Ever since I was a child I was afraid of getting older and dying. It has been in the back of my mind for most of my life.
I had phases were this fear was not really around and then phases where it is the only thing I can think of. Ever since Corona it has gotten worse and worse. It just struck me one day while playing video games with my friends. Suddenly I was like "I WILL die one day. I will not be anymore ... forever. I won't even know that I am not anymore." and I broke down pretty much immediately.
What followed was a phase of everlasting fear and anxiety. It was so bad that I just couldn't fall asleep unless I watched comedy until was physically not able to stay awake. Back then I thought it was a result of the isolation of Corona. Since then I moved back in with my mother (due to different reasons). Everything was fine for a while but now it is back.
I should be happy. I handed in my bachelor's thesis a while back, will soon move out again and have gotten a job in my dream career. I finished my therapy and while I am still not completely over my social anxiety but it is getting better and better. And yet the fear was never as bad. Last night I cowered into a ball under my desk and started crying.
It has gotten to a point were I thought about killing myself to end it. It is the same result either way. I won't remember anything anyway. Even the pain and grief friends and family would feel is only temporary. They too will be gone with everything that made them up one day.
I have no intentions of going through with it but it frightens me that I even think like this.
I don't know were this is coming from. Maybe from the feeling that I am wasting my life, that I am a failure and too far behind peers, that I am too old to have so little but I also know that it's not like I could have done a lot better. Due to circumstances outside of my own control I am were I am right now but I am doing my best to get better. It's just that it takes a lot of time and I fear that it takes too much time. I also lost a good friend recently so this probably plays into it as well.
Is there anyway of changing my way of thinking about death? I know I can't change the fact that I will die but how can I accept it without falling into existential nihilism like I currently am?
Edit: I also already called my therapist but since it's the weekend they won't answer before Monday.
I've felt exactly how you feel several times in my life, and I'll probably feel again, too hehe.
To be conscious is both a gift and a curse. You are conscious of your death whereas most animals simply live and die, though they can also be afraid of death even if they aren't aware of it. To be aware of it means you are afraid even though death is not around the corner.
Death is a part of life, it's an experience like any other. One thing that helped me be more at peace with my death is psychedelics, because they are an experience different from regular life, which is an insight to the experience of death. It's been shown that natural death releases DMT in our brain, and numerous people who've had an almost death experience reported a trip before they "returned."
Another thing you can try to diminish your anxieties is meditation. If you practice meditation enough, you'll be able to enter a conscious state where you shut off normal activity and you experience self-nothingness. When you blend in with the environment in meditation practice, you learn to not be afraid of nothingness. Death suddenly doesn't sound that bad, and you lose attachment to this life, so that you're no longer afraid to lose it.
In short, we shouldn't feel anxious about death. We will die eventually, why worry? Everything will come in its time. Even if we suffer the most violent and painful death possible, it'll be over eventually, so what's the worry? Consciousness is an experience, death will be another. Enjoy both when the time comes!
This answer is great. It pretty much summarizes what I was trying to say in the old post (that I linked), but better.