all get one.

[usedtobe]

@NoraP.Neffrin

… Used To, please don’t die…I don’t even know you but that makes me sad.
…

Sorry, but I’m pretty much convinced to die. I’ll try to keep you from finding out - that way, I can live forever in your mind, That’s the best I can do…

What would make it intolerable would be to believe death Doesn’t happen - that we just go somewhere else and spend an friggin’ eternity there - now THAT is scary beyond belief - how does one spend an eternity?

“The fact of having been born is a bad augury for immortality”
- George Santayna

[MoodIndigo1]

@MacCat

Sorry about that. Chefguy is one who’s proud of his 66 years and I always enjoy his posts. My response to you above is the first time I’ve revealed my 66 years.

A wonderful attitude and so good to hear. Like so many here do, you’re restoring some faith in humanity for me. Cheers!

Well, I’d be willing to share a few with you and Chefguy. A 66 club. We shouldn’t wait 3 years to form the club, or we’ll embarrass the children.

There are so many touching glimpses of people on this thread. I wish I could “friend” you all and make you chicken soup or sumpin.

[Scharzcha]

I have these little pangs of thoughts even though I’m turning 16. Like what if I was someone else. What if I didn’t have this or that. I have aspergers ocd depression and severe anxiety. I really need to rid myself of these thoughts but I can’t no matter how hard I try. It doesn’t help that I’m alone either.

[panaccione]

And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do, I don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There’s no reason for it – you’ve got to go sometime.

[Maastricht]

@Stoid

I’ve started thinking about in terms of “turns”. We all get one.

Mulling this over, I realized I don’t really think in terms of turns. More like waves, or trees. It comes, peaks, retreats, dies, another comes. Is it the same wave, the same tree? Does its individuality matter? Does ours?

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Practical advice–get physically active.

Get that blood pumping, & endorphins flowing.

Work it until you ache.

The only cure for spiritual suffering is physical suffering, said somebody-or-other.

[Mean_Mr.Mustard]

Roger Ebert’s essay “I Do Not Fear Death” is well worth reading and considering. The opening paragraph:

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

Link
mmm

[swampspruce]

@Shodan

I don’t know how atheists can do it. Because all the things they say about living for the moment and valuing life even though it’s brief sounds like an embodiment of the quote from Neil Gaiman -
Regards,
Shodan

But that’s precisely why I can! I’ve tended to procrastinate a lot in my life and this knowledge that I only get one shot at it gives me impetus to get the things that matter to me done.
“No Eternal Reward will forgive us now for wasting the Dawn!”

Words that mean a lot more to me now at 45 than they did the first time I heard them at 16.

FWIW, Stoid whenever I get my existential angst on I re-read the Desiderata. I’ve found a lot of comfort in the words, and I’m better at finding new things to replace the activities, friends and interests that have transitted through my life.

[Leaffan]

I kinda like that Morrison quote myself.

[Plumpudding]

My father, 55, went to an Iggy and the Stooges concert. He came to the realisation that if a guy ten years older than him with years of self-harm and substance-abuse under his belt can be that energetic, he sure could himself.

[PatriotGrrrl]

I’m far more afraid of growing old and NOT dying.

[monavis]

@Stoid

One of our whippersnapper dopers is freaking out over growing up (he/she’s 23).

I’d like to ask pretty much the same kinds of question of our much older dopers. I’m 53. I consider 50+ the “dying half of life” for the obvious reason. I understand intellectually, of course, that I could die in the next moment, and that that is always true, but there’s no arguing the fact that it becomes much more likely the older we become.Not to mention the fact that some major aspects of a rewarding life become less available as we get older, impairing the search for joy as well. (Sex, movement without pain, energy)

Among those who have actually had a problem with the fact of getting older and dying, who have had anxiety around it, (vs. those people who have always been pretty much at peace with it, and I’ve found over the years that there’s a remarkable number of you, lucky bastards) if you are over 50 and most especially if you are well over 50, as in 60, 70 and up… how are you feeling about it now? Do you find yourself taking the attitude that every morning when you wake up it’s a gift and you feel great about it, or are do you have a building dread or deepening depression about the fact that what remains of your life is shrinking very rapidly and your turn is almost over?

Do we have any active Dopers who are in their late 70’s, 80’s, 90’s? I am most especially interested in what people who are living at the upper end of a lifespan are going through.

I was deeply moved by the story of George Dawson, who obviously lived life fully every single day, and I hope to be like him.

FTR, some of my anxiety around the whole topic has eased for me in a very organic way that makes sense and gives me hope that by the time I have to really face the fact that my turn is really ending, I will be genuinely at peace with it. While I want to live my life to the fullest until it ends, I don’t want to go out kicking and screaming, either. So I hope I will be happy with each day right through my last, and I’m always conciously creating that for myself as much as I can, and this is part of it.

By the way, this is the one and only thing I’ve always envied about people who have a deep and unshakable belief in the afterlife and that it will be positive. And I happen to think that the desire to be at peace with death is 99% of WHY so many people have a deep and unshakable belief in a positive afterlife, but that’s a different thread in a different forum.

(For the psych majors: I’ve been freaked about death my whole life, and in a very disturbing way, I’ve been counting off my life since I was a child in a manner that has always felt very similar to the way one counts the days of a vacation or summer break:

Age 12 - well, right now it’s Monday of my weeklong holiday, I’ve got all week ahead… Age 20, well, it’s late Monday night. Age 30…still only Tuesday, five long days stretching in front of me before I go home. Age 40. Wednesday…Sunday night looks a lot closer. Age 53…wow, it’s already Thursday afternoon? And it has been a drag. I have no idea why I’ve always been like this, but a good friend tells me that she was there when I learned about death as a small child and she remembers that I fell apart for two days, my mother wouldn’t let me come out and play because I was such a wreck over it.

Of course now I understand, intellectually, that death is almost certainly the end of the conscious self of Stoid so once I’m actually gone it won’t have any suckage because I won’t exist to experience being dead- but that’s still really only an intellectual understanding, not an emotional one. In my gut I feel like death will be the world’s most miserable post-holiday Monday ever.)

I a in my 80’s, I do not fear death, although I do like living. However if I was ever a burden on others because I was unable to care for myself I would not find death a terrible thing. I would not know I was dead. I did need to be resuscitated once, and didn’t know it until they told me to see my heart doctor right away, that my heart had stopped. There are many young people who die, so getting older doesn’t mean instant death. My husband’s cousin is 101.

I think many people fear death because they fear the unknown or were taught that death could be an eternity of suffering. Death to me just means a change, like going to sleep. Or we become back to the atoms etc. we were before we were born.

I and my husband just live each day the best we can and are grateful that we both can still take care of ourselves. We are too busy living to worry about death.