Are you afraid of Dying or Death?

I’m afraid of a long, painful dying process or dementia but death and being dead doesn’t bother me at all. Having no belief in an afterlife actually lessens the anxiety.

You ask the big questions. I like that. Keep asking. Keep searching. Keep wanting. It’s good.

Personally, I am not afraid of dying. I don’t spend much time thinking about it, but I haven’t had someone close to me die recently. The people who are close to me are all healthy at the moment. My parents are very old, and they will die, but I don’t know when, so I don’t really spend much time thinking about it.

Thank you for sharing the story of your bishop’s wife dying. It’s very sad.

I would like to suggest that you stop asking why God did or did not do this or that thing that so many people wanted. We simply don’t know why God allows death or other sad things. We don’t know.

Do you know what I think the best thing for you to do in the face of the death of someone you loved? You should do exactly what you said: Just going to live it to fullest. That’s absolutely perfect. Do that!

I’m more afraid of the process of dying than being dead. I do dread death at this point in my life. I still enjoy many things, and don’t want to leave yet. I think if I was actually faced with death at this moment I would be afraid, but more not wanting to accept it’s happening.

I’m afraid of life. I’ve conquered death.

No I’m not. I was perfectly fine before I was born, so I reckon it will be same after I die.

I’m afraid of the physical pain (of dying). That’s about it.

I’m a healthy 65 year old and have seen many friends and family die. Perhaps I’ll be lucky very lucky and live another active 20 years. Or I’ll die much sooner. I’m good with that.

Death to me is just lights out and eternal darkness.

My biggest fear is being kept “alive” on life support even when I’ve legally dead with no brain activity. My living will specifically states that if there’s no brain activity then I’m to have no ventilator, tube feeling, IV’s or water.

Yep, no fear here either, only fear of pain and suffering but not actually no longer existing. I parrot @NerdyKeith I was already “dead” for eons before I was born. When you are dead you are not aware that you will be dead for “eternity.” haha
Your religious beliefs are beyond my scope to answer as I am not a believer in god or in an after life and feel we are all just another organism to come down the evolutionary pike.

Organisms die every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
Be glad you weren’t born a Loggerhead turtle only to be snatched up by a Gull just as you approach the water. Now that’s a short life! haha

Not crazy about the dying part, but could care less after that, after all I will be uh DEAD.

@SQUEEKY2 You wont need any more grease for your squeeky wheel. lol

My only fear is when they are doing my autopsy and someone in the room goes “EEeeeWww…that’s gnarly!”

Can’t be afraid of something I don’t believe in.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Hey there! how are ya? But – you don’t believe in death?

No. But I’d like to hang around a little longer. I’m still curious about a few things.

Hi @janbb. Nupe… I don’t believe in death. Sure, I believe that physical phenomenon decay. But thoughts of mind don’t decay. They can’t.

A thousand years from now, someone will read our comments here on fluther, dug up from the archives of some server. These comment will represent our thoughts a thousand years from now just as well as they represent our thoughts tonight. Where are those thoughts? They are not equal to the pixels firing on your screen. The pixels only represent the thoughts. Where are the thoughts? And where is the mind that the thoughts must be emanating from?

Yes, I am. I’m not religious, so I don’t worry about where I’ll be going. But I hate the idea of simply ceasing to exist because of how much I love being alive. Life is beautiful and I don’t want to leave it behind. Like others have mentioned, I’m also afraid of a painful and drawn out death. Ideally, it would happen while asleep.

Not afraid no, just incredibly sad.
Life’s way too good for it to just stop, like wait, I only got started.
I’m sad too that my kids will live through that personal tragedy, not fair.

I’m not afraid of my own death. I figure once it’s over, it’s over. I won’t be feeling anything. I’m afraid of leaving those I love. That causes me pain. The idea of leaving them behind.

Like @janbb, rather than death, I worry about a slow death from cancer or dementia. The process of dying is more worrying than the actual idea of death.

Welcome to Fluther.

I’m planning to live forever, so, no, I’m not very afraid of death. I’m a bit concerned that I may outlive my retirement funds, but I’m planning how to work that out, too. I figure that between my IRAs, my 401(k), my company pension, equity in my house, additional private savings, Social Security and selling every-damn-thing I own on eBay, I can retire within 5 years after I die, if I’m going to anyway.

No, what would scare me, if I wanted to feel scared, would be the thought of dying … badly: dishonorably, stupidly, painfully over much time, or in a way that would embarrass or upset my heirs to learn about. I also don’t want to die alone before my dorg, because that would probably subject her to an awful death, if no one found her in time.

Other than that? Meh. If I’m going to die, at least it’s well-traveled ground, by others if not by me. I figure, “If they can do it, then so can I.” If I feel that way, y’know. Which I don’t.

Great question for a Friday night, btw.~

@CWOTUS Your dorg might resort to eating you if she got that hungry, ick..but it has happened. Maybe start sleeping with a 100 lb. sack of kibble. haha
Die stupidly? I don’t peg you as a candidate for the Darwin awards just don’t set your toaster on the edge of the bath tub to multi-task bathing and breakfast. :-D

I’m also afraid of various diseases rather than death itself. I’ve never believed in an afterlife—I was raised to believe that death is the end—and I’m more comfortable thinking I’ll be gone than thinking I’ll stick around in some other form.

I was in a weird mood one month, and kept expecting some airplane or something to crash out of the sky. Then I was out running and heard a ‘roaring-in-the-sky’ and my adrenaline spiked and my legs felt mushy and I thought “Oh, not yet, not like this,” imagining that any moment a plane too-low would emerge from behind the buildings and be on top of me… It was just a train passing over a tunnel up ahead. (As I said, I had been in a weird mood.) But that’s the closest I’ve gotten. Not of the death, but of the means.

I’m scared of thinking “not yet” at the actual moment. I’m scared of my last moment being one of regret. I’m scared that my survival instinct will resist, that my genetics won’t let me feel as calm as I am conceptually about death.

Weirdly, though, I also hope I get to be aware of what’s happening. As much as I don’t want a drawn out disease, as much as I don’t want an extremely painful death, I want to be lucid enough to experience it. I’m morbidly curious about what those final moments will be like, so I hope I get to focus on them before everything’s gone.

You probably have plenty of time to grow accustomed to the idea that one day it must all end. Buy life insurance now while it’s relatively cheap.

It’s thirst I’m most worried about, @Coloma. I have no doubt she could nosh on me (eventually, and she’s welcome to the meal), but she might be dead of thirst by the time she decides to try it.

And by ‘stupidly’, I’m thinking maybe choking on a piece of food, for example. Or slipping while walking downstairs and breaking my neck. That sort of thing.

Death holds no mystery for me. But that dying part…

Death itself? No that I’m not afraid of.

But Alzheimers or a really painful cancer has me concerned. If it were something lingeringly painful it would be a PITA to have to uproot and move to Oregon (or someplace where medically assisted death is legal) just so I can literally RIP rather than writhe in agony.

I see nothing redemptive in going through unbearable pain for its own sake.

Death itself is nothing. Any sorrow or fear comes from the realm of life and not from death. Fear of pain, of becoming helpless of not being able to experience events or to see loved ones. All this belongs to life, not death.

About the dying part: If I were to contract something like cancer, I know exactly how I would handle it when it gets to be too much. But pain and suffering are a part of life and when you are losing yours, your one precious life, I think you might hold on to whatever you can get. Even pain.

I’ve never had a fear of death.
My family has always sort of treated it as a choice, but then that makes the timing problematic.

Nope. I eagerly await the cold embrace of it.

Yes, death scares me. The thought of dying young myself or a loved one dying young causes causes a lot of anxiety for me.

I was teasing my 87 year old neighbor tonight as we were watching a delivery of about 5 tons of hay here at the property. He was guiding the truck drivers backing in to unload the stack next to the hay barn and I was a little concerned about him being right behind the truck beneath the towering load of bales.
What if the chain broke or the hydraulic lift failed. I said ” I think you should step back M… 87 years and you’re going to go buried under 5 tons of hay.” He laughed, he didn’t move. haha

The details had different issues to the OQ, but to the extent of the OQ I feel by the preponderance of evidence, some people mix up dying and death, and the fear of each. Dying can take a while, and dying can manifests itself without any suffering at all. People fear suffering on the way to death, or the knowledge that death is certain, imminent, and not merely some random or nebulous date in the future. In reality death, when it happens, if there is no God will ever be known. Like when you are watching TV late and you wake up early in the morning and there is an entirely different show on. The only reason you knew you fell asleep was the evidence of the changed channel and different time on the clock. What if you never woke? If there was no life after death, there would be nothing to move into, or ”wake up” in, for lack of a better term.

Now, to your other questions or comments, why does God not save all of our loved ones when we ask? Maybe He seen the quality of life would be much diminished and the person would just exist and suffer and no glory would come from it. He is a God of free will, sometimes our free will has consequences we have to simply bear.

Why her death would crush anyone in her congregation mystifies me. Surely she will be missed, for a time, but if it were my congregation we know where she is going and that place has no pain, suffering, or missing limbs, she would be improving on her existence and to deny her of that would be selfishness on our part. We would rather she be in Paradise without suffering even though we would miss her than have her here just to see her in her suffering.

Why does He allow some to be healed and get well while others do not? Maybe some who are not healed have ran their race and there assignment here is complete. Maybe by her going home she will spur some others to seek a closer relationship because they know death can happen at any time. Maybe the faith of those praying was not as strong. If we had the whole plan, we would know, but since we don’t we have faith that how He does it will have the best outcome or is the best course of action