Ask Lemmy

My wife (39) died in October. Her breast cancer moved to her brain and over 20 days she went from perfect function to not being able to speak or move and being in excruciating pain. Sometime over those three weeks I made peace with my eventual death.

I dont believe in an afterlife but I hope there is one just so I can see her again. But either way life is to hard to wish to live forever. Immortality is a young persons wish. When you get older and you see what life takes from you piece by piece you come to realize that the end is not to be feared but welcomed just so the pain stops.

Motherfucker, I'm not emotionally prepared to do the dishes

Yes, i am. I had a challenging health episode last year, and am a member of a legal framework for assisted dying. I worked through the emotions, the letting go and the planning. It was very liberating, hard and sad. And I think I grew as a person in the process. I had a good life, and am happy I can live more, but I can confidently say I know how it feels, and if the world goes to shit I am out of here. I am not suicidal at all and enjoy family and my body, food, music, etc.

Yes. I've met enough people and seen enough things. It's not going to get better.

Also we're rapidly heading towards a future without topsoil, fresh water and breathable air. Oh and resource wars/ww3. Good times right?

United Nations: 90% of Earth’s topsoil at risk of depletion by 2050

World Economic Forum: Global freshwater demand will exceed supply 40% by 2030, experts warn

Stockholm University: Seven of nine planetary boundaries now breached

Hopefully cancer or something gets me before shit gets really bad in my area.

Yes. Please strike me down where I stand.

Fuck no. I'm terrified.

In my life I had 3 near-death experiences. All three were close calls, with one being so so so damn close that I felt my body shutting down and it was the most dreading sensation ever.

If anything, those experiences led me to realize that I still have lots to do before even thinking I'm ready to go.

I've had one foot in the grave (doctor literally said that 50% die the first three days. after three days you have a good chance)

I remember the time the thought shot through my head: "If I'm dead I don't feel the pain anymore" I immediately realized i'm not afraid to die, i'm just not ready to do that. So yes, I am prepared, just don't wanna (yet). I also know it's not hard on me (i'm dead then) but for those who love me and have to sit powerless and watch it happen and go on living.

Why would I need to be? I'm not going to have to live with the aftermath.

My loved ones dying, now there's a problem.

I've had a couple close calls and while that puts urgency and importance in perspective it did shit for anxiety or existential dread about death. I think there'll always be something else I want to do or time I want to spend with, but for emotionally preparing for death I think the 3 biggest positive effects have been deconstructing from my childhood indoctrinated belief in a utopia afterlife, an epic dose of shrooms in my 20s that helped with death anxiety and just anxiety in general, and grieving over the death of friends and family and understanding the process of death better by being there for someone as they experienced their last weeks.

This is an impossible question to answer with certainty for pretty much everyone. Maybe the extremely suicidal or the terminally ill, but likely not anyone else.

Death (and our perceived relationship to it) changes with our proximity to it. So, being existentially and emotionally prepared for death when you’re young is very different from when you’re old, and from when death is pretty much imminent. I would wager even people who report a high degree of confidence that they are prepared for their eventual death are less so (and likely much less so) when they are facing imminent death. I imagine the number of people who don’t experience fear when their death is imminent is actually quite low.

I have considered myself prepared for death for much of my adult life, but since sometime in my 30’s I have also accepted that I can’t predict my preparedness in the months-to-moments before I die. The existential threat of your existence ending is simply too dependent on its immediacy to be predicted with certainty ahead of time.

At this point I'm not sure I'm emotionally prepared to live.

Yes, no and perhaps.

Yes, because, simply put, it is inevitable. It is the only certain thing. I will end.

No, because I don't want to leave those who need or may need me to be left alone. I would like to see all those I love and cherish grow, build their families and carve their place into the world.

Perhaps, because there is nothing I can do to prevent, avoid or delay it. It will happen. When it happens, it will be sad but it will have to happen.

That's it.

No.

The mere thought that my life is going to end at some point makes me freeze up emotionally and physically. It exacerbates my depression to a point where I sometimes simply call in sick.

It's sad. There is so much beauty in this world, in our existence, in our universe and one day my body will give up because of old age or because of sickness, depriving me of it all.

There is so much that I haven't experienced, and it's not relativistic. I don't buy the BS that some people try to console me with when they say that the only reason that I value life and all it's beauty is because it's finite. F*ck you all. I genuinely weep at the sunrise, at the beauty in people, at the undiscovered knowledge of the universe regardless. I wish my life would never end.

For those of you that know the Japanese animated series Naruto, I feel so much compassion for Orochimaru, even though his human experiments were vile and evil.

My depression sometimes makes me want to stop existing to stop suffering from it, but that's a sickness and an internal struggle and it doesn't represent my true feelings. I don't want to die.

Emotionally? Maybe. I have so many things that I still want to do that death is not even on the radar, and wasn’t even on the radar when I was a socially isolated and depressed teen. So I am not ready, but I would be able to accept it.

Mentally? Yes. As an atheist, I am of the firm belief that everything that has a beginning has an end, and death itself holds no fear for me.

Rather, it is the potentially-painful process of dying that has me nervous. And the concept of wanting to wrap things up and just shut it all down, but being stuck in hospice and no longer having a legal right to do so, is absolutely terrifying for me. Which is why I am now walking my Octogenarian parents through the process of MAiD such that they can still leverage it whenever they want to and for as long as possible; to give them the agency to flip that switch as they see fit. Supporting and maintaining their right of self-determination and agency right to the very end is probably the biggest gift I could ever give them.

Physically? Dear goodness, I hope not. Seeing as my own father is inching rather close to 90, and doing so in good physical condition, gives me hope that I can get another three-plus decades under my belt as well. I just hope I won’t mirror his cognitive decline.

Yes, I simply don't find enjoyments anymore that make me say "oh, I am so glad to be alive". Not that I am rushing to die, it's simply... waiting for my time to run out. Modern world doesn't prioritize enjoyment anymore and interaction with friends and family as it doesn't bring shareholder value.

I'm only scared of the pain that comes immediately before and the pain inflicted on my loved ones. Otherwise, if thinking purely selfishly, I wouldn't mind much. I had a goodorun but now i'm exhausted of life in general.

Yep. I don't want to but there's nothing particularly distressing about the idea. I've never felt "existential angst" or anything like that.

Nope. Got too much shit to do.

Nope

I had a serious motorcycle accident in my early 40s. It was the kind that usually results in death, but I got off easy with a shattered collarbone, two broken ribs, and some road rash. I remember the initial impact and then lying on my back looking up at the sky, but nothing else. That nothing made me realize what death would be like, and it freaks me out. Thinking about how someday I'll just stop existing fills me with immense dread. I understand why some people are religious, it gives them an alternative to that dread.

Perhaps I won't always feel this way.

One of the reasons my panic attacks never last long is that I feel like I’m dying and once I think “hey wait why am I freaking out? I don’t care if I die and if I do I’d rather not die feeling so stressed” usually my body calms down very fast.

Same thing with a time when I almost drowned. I realized I’d rather just let go, so I stopped flailing about and let myself start sinking. Then it’s like “okay this is taking longer than expected to die, I could probably push myself up to take a breath or maybe even swim to shallow water before I die”

Accepting death is a great way to calm yourself down in stressful situations and calming yourself down is helpful in most stressful situations lol

Yea

Couple months ago, I woke up to chest pain. Pain that I couldn't get rid of. I'm going through my morning routine trying not to think about it, but it just keeps getting worse. Then it starts radiating out towards my left arm and I am feeling really nervous. I was going to text a friend, but then decided that it was stupid and just drove myself to the nearest emergency room (because of course I wouldn't waste money on an ambulance, I'm an american, we live in hell). I came in feeling faint and dizzy and emotional and that blasted pain just kept getting worse. I remember the receptionist taking her fucking time.

Finally get a nurse to see me and she does a 12 lead EKG and has me hold up my sweatshirt while she's applying them, and while she's doing it, I end up fainting. I wake up almost immediately, but now I'm terrified. I told her I smoked a little weed to try to calm myself down, and now that's all she cares about, wheels me back out into the waiting area so I can piss in a cup for her. At this point, I feel like they don't care, my symptoms aren't being taken seriously, and if I faint again, I'm gonna die in this shitty rural hospital.

So I piss in the fucking cup, fire off a few texts to people I care about, and I lay down on the hospital bed when just... a feeling of complete calm and relief descended upon me. Wherein I was like "well, shit happens, and not everybody can achieve all their goals. You were kind, and that's all that really matters." and there I was, just, completely accepting of what I assumed would be a swift death.

Then the doc came in and said "your EKG is fine, your troponin levels (when you have a heart attack your heart releases "help me" signals via this molecule, troponin) are normal, you just have a bad case of COVID." I was floored. I mean, being sick is better than dying, but I was also just... ready to die? They disconnected my IV and shit and sent me on my way. Walked out into the night back to my car in such a daze.

But hey, I know when I die I'll feel a sense of peace and relief that one can only dream of. Imagine winning the lottery and knowing you'll be OK for the rest of your life. I imagine that it carries around the same level of peace I felt on that bed waiting for death.

Not at all, and I don't think I ever will. I want to see what will happen in the future, I want to learn everything, sadly that wont happen.

I'm happy with existence and desperate about it ending.

Yes, since I already experienced it once. Before that I was terrified.

I spent New Years in a camper van way out in the countryside.
While falling asleep I had the thought "if there's something wrong with the gas heating, I could die in my sleep tonight."
And then I realized that I would be perfectly fine with that. I've had a great and adventurous life so far, achieved my goals, have no children, and I know friends will take care of my cats.

Don't get me wrong, I am not the least bit suicidal, but I am not afraid to die anymore, and that's a greatly liberating feeling.