[amicus_curiae]

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?

[Skeezyks]

Thanks for posting this. No... I guess I don't have the kind of fear of death you refer to. I've also never had a real panic attack although I have had, & still do have to some extent, what I guess would be referred to as agoraphobia. The way I have experienced it though is simply that the longer I'm out in public the more anxious I gradually get. It's not so bad nowadays. But there was a time when it would get so bad I would become dizzy, feel like I was floating outside of my body, & would have to fight to stay oriented to my surroundings. I always just toughed it out though &, over the years the condition has moderated.

Like you, I don't believe anything exists beyond death. I accept the explanation for the existence of life on earth (including homo sapiens) that is provided by the theory of evolution. So, for me, when you're dead, you're dead... end of story. I don't think much about death though. I suppose perhaps I should since I'm pushing 70 years old! "I feel that old tyrant approaching / that cruel remorseless old foe..." to borrow some lyrics from an old Irish tune. I suppose part of the reason I don't think about it more, though, is that I've always been pretty physically healthy for the most part. I could see where having had 5 heart attacks, as you have had, would tend to bring the whole idea into much sharper focus. I wish you well...

[stanislavski]

I can relate. Nothing scarier than the endless void. The brain cannot conceive of it and yet the rational mind keeps trying to understand, explain. The ultimate cognitive dissonance. We cannot change that human paradox and so I guess all we can try to change is our attitude. I haven't figured out how. Probably never will