Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Reflection: Getting Through Thanatophobia

[Death Anxiety] Also referred to as thanatophobia (fear of death), death anxiety is distinguished from necrophobia, which is a specific fear of dead or dying people and/or things; the latter is the fear of others who are dead or dying, whereas the former concerns one's own death or dying. - Wikipedia

I've been dealing with some less-than-happy thoughts lately. These unhappy thoughts have been plaguing me for months. Yes, my feelings are related to the quotation above. I've been having Death Anxiety. I'm scared about death and the process of dying not just for myself but for every one of us that has to go through with it eventually. It's driven me mad for the longest time but I think for now, I'm able to stop myself from spiraling out of control, hopefully for good which is why I'm writing about it. I'm no longer afraid to open up about what's really on my mind.

I started having Death Anxiety (or Thanatophobia if you want to get romantic) about a couple of months ago when I had to take care of my lola at her place. Nothing bad happened to her. She's still fine and healthy as of the writing of this blog post. But regardless, it was during that time I realized that life would not go on forever. I'm already 24. I'm no longer a kid. My parents are getting older and so are my sisters. Time is ruthlessly marching forward every second and we have to make every moment count. It was truly agonizing for me to learn of this because I've reached the point where I just want time to stop; I'm perfectly happy with where I am and my family are in life.

A long life is something we all desire (well, all of us that aren't suffering from feelings of depression anyway) but no matter how long we can make our lives be, it will still come to a dreadful end. And how dreadful it is when you think about it! Eventually, we'll all face a fate that I don't think any of us are ready for. None of us on planet Earth have been dead before except for the very few people that went through some sort of near-death experience. They may recall what it feels like to die, but even then we can't rely on their accounts of what happens because technically they haven't been truly dead yet.

I think my mental health medicines really worked me over. Instead of having suicidal thoughts, I've been afraid of death like it was a corona virus plague. Being dead scares me, and the process of dying scares me even more. Who's to say we aren't eternally trapped in suffocating blackness when we die? We'll be taking our last breaths after all. What does it feel like to slowly lose our senses over our bodies? At best there is an afterlife, but what if there isn't? Hopefully death feels like an eternal slumber if there is nothing that comes after death.

This lengthy blog post doesn't have to come to a grim end. I've learned a lesson from all my overthinking over this matter. For now I keep all these terrible thoughts buried away by keeping busy, and by keeping my Faith. At least these thoughts have motivated me to live my best life while I still possibly can. Be good to others, be great in what I do. I still think life would be so much more fun if it didn't have a deadline, but it does so we might as well enjoy it to the fullest while we still can.

No comments:

Post a Comment