Fear of death as a norm
The reaction to danger is biologically embedded in people. Fear of death is part of the general sense of danger; it is an animal reaction. Only animals do not have fear themselves, but have an instinct for self-preservation and the preservation of their offspring. But there is no fear, because animals live one day at a time. In this they are similar to children and infantile adults. They react only to real danger in the present time, and then immediately forget about it.
When we first learn about death, we are frightened by the irreversibility, inevitability and uncertainty of this stage. Moreover, we are afraid both for ourselves and for the people who are significant to us. However, those people who value and love life, are concerned about their development, procreation and self-actualization, are more often worried about thoughts of death. No one knows how many days are allotted to achieve the goals. Fear of not being on time is the main prerequisite for the fear of death.
The problem in our society is that many people separate death from the cycle of life and perceive it as the end. And from the point of view of developmental psychology, this is another stage of the life cycle. But we don’t know for sure whether there is life after death or not. And it is this uncertainty that scares people.
I would like to note that this can only be called the end from a biological point of view. From the perspective of psychology, everything is not so simple: if a person has lived an active life, left his mark on history or the lives of individual people, then death can hardly be called the end of life.
Nature of the condition
Why does this happen? Why does a patient, out of the blue, get the thought “I feel bad - I’m dying?”
Experts find several reasonable explanations for this condition:
- Constant stress, nervous strain. In such a situation, there is an excess of cortisol and adrenaline in the body. These hormones increase and increase heart rate and cause blood pressure to jump. The patient thinks he has heart problems and is about to have a heart attack.
- Increased heartbeat leads to increased breathing. Indeed, in such conditions, the blood is saturated with oxygen faster than usual. This, in turn, leads to dizziness, vasoconstriction, and a feeling of anxiety.
- Vasospasm is unfavorable because it causes increased secretion of lactic acid. And she, in turn, inflames feelings of anxiety and fear. The patient has an obsessive thought: “What should I do, I’m dying!”
The condition is harmful because it develops rapidly. A person does not realize what is wrong with him, and this greatly increases fear. Adrenaline and cortisol are released, and everything is repeated according to the above scheme.
Fear of death as a pathology
Fear of death cannot be considered a pathology as long as it does not prevent a person from leading a normal way of life, as long as the person does not suffer from obsessive thoughts. Otherwise, we are talking about a clinical problem - thanatophobia.
Thanatophobia is the fear of death in the absence of a real threat. That is, the person and his family are healthy and young, their life is defined and measured, but fear and thoughts of death still breathe in their backs. This is a form of neurosis.
The reasons for the development of thanatophobia include:
- fear of losing control;
- fear of not having time to realize yourself in life, to finish what you started;
- combination of hysterical and eliptoid personality types;
- fear of losing the benefits and pleasures that exist (someone, for example, worries that they will not see the new episode of their favorite TV series);
- fear of aging;
- lack of meaning in life and related experiences;
- psychotrauma associated with a life-threatening situation or someone’s death, mass tragedy;
- suggestibility, suspiciousness and anxiety as personality traits.
The fear of the death of a loved one requires special consideration. Most often, the reason lies in the dependence of one partner on the other. If we talk about the fear of losing children, then this is due to the fear of one’s own death and dependence on the child. For most people, children are a way of self-realization, life extension, and the meaning of life.
Accept yourself
As we have already noted, panic attacks are a consequence of the fact that a person is in internal discord with himself. Therefore, the right treatment is to accept oneself with all the shortcomings and characteristics. Try to forgive yourself for all failures, wrong decisions, painful mistakes. It is not easy, but it is a prerequisite for a prosperous and calm life. Self-dislike is the cause of many serious mental disorders.
But it is not always easy to find the cause of a panic state. It may be deep in the subconscious and you may not be aware of it. But the slightest reminder of the past, and she breaks out into a panic attack. That’s why the help of a psychologist is so important—it’s difficult for a non-specialist to understand himself in this case.
The last point says a lot about a person
Chekhov drinks deadly champagne. Pushkin eats cloudberries from the hands of his beloved wife... What do they usually ask for at such moments?
Tatiana Chalenko:
I was shocked by the incident. I was courting an amazing woman. She ran a small orphanage for mental retardation in the Tver region. Taught six people to speak. She was selfless and served people. And so my relatives and I are sitting at her bedside, and she bequeaths that after her death we will take her to where the orphanage is, cover her with firewood, burn her, and scatter her ashes over the village. However, there are no signs of dementia or other mental disorders. She just wanted to lose herself in her calling...
Contemporary art is increasingly turning to understanding human experiences of the approaching end... Haneke’s film “Love” collected all possible world awards. The plot is simple and complex at the same time: two very old people who love each other very much are trying to maintain dignity in the hopelessness of an illness that first takes away their physical strength and then takes away their mind...
Tatiana Chalenko:
We must die with dignity. As the prayer says: “not shameful.” Delicacy and patience are what a caregiver needs to learn. A person should not be humiliated, even if he no longer remembers his name, and his body is absolutely helpless...
Anatoly Antonov:
I recently found myself in the hospital. I was skiing and broke my hip. Didn't take age into account. The surgeons laughed: where is this skier? So this is about decent care. In my presence, a man died right in a wheelchair, without waiting for a place in the ward. Medical brothers and sisters talk in the presence of a dying person: this one is going to die, the bed will be free. It’s so scary to die among absolutely indifferent people. There is no talk of delicacy, physical and psychological, which old people need even more than young people.
Alexey German:
I was amazed how difficult it is to admit an elderly person to hospital and how minimal his chances of survival there are. This disregard for people of advanced age is a colossal problem. Today's attitude towards survival is ugly, as is the term “survival age”. Where did this come from? Oddly enough, this is a question about religion, education, morality, and a question about a very modest pension.
But here is a sick person at home... Having rushed to his aid, loved ones often do not count on their strength for years of methodical and largely ineffective work... And then the question arises: is caring for a sick mother a sacred duty or a punishment? And cases when relatives behave in such a way that you want to say: “Better leave!” are not uncommon...
Alexey German:
Probably the worst thing that can happen at such a moment is when relatives begin to get angry with each other. This happens very often. When children become tense, when the person himself feels like he is not being given something. It seems to me that dignity lies in somehow stopping yourself.
We must live thinking about the end, and then life will be both joyful and beautiful. And we drive our fear underground
Tatiana Chalenko:
Only an immature soul can raise the question of punishment. It is important to help her mature. Our beloved relatives - mothers, aunts, grandmothers - believe me, they understand everything... There is a very short period of time when you understand that you cannot help. When your mother does not recognize you and considers you her mother, this, of course, is shocking. But you are given the opportunity to love her a little more, to stroke her hand or head - while she is breathing, looking at you, while she is still warm... Does she see and hear? You need to ask for forgiveness, maybe get some orders. Can't hear you anymore? It's important to hold hands. Stroking little by little, even just touching the body, head, hair a little. We, sisters of mercy, know how important it is for a person to feel that he is not the only one dying. Someone sits next to him and breathes with him. I have been caring for patients for almost 25 years. As a rule, it happens like this: you went out the door, into the kitchen for a minute, and the person died. So this is a great gift from God to see him leave, to hear his last breath. A gift to your soul.
The hero of Sergei Livnev’s new film “Van Gogh” (he is very accurately and subtly played by Alexey Serebryakov), next to his father who has fallen ill with Alzheimer’s, is cured of indifference, incompleteness of existence, selfishness, ambitions... It turns out that in order to be human, you need to go through this too?
Tatiana Chalenko:
Caring for elderly people with dementia is a difficult but heart-saving story.
In Kaluga, an 86-year-old grandmother left home at night and froze to death. Society has fallen on his son, who himself has long been a pensioner... But does everything depend on relatives? Do they need support themselves?
Tatiana Chalenko:
I'm counseling a family. An elderly woman - 94 years old. Simple, poorly educated, hard worker. Her violations are already very extensive. And two daughters, you know, are old. How they look after their mother! How they patiently love, despite her endless questions, some childish actions. How they serve her! When you look at this, you want to live, and you believe in people, and you are happy, despite the terrifying situation! Everything is very simple, poor, meager. There is no money for dressing materials. But not an ounce of despondency or self-pity, only love and good humor.
True love only happens in old age. When you look at your husband and think: I didn’t love him before, but now I love him!
Alexey German:
Luckily, I don't know what dementia is. My dad died slowly, long and scary. He was very seriously ill for 20 years. We knew it. This knowledge was always there. In the case of my mother, everything happened very quickly. On the one hand, elderly parents are a terrible challenge. This is when you start to understand medicine. When you are overcome by shameful fatigue, and you live in endless anticipation of tragedy. But on the other hand, it is mutual understanding and happiness from the fact that you can come to them and feel that you are not alone and there will be no one closer to your parents.
The desire to gain immortality
On the one hand, it is clear that every person would like to live an eternal life and have time to do everything that he wanted, but for which there is always not enough time. However, there are also those individuals who literally become obsessed with immortality. They begin to read literature, study books on how exactly they can achieve what they want. And even if such people do not perform strange rituals or try to summon someone from the other world, they still waste a huge amount of time on such searches. As a result, in the pursuit of immortality, they miss precious minutes of life. Therefore, this position is considered fundamentally wrong.
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A Deeper Look at Death
First of all, we need to consider the reasons why a person is so prone to periodically think about death. Of course, when such thoughts appear, we all want to drive them away from ourselves and stop filling our heads with such sad thoughts.
But such events are more than just a sad ending or some bad situation from which you can find a way out. There are several thoughts that most often come to people's minds when they begin to think about the saddest outcome.
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