How to overcome the fear of death, dismemberment, or disability?

[TopHatFox]

Somehow ended up looking up "gory car accidents" upon preparing for my driver's license test in a few days....some fun stuff out there.

I suppose seeing death as part of the perpetual transfer of life is useful; seeing death as just another transfer of physical energy from our bodies to the ground just like bread 'dies" to feed us. And maybe then part of the point of life is to live it as best as possible knowing full well that one might, for example, literally be split in two, like this guy: https://goo.gl/TsYxk1

Thoughts on overcoming the fear of death, dismemberment, and disability?

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It sure is a privilege to be alive and healthy, eh?

[Ego]

Death is not something to overcome so much as it is something to embrace, for the simple reason that it will someday take us.... but for now we can have fun being alive!

So many people try to do the opposite because the knowledge that we will die can be terrifying. They try to transform this terror by convincing themselves that they are part of a culture, institution, or symbol that will live on after they are gone. They try to overcome death by manufacturing post-existence conceits that they then must constantly reinforce and buffer against the onslaught of reality. Being part of something immortal assuages, at least temporarily, the fear of death.

A threat to one of these immortal symbols can be a fate worse than death for those who need the symbol to hold back the terror, so they attack any threat with everything they have, including their own life.

So look closely at the pile of skulls, smile in the knowledge that you too will be there soon and then go out live while you can.

[BRUTE]

the solution to getting over "gory car accidents" is to google images for "motorcycle accidents". no need to add "gory".

there's a saying that the leather suit isn't to protect the motorcycle rider, it's showing respect to the guy who has to scrape him off the pavement.

[7Wannabe5]

It is sensible to believe that automobile travel is very risky. I didn't get my license until I was 32 because I was afraid I might cause somebody else to be hurt due to my driving because I am so absent-minded. I finally told myself that I had as much right to put everybody else at risk as all the total idiots on the road, and I've never been in an accident. Whenever I have to do something like take a left turn across multiple lanes of fast-moving traffic, I just use my best judgment, and tell myself that the alternate universe in which I didn't die is the only one in which I will maintain stream of consciousness. The theory that there are increasingly alternate universes in which I have maintained stream of consciousness has recently been confirmed for me by the fact that I now seem to live in a universe where Donald Trump is president of the United States.

[Lemon]

How do I deal with it? By facing it nearly every day. I have probably at 25 seen more people die then most people will. Ever. (Victims of mass disasters excepted). Having had to yet again certify a death yesterday. So I am very much familiar with death, albeit not in my immediate family. The constant exposure stops it being totally alien and lets you accept the inevitability. At least, for me it does.

As Ego mentions, some people get comfort from 'living on' in a afterlife, or through institutions. If this helps, go for it! Some are more sucessful than others. If you want an interesting diversion on how various people in the UK have wanted to be remembered post-mortem and how attitudes have changed I can recommend this book: 'The Undiscovered Country: Journeys Among the Dead'. Which if anything shows how things have changed so much, and yet not. Not that institutions live fore ever, even Knill's Monument will one day be no more.

Personally I also take Egos view and find it liberating, I just don't find others who believe in an afterlife, or believing in existing as part of an institution to be 'wrong'. They are correct over the persons life? What does it matter beyond that?

As for dismemberment/disability. You can significantly reduce personal risks by being generally sensible. If there are 'states worse than death' for you personally you can insure against them to some extent with advanced directives to prevent unwanted treatment (Ego has I believe perviously linked to how to do this for most states). The other thing is to not be paralysed by fear and to make sensible decisions about how much risk to take, at some point the burden of risk avoidance becomes greater than the risk prevented, and that differs for everyone. Accepting it at that point is the only way forward, as with other less physical potential personal disasters. Take comfort in the knowledge that most point do not die young or get dismembered, and possibly act such to help those who are unfortunate enough to have rolled snake eyes.

[Ego]

Personally I also take Egos view and find it liberating, I just don't find others who believe in an afterlife, or believing in existing as part of an institution to be 'wrong'. They are correct over the persons life? What does it matter beyond that?

That's a good question. One example: Let's say that the way I minimize the terror I experience as a result of knowing my death is inevitable is by believing in a culture, institution, or symbol that will live on beyond my death. The problem comes in when something threatens that thing that will live on. From a psychological perspective it has the potential to unleash my terror. So it must be denied. Climate change for instance.

[Campitor]

Life is a gift and it's very short. The only person that fears death is the one who hasn't lived a full life (Seneca's words - not mine). I highly recommend you read Seneca's letters regarding the shortness of life: http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/ ... rev_e.html. But if reading a long dead stoic's letters are too much to ask, watch the movie Shawshank redemption and remember the line " It comes down to a choice - either you get busy living or you get busy dying."

[Farm_or]

Rode a street bike for twenty years. Saw my life flash before my eyes on one occasion.

Worked electrical and mechanical equipment support for 23+ years. Saw my life flash before my eyes during a crane accident.

Life is fragile and uncertain. But, only "a coward dies a thousand deaths."

[enigmaT120]

I get by pretty well by being unimaginative.

[Lemon]

Personally I also take Egos view and find it liberating, I just don't find others who believe in an afterlife, or believing in existing as part of an institution to be 'wrong'. They are correct over the persons life? What does it matter beyond that?

That's a good question. One example: Let's say that the way I minimize the terror I experience as a result of knowing my death is inevitable is by believing in a culture, institution, or symbol that will live on beyond my death. The problem comes in when something threatens that thing that will live on. From a psychological perspective it has the potential to unleash my terror. So it must be denied. Climate change for instance.

Interesting article. Although I would posit that there are probably more confounders to explain they White Evangelicals have less 'faith' in Humans culpability in impacting the climate. Given the afterlife is not expected to affected on earth I can't see denial as a response to terror being only, or a major reason for this view and that this is lower education etc. Showing through. I fully accept I may have misread the paper though, it is late.
I would thus say the issue is with the behaviour and that is how it should be addressed, and the polling shows that for non evangelical believers there is little difference, rather than blaming faith. That isn't to say Faith hasn't done bad things over the centuries. Maybe this is partly coloured by my job, dealing with those at the end of life it would be unethical for me to start preaching athiesm (or any faith for that matter) which then likely seeps into my world view.

Furthermore within the scope of this thread I think suggesting looking to institutions/God for possible meaning is unlikely to convert anyone to that sort of maladaptive response.

By the same token a 'dead is dead' individual could decide not to bother acting because climate change won't affect them and why care about anyone afterwards? You're dead! Eventually all humans will be extinct! So, why bother? Now that does take one to be quite the Nihilist, or just to have a moral code that isn't particularly within norms.

[halfmoon]

This question/thread struck close to home, since my DH is almost 80 and the 'victim' of excellent medical care that has deferred death by cancer three times. Nothing is free, and in his case the price of living is a piece-by-piece loss of bodily functions that the young take for granted as irrevocable. As my 90-year-old stepmother likes to say: old age isn't for sissies. Death is only difficult for those left behind. Living is the hard part.

For every inspiring story you read about the 80-year-old nun who runs marathons, there are thousands who are struggling daily to walk, breathe, swallow food, sleep, see, hear, balance without falling or endure chronic pain. Lifestyle choices can sometimes influence this, but just as often it's genetics or a throw of the dice.

What have I learned?

1: Trite as it may sound, live your dreams when you're younger (unless your dreams are scary nightmares involving raptors ).

2: Keep medical insurance in the front of your financial planning and don't expect (financially) to do everything for yourself in old age.

3: Develop interests that aren't solely physical.

[EdithKeeler]

I used to fear death terribly, but as I've gotten older, I don't so much anymore. Inevitability of life--it's gonna end. I find no solace in religion; although I do go to church from time to time, I don't have a super faith in God or the afterlife, though I do find church instructive about living in the world--sometimes.

I think I'm more optimist than pessimist when it comes to disease, accidents and death. As an insurance claims adjuster, I've seen--from a distance, so to speak--some pretty gross stuff: a lady sliced in half by a highway guardrail when she was thrown from a car, a woman trapped in a car, conscious, while they tried to extract her from the car while the entire time the top of her husband's head was lying in her lap....Yeeessh!

At the same time, I'm perennially amazed at how resilient and TOUGH human beings can be. When I think of all the birth defects and diseases that can affect a fetus in the womb, or how vulnerable babies are, to think that anyone ever survives past birth is sort of a miracle. I've met people who've survived practically unimaginable accidents--burns over the majority of their body, violent rape and assault, people who've lost limbs due to war and disease, the blind guy who takes public transportation every day to work in my building--it's truly inspiring to watch him come in every morning. I have trouble figuring out the bus routes in my town and can barely walk into my building without tripping, and I'm sighted... Anyway, I am just amazed sometimes by the things that people can go thru and come out on the other side stronger and more amazing that people who have no challenges.

So... I don't know how you overcome the fear, but I suspect maybe getting to know people who have had to deal with accidents and diseases and disability might help. I'm not frightened by the thought of something happening to me--i hope it doesn't of course--but I also hope that if it does, I'll deal with it with the grace and toughness that I've seen other people exhibit.

And if I die, well, I'll be dead and it won't matter.

[TopHatFox]

Guess who drove 10 miles each way to the DMV and passed their Class E license exam without killing or maiming anyone - this guy!~

[Ego]

The death of a sibling or close friend can be a particularly vivid reminder of our own mortality. This is a good example of how to deal with that.

http://narrative.ly/why-it-feels-so-dam ... a-funeral/