Thanatophobia

Everywhere I look nowadays it’s “i wanna kill myself, blow my brains out, etc etc”. Lainons, I am TERRIFIED of dying. Every night I wake up and freak out because sleep makes me remember Im going to lose consciousness one day and never regain it. I’m so scared of the idea of not being conscious one day and moreover I’m angry that I was given something so beautiful and fuarrrked up as existence only to be cursed with knowing it will one day be ripped away. I love being alive. I have a soykaf life, I’m massively in debt, I’ll get addicted to whatever I can get my hands on and I still can not imagine a world that I don’t get to experience. I fuarrrking hate the expression “live every day like it’s your last” because I do and its miserable because I spend every second aware of my mortality. How do you cope lain? It can’t be like this forever.

>I love being alive The real thing one should fear is not death itself, but not knowing what he will have to confront after he dies. But, I did have that thanatophobia as a kid. I thought that someday or at any moment I might get a cardinal error, or an earthquake can eat me up today. But I know that's already very unlikely, and ironically thinking about it makes me worse physiologically. I don't know, maybe the Stoics gave an answer to that, or maybe the ACT therapy can help. I'm somewhat just sad over how I can't handle some things and feel confused about them, so I started reading "The Happiness Trap" which is about ACT therapy, and maybe The Denial of Death by Ernest becker can give some wisdom for you.

religion: pretend you're going to live forever. realist: accept that you're going to die and don't waste time worrying about it.

Death is something which is always ever present. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, it does not change the fact that death is waiting for you - always a step or two behind you wherever you go. The sooner one acknowledges that fact, the sooner you can act accordingly. This may lead to you feeling insignificant in the world, feeling like nothing you do will really matter because in a short amount of time you will be gone and nothing will remain of your conscious. Nobody can deny this fact, but people can invent for right or wrong, ways to circumvent the idea of death. Things like leaning heavily into religion, focusing on leaving a legacy, attempting to become someone famous and memorable causing impact on generations. For example, someone may decide to themself that it doesn't matter if their entire life history spanning some 30+ years is gone in an instant because they will be rewarded in the afterlife, or reincarnated, or that their lineage will let their name live on for generations being remembered fondly. Now while all of this may be true, in my personal opinion, I believe that the majority of those approaches are a means to "cheat" death, or at least the idea of death. Regardless of the validity of these beliefs it doesn't change the fact that you will be lifeless and no longer able to experience anything in that current life. And once again, this is not a hypothetical, this has happened to everybody in history, its a truth of life. To be blunt, I think people overvalue life. Life is something fragile which can be taken in an instant at any time. You could suffer a heart attack, get hit by a car, or get electrocuted randomly. You don't even necessarily need to be awake when it happens to you. Now how and why would be scared of losing your life? There is nothing which you can do to stop your mortality so why try to avoid it and worry about it? Now how do you actually live with this thought. The way I rationalize it is to imagine myself being terminally ill, dying tomorrow, or next year, or in 10 years, etc. The duration really doesn't matter when you think about, just know that it is coming. If you knew you were going to die next month what would you actually do about it? Take the case that you are terminally ill, dying in a year. Let's say you thought to yourself you'd skip work/school to do everything you ever wanted, what would you really do instead and do you think that would actually make you happy? In reality I'd imagine most people would continue their life with more emphasis on family and relationships and in a sense that their dream life, the one that's not too different from what they're living.

every morning when you wake up try to remember your dreams death is just part of the process :) internalizing this is pretty hard doe

>>86707 we need cooler cults and actually practical ones , like the akatsuki or the witch cult >>86714 you can become an ecosystem instead of an organism. ecosystem last way longer than organisms

>>86714 >I believe that the majority of those approaches are a means to "cheat" death, or at least the idea of death. True, that's some kind of egoism. The Pharaohs and Franco did create massive buildings and other things for themselves to cheat death and become memorable, but they all failed. Franco made the Valley of the Fallen (picrel) and yet he didn't actually get buried there and was forgotten by everybody after. Religion also comes with acceptance of the seemingly absurd world we're in, even if it seems deny or soften this reality by divine justice or an afterlife. In another scenario, imagine that one got an imminent disease like Lou Gehrig's where there's too much pain and death will come inevitably after days; the agnostic will choose to kill himself because his life is miserable, and the theist will keep resisting that pain until death comes itself, regardless if it's imminent or not. Religion gives an actual reason to keep going rather than one imposed on oneself. But perhaps no one's contradicting the other from accepting death, at least in this world.

>>86718 >The Pharaohs afaik there is actually 0 evidence for it. The scriptures found dont even include one mention of building them so the dominant lore is just fabricated.They simply went we found a corpse so its a grave and its big so it must be for dickwaving. The most believable down to earth interpretation i found was from a astrologist noting the pyramids put together mirrored a star constellation from how the constellation looked way back. (stars constellations move over millennia) and allegedly there was also a tunguska event from that direction during their time, so his fan fiction was meteorite put fear of god into people, they got obsessed with the sky and put a giant warning for their descendants encoding the direction to look at in the sky.

>>86719 >afaik there is actually 0 evidence for it. That was just an example, I don't care if it was real or not; at least Franco did that.

>>86721 the real or not pharaoh story can be an example to question if common perception is reality. Dont know franco case but it looks like a church building not a personal memorial. Looks like trying to get brownie points from religious citizen and the group that kicked his corpse out seems to have likewise acted out a PR stunt for elections. Posterboy for big dictator memorials is Stalin. Dude got giant statues.

>>86692 The thing is, everyone is terrified of dying like you, even those saying soykaf on lainchan like "im gonna kms". Everyone, deep down, sometimes unconsciously, is terrified. Now, It seems you are thinking about it too much, which I totally understand. My boyfriend used to be like that, refusing to make any choices in life because it might lead to someone he loves dying, or himself dying. He tried therapy, which can maybe help some people, but it didn't work for him. I think, in the end, you just need to get older and it will be a bit easier with time. Take your mind off all that by watching videos, playing games, or anything, all the time. Stay active. Go to the gym if it's your thing. Everyone is just doing that. Taking their mind off that soykaf. By learning, reading, watching videos, eating, doing drugs, having sex, anything really. That's it. There's no secret formula. Just try to find something exciting enough to make you forget a little about death. Good luck OP, and happy holidays :)