I still feel like running crying to my parents about it as an adult sometimes - it’s very easy to spiral into obsessively dreading my own inevitable demise, it sneaks right up on me, especially lying in bed at night.
I didn’t figure out how to cope with it until sometime in highschool, when it really hit me that laying await all night having a mini panic attack about dying someday was really bad for my life. It made the next day suck, and for what? Worrying about something I ultimately can’t do anything about? Entirely unproductive - unhealthy even.
I’m better at setting it aside now. I recognize when I’m getting fixated on it, and I deliberately change tack - I put on music, I read, I go curl up with my dog on the couch - anything to distract myself sufficiently. And half an hour or so later, it’s passed, and I can lay back down and fall asleep. Ebooks and podcasts are super good distractions too.
I hate it. The whole thing. I hate that coping with it is even necessary. But I literally have no choice. Doom is on the horizon, and I need to get my beauty sleep so I can enjoy the time I have left. Boooooo.
I sometimes had this experience as well. But i recently participated in and cared for my mother's end of life care. I'm pretty young to be doing something like that and it was the most horrifying thing i may ever experience, simply incomprehensible. Everyone was relieved when it was over, even her.
But instead of having known the terror of a slow painful death debilitating me, it's kind of done the opposite. It can get so bad that you're glad it's ending. And thank fucking God that it ends. Holy shit hell on earth exists for some people and death is the final freedom from the fire. I'm so infinitely grateful that it was able to end, it was such an immense relief, that it kinda broke that whole illusion of terror. I remember crying inconsolably to her when i was very young when i realized some day she would die. It was so scary, and that fear stayed with me up until i saw what real fear was. Now that the fear has passed, only i remain.
I didn’t figure out how to cope with it until sometime in highschool, when it really hit me that laying await all night having a mini panic attack about dying someday was really bad for my life. It made the next day suck, and for what? Worrying about something I ultimately can’t do anything about? Entirely unproductive - unhealthy even.
I’m better at setting it aside now. I recognize when I’m getting fixated on it, and I deliberately change tack - I put on music, I read, I go curl up with my dog on the couch - anything to distract myself sufficiently. And half an hour or so later, it’s passed, and I can lay back down and fall asleep. Ebooks and podcasts are super good distractions too.
I hate it. The whole thing. I hate that coping with it is even necessary. But I literally have no choice. Doom is on the horizon, and I need to get my beauty sleep so I can enjoy the time I have left. Boooooo.