Are You Afraid Of Dieing

Katy - I know what you mean!

I am quite scared of living at times . What's that line from a song 'tired of living and scared of dying'. Sometimes that applies to be honest.

rockgran me too!

A dear friend died while her boys were doing A and O levels and her fear was not knowing how their lives continued. I'd love to be able to tell her that they are lovely men and she has a troop of grandchildren

It's not knowing how my DC and DGC turn out that bothers me as well as not wanting to have a painful death.

I would hate to lose DH but my children have told me that I have to die after him as he can't cook

I'm in the 'not scared of dying or death but don't want to suffer' category. I don't believe there's an afterlife so I've nothing to fear but I'd like to go quietly, quickly and in my sleep if possible please. Oh, and not too soon...

Die? That's the last thing I'm going to do!

I've no intention of dying. I like it here!

I don't seem to be all that scared of dying. Sad to be leaving maybe.

What I am really scared of is DH dying because I would have to go through the awfulness of it and try to come out on the other side and carry on.

My grandma used to talk about dying quite a lot and then strangely at 90 she stopped. She is 98 this year and talks to me about "in the summer" and "next christmas" as though she has accepted that she will be here to see them.

Sometimes life just isn't worth living though.

Interestingly, one thought I had whilst delivering one of my DDs was that this is what it must be like to die. There are parallels - both are natural processes of immense profundity that proceed best if you do not fight them, but just go with the flow.

It may of course have been the pethidine thinking!

When I was a baby of 6 months I was seriously ill, My mother was told "leave the room the child is dead", Then, so I have been told, I did a big gasp and came back. 8 years ago while building our house I had a dreadful burning sensation in my chest, but this feeling of despair came over me, it was weird, but I felt very calm. I thought I am dying here and now, so somehow I got up and started walking about, thinking its just not convenient to die now leaving my OH to get the house finished. I had had a myocardial infraction. because of the calm feeling I had, I am not scared of dying of a heart attack but I would not want to linger in pain causing upset to my loved ones

Interesting! As someone else has said I don't want to miss my DGS, DD & DS or I would worry that they would miss me. I am not being conceited or owt like that. I know it would worry DD. I think I would not want to msake them feel unhappy.

Its the sort of things that went through my mind on Monday when taking off from Funchal and landing at Manchester.

My parents died 13yrs ago and I still miss not being able to tell them the good stuff.

When DGS is 18 I will be 83. The penalty for having two generations not having children until their 30s.

As for being afraid of death, it would depend I suppose on how decrepit I was feeling before I died.

If we could all go peacefully in our beds there would be nothing to fear.It's the thought of a violent death that scares me. Also the fact that there is no cremation in Malta and I really do not want to be buried. I've instructed my family to transport me to the nearest incinerator but it will be expensive

Soop that was great and made me feel better

Elegran Agree with you..transition from one state to another that is the actual scary bit

Lilygran that was a great way to describe Dementia, I do not know much about it but hope that people with Dementia are as contented as your Mother

Riverwalk just as well you could not remember his name, what a morbid ## he was. The great sense of peace you felt sounds really nice

I agree jingl when that sudden panic overwhelms, it eases just as quickly.

I watched my husband die two years ago. He stopped eating, then drinking and took three days to actually die, although he had a brain tumour.
Last March I nearly joined him.I had an aortic dissection, which is quite painful.Only 25% survive them.
No, I'm not afraid of dying. I know I can survive pain for days until the hospital realises what's wrong with you and gives appropriate treatment.
I have a living will, just in case it's my mind that goes first, and I cannot tell anyone. I know I am a walking timebomb, having been told that by numerous doctors. You learn to live with it and possibly die of it.

I'm afraid of pain and illness, not of being dead. The fact that I'm going to die at some point doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Agree about the animals being lucky to not know.

It seems quite easy to put it out of your head when it does enter. Nature helping I suppose.

I agree with a bit of everything that has been said by other posters.It's natural that we should feel this way, we would have to be in a very depressed state not to care! We are the only animal that knows that one day we will die, that death is inevitable. No wonder animals are happy.Intelligence may have it's drawbacks, and this is one of them. At least we have reached the age we are now, when so many people don't get that opportunity.

I would think that most of us are scared by the thought of our own mortality.

A famous philosopher (so famous I can't remember the name) said something along the lines of ... a human's greatest skill is getting through each day without being petrified at the thought that the end will come.

I have twice thought that death was imminent i.e. within seconds and I have to say that I felt a great sense of peace and wasn't frightened! I speak as a non-believer.

Twice in the last year, I have thought I might be ill enough to die but what worried me most was the idea of missing my DGS's next few years. Inevitably, I'm not going to see much of their lives so it was a fairly irrational fear. Thought for the Day on Radio 4 this morning was about the Ash Wednesday service when the members of the congregation are marked with a cross in ash on the forehead and the priest says 'Remember you are dust and to dust you will return'. I have always found that and the words of the funeral service, 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, In sure and certain hope of the resurrection' very comforting. I agree with the posters who are more frightened at the thought of dementia. My mother has a form of dementia but in spite of not really knowing where she is or who we are, she does seem quite contented. I'm sure if she knew what was happening, it would make her very unhappy. But she doesn't and she isn't.

Agree with Feetlebaum. It will most likely be just like it was before I was born. And that wasn't scary.

I'm with the 'not dying in pain' bit, and also not wanting to be found as a maggoty corpse by my nearest and dearest who will have just assumed that I was pottering in the garden. I would also not like a long and prolonged illness that causes grief to others, life is tough enough as it is.

But I am not scared of dying, so much so that I would be perfectly happy to have an assisted death at the time of my own choosing.

Elegran I have no family in this country so you can imagine how I feel! I also would not like any animal that I had to starve.

I am not afraid of being dead because by then I will either be in heaven (probably good) or hell (what is hell anyway?) or I will be nothing, nowhere, and not aware that I am not alive. What scares me is the transition from one state to another, and being unable to prevent it happening.

The other thing that bothers me is that I am fit and healthy and live alone, and often don't hear from my family for several days at a time. If I were to die suddenly, they would not know until they rang and I did not answer the phone. Even then, they would assume that I was out and ring later, or next day. So it could be up to a week before they were worried enough to come and look - and who knows the state I would be in by that time. I would not like that for them.