Death anxiety and why it might be helpful to ponder on our own mortality
The numbing sensation of cessation, of being no more, of not mattering. We are all born with a very strong survival drive, way before we can even conceptualise what dying means. A baby cries desperately because it fears annihilation. This terror is not conscious, but it is intolerable and it’s evolutionarily programmed into us to get the attention of the caregiver on whom all infants are dependent on for survival. The crying elicits a comforting response in the parent. Thus, the terror of death and annihilation is also the driver of life. Which is why people confronted with death may experience a more acute longing for living better.
Existentialist psychotherapists believe that all human suffering and dysfunction lies in our inability or refusal to deal with the normal existential anxiety that comes from confronting life’s ‘certainties’: mortality, isolation, meaninglessness and freedom.
Death anxiety (or 'thanatophobia') is a very normal fear that a lot of people may experience at one point or another. Sometimes it's experienced in actual confrontation with life's adversities, pain, disease, grief or loss. For some, the mere potential of these may cause death anxiety and severe distress.
Death is an inevitability. If one cannot acknowledge and accept this simple fact of life - suffering will also be inevitable, or so say the existentialists. If we are able to embrace it - well then we might just be able to be free to live our life well enough to not accumulate too many regrets.
Thinking about one’s own death is perhaps morbid, but it also holds opportunities. Feeling the fear, rather than avoiding it, may be the opportunity to awaken to the vitality of life and appreciate the present moment as it is.
“...the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety. The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.”
― Irvin D. Yalom
Comments