Fear of death

[NikolaNi]

Hello,
I've got problems with irrational fear and hipochondria. I just need to talk out. I don't know anybody who has similar fears. Recently, I have an irrational fear that I may die prematurely or be seriously ill. When I was younger I was overworked very often (exams at school, extracurricular classes, competitions etc.) and sometimes I felt so powerless and angry that I was thinking "Oh God let me be sick or something, so I would have rest". Few years later, my hipochondria stroke in and now I have irrational fear that my "wish" is fulfiling now, is coming true and I will die. I know it's ridiculous, I know that many of symptoms are caused by hipochondria and I have different examinations confirming that I am healthy but I still fear that I will have what I "wished" for despite medical condition. I cannot get rid of that thought and I panic often because of that. Now I'm praying that I want to live and I feel exhausted of my fear. Did anybody feel something like this ? How can I cope with that?
Thank you for reading this.

 

[Cuchculan]

More a case of accepting what you know is real. Then ignoring what you know is not real. Let us say you had tests done. They showed you were in good health. This we can say is real. The tests have shown us that. So this we have to try and accept and believe. Say the tests didn't show anything bad. We know that to think there is something wrong with us is not real. The tests have proved that. So now we must try and accept this. All about how we think. You think bad things and you will always feel bad. So we must try and think good things. The bad things are not real. That is the simple version of how we do things.

 

[Kelculator]

I used to be absolutely paralyzed by the fear of death, how I would die, and when. The fear always return when I'm in a stressful situation and when I'm anxious. This is scary, I know. But you do remember a time when you aren't troubled (at least to this degree) by this fear, yeah? This is because when our brains are in "anxious mode", everything becomes 10 times scarier. I cannot tell you to not be afraid, but when your anxiety level is lower, when you get better at coping, the fear will be dulled. You will begin to think less and less of it.
I don't know if you are a spiritual person, but I personally think everything has its purpose, be it our experiences. Being sick/ dying early does not mean the end to all adventures, as last days are not spent just being, well, sick. You accept it, socialize, make use of the time left. People would have your back, you would learn new things. This is absolutely scary to someone with anxiety, I know. But tl;dr, I suggest you to ride this out. Work on your anxiety, and the fear will fade. At least that was what happened to me.

 

[NikolaNi]

Thank you so much, by the way what did you do to lower the anxiety level? I'm struggling with this, in the past music helped me a lot (but anxiety was weaker) but nowadays I cannot tune in to music, even when I watch or read something I still have irritating thoughts. I tried therapy but I was told that I simply must accept my anxiety attacks and keep thinking when I had survived one I would survive the next one. I'm better at following this advice but the anxiety is not weaker, attacks take less time but the feelings of them are the same. I try to diminish it by relax and indeed the frequence of such attacks is lower during my holidays but the strengh of them is the same. For instance, I can have it only once a week but the strengh (the tension and so on) is the same as almost 2 years ago when I started to learn more about this. I'm at my wits' end.

 

[Kelculator]

Thank you so much, by the way what did you do to lower the anxiety level? I'm struggling with this, in the past music helped me a lot (but anxiety was weaker) but nowadays I cannot tune in to music, even when I watch or read something I still have irritating thoughts. I tried therapy but I was told that I simply must accept my anxiety attacks and keep thinking when I had survived one I would survive the next one. I'm better at following this advice but the anxiety is not weaker, attacks take less time but the feelings of them are the same. I try to diminish it by relax and indeed the frequence of such attacks is lower during my holidays but the strengh of them is the same. For instance, I can have it only once a week but the strengh (the tension and so on) is the same as almost 2 years ago when I started to learn more about this. I'm at my wits' end.

Hmm, I think the advice on "riding it out" mainly applies to during a panic attack? Or maybe I'm wrong. I think the most effective way for me is to practice calming methods daily to keep anxiety on a low level, and to endure, keep anxiety at bay during stressful times. Some good methods include mindfulness, self hypnosis (I know it sounds weird, just look it up), frequent recognition of thinking traps, etc. I'm glad to know your frequency of attacks have decreased. Strength is another problem, I know. Anxiety attacks often return in full force and that's annoying. What I do for now, is to try and tune it down after it hits me full force. I'm still learning to adapt to it.