I’ll try to be brief...

I have a number of anxiety diagnoses and a number of diagnoses that include anxiety. My anxiety is greatest when I’m in the midst of a panic attack as I have that “I am going to die right now” feeling. A classic panic attack.

One thing, though. I’ve had five heart attacks and not one has conformed to the “I’m having a heart attack” feeling present in a panic attack.

What is ever-present for me is that peculiar death-anxiety that accompanies a panic attack. As much as I would like to think that I have accepted that final toss into the abyss of nothingness, my mind cannot conceive of nonexistence; no more than I can remember my birth, I don’t believe that anything exists beyond death. I can’t accept any mythologies. I can’t. And so I am left with the cessation of being. And that fear that is my death-anxiety.

If you have panic attacks, you know that fear of dying feeling. Amplify that twentyfold and increase the longevity to ‘always’ and you’ll know my feeling.

Wondering - does anyone else feel similarly?