How I Overcame My Phobia of Death

#1 How I Overcame My Phobia of Death

[Introduction]

This text is intended for people who want to alleviate their fear of death at any cost.

There will come a time when everyone is afraid of dying. When that time comes, I hope you will remember what I write here.

Just to be clear, this is not a recommendation for some shady seminar or self-help book.

Nor do I endorse or deny any particular religion.

I don't intend to make an additional fee for the conclusion.

The reason why I am writing this is because I myself have suffered tremendously from a thanatophobia, and I want to write down the solution to it.

I started to have an extreme fear of death when I was an elementary schooler.

I guess everyone has a fear of death, but I had a particularly strong fear of it, to the point where it affected my health and my life.

To be honest, I still don't really want to remember the time when I was suffering the most.

For starters, I could no longer feel joy in any of the things I used to enjoy, and I could not feel any pleasure in anything at all.

I have an abnormal fear of nothingness, of nothingness going on forever, of something not ending forever.

It is truly awful to live in horrible fear 24 hours a day.

I began to think that everything in this world was hopeless and that there was no point in doing anything.

If I was going to die in the end, there was no point in trying to build up anything now.

This was what I thought at that time.

When it was really bad, I would look at celebrities and anime characters on TV and think, “Why do they look so happy when they are going to die someday?”

It is true that such suffering cannot be easily solved right now.

In fact, if there were easy answers, no one would be suffering. It is natural to be afraid of death and to suffer.

However, there are certainly ways to solve the fear of death.

Even if you can't solve your fear of death on your own, just knowing that there is actually a way to overcome your fear of death will make you feel much better.

There are more than a few people besides you who are making efforts to alleviate their fear of death.

Don't you think it's not a bad idea to try to imitate those people?

In fact, I have tried various ways to cope with my suffering.

I tried immersing myself in new hobbies, exercising so much that I couldn't afford to think about death, researching world religions, studying philosophy and so on.

Some of them worked, some of them didn't work so well.

However, thanks to the various methods I have tried, I am now able to overcome my fear and live as a member of society, even though at one time I almost gave up on life.

I can now calmly look at the fear of death, which I used to be so afraid of at that time, as one of my emotions.

Here I will describe in as much detail as possible the methods I have found to overcome my fear of death and the reasons why I am no longer overly afraid of death.

You don't need anything special.

You may not be able to solve the problem in the same way as I did, as it may not be a good match for everyone, but I am sure it will help you.

Maybe just reading this text will work quite well for some people.

Incidentally, I don't feel that the fear of death is something that needs to be erased.

However, when I think that there is someone out there who is as afraid of death as I used to be, I wonder if the many experiences I have tried so hard to overcome my fear of death can help them.

If I can really help someone feel a little better, then I feel that my suffering in the past has paid off.

To those who are afraid of death.

I've suffered too, but I'm okay now anyway.

I'll explain why from here, so please feel free to read on.

How to overcome the phobia of death.

[Studying something really difficult.]

The most important thing is to try to study something so difficult that you cannot understand it. It's important to try it anyway, and it doesn't matter if you don't understand it at all. I especially recommend philosophy and quantum physics.

When you listen to theories that are so difficult that you can't understand them at all, or the speeches of Nobel laureates, you will gradually start to think, “If a genius who can understand such difficult things is not afraid of death, then maybe death may not be scary at all.”

Imagine this.

Who was the smartest guy in your school? If you are a student, you can imagine the school you are currently attending, and if you are an adult, you can imagine the school you used to attend.

However, if the smartest person in the school, Mr. A, goes to a famous university, then he will say, "I thought I was smart, but I'm no match for Mr. B.”

However, Mr. B will say, "I thought I was smart, but I'm no match for Mr. C.”

But there is a super genius Professor D, and Mr. C will say “I thought I was smart, but Professor D is beyond our imagination.”

After tracing geniuses like this dozens of times, you will eventually arrive at a Nobel Prize winner or something.

At this point, the level of genius is beyond the imagination of the average person.

Although they are in different fields, Einstein, Gautama Buddha, and Jesus Christ are all at this level of genius.

I don't think there are any geniuses among our readers who are as good as Nobel Prize winners, geniuses who are much smarter than you have been thinking about life and death for much longer than you have.

As a result, are they as scared of death as you are? I don't think they are that afraid of it.

If they thought that death is very scary, they would have said, “OMG, death is really scary, so let's stop doing stupid things like philosophy and start researching immortality together.”

They won't tell us why these geniuses are not afraid of death. That's because even if they did, it would take a long time for us to understand. That's not good when you want to do something about your fear of death right now.

But the fact that they don't fear death means that they have a solid basis for it. In their minds, they have a solid reason to believe that there is no need to be afraid of death.

If you spend your whole life studying it, you might be able to understand and accept the reason, but personally, I don't think you need to force yourself to understand it.

It is the same way that you can take an airplane without knowing much about physics.

It will take you decades to understand physics and mechanical engineering to the level that you can fly an airplane, but the plane won't crash just because you don't understand physics properly.

If you understand physics, you will sit in your seat and think, “Lift is what makes airplanes fly.”

If you don't understand physics, you will sit in your seat thinking, “How can an airplane fly?”

Your knowledge will never affect the airplane you are taking. Even if you are asleep, the plane will arrive at its destination.

In the same way, whether you know why you don't need to be afraid of death or not, the phenomenon that happens when you die will not change.

Why don't you believe the attitude of the philosophers who say, “There is no need to fear death unnecessarily”?

Some of you may say, “I don't care how many geniuses say that, I won't believe it until I'm convinced!”

If you think like that and want to stand on the same point of view as those geniuses, then I highly recommend you to study philosophy.

I'm sure that after you have mastered philosophy, you will be able to say, “I see! That's why they were not afraid of death!”

You may or may not be able to achieve this on your own, but as long as you are satisfied, that is the best.

[To learn about religions.]

I'm not a big believer in any particular religion, and I'm not trying to tell you which religion you should study.

But I do believe that religion is not a comforting thing, and it certainly makes philosophical sense. And of course, religion is not something that magically solves your problems.

So why does anyone seriously believe in occult theories like “you can go to heaven just by believing in it”?

Here I would like to explain the effect that religion has on the fear of death.

As I mentioned earlier, Gautama Buddha and Jesus Christ are, so to speak, great geniuses of philosophy.

What happened to these geniuses when they realized the truth, or how the world works?

In fact, Gautama Buddha, like all of us, had a great fear of dying, and to overcome this fear, he began to study Buddhism. Long before Gautama Buddha was born, there was Buddhism.

In order to overcome his fear of death, Gautama Buddha just kept on practicing hard.

After a few decades of such a hard life, he finally came to the realization that “This is how the world works!” and reached a point where he felt that it was okay to be alive or dead anyway.

As a result, he decided to starve to death without doing anything, saying, “Anything is okay since it's okay.” He had already completely overcome his fear of death.

The people who saw this desperately begged, “No, no, no, if you know such great theories, don't die and teach us too!” That's how his teaching began.

Buddhism and Christianity developed in such a way, and they have one thing in common.

It is that they taught people that if they follow the teachings, they would be able to go to wonderful places like heaven and Gokuraku(heaven in Buddhism).

If you are a skeptic, you may wonder, “Is there really such an occultic place?”

The reason why I said such an occult thing is because it is difficult for ordinary people to accurately understand the theories of these geniuses.

To be honest, I think that even Gautama Buddha wanted to say, “If you think about it so hard, you can understand. What is okay is okay. Well, just trust me.”

But it's impossible for ordinary people to do that. We can't understand difficult theories, and we can't believe in anything even if we are told to believe.

But of course, Gautama Buddha and Jesus Christ are geniuses, so they understand that ordinary people lack the ability to understand.

Besides, if they only conveyed theories that ordinary people could not understand, they would not be able to spread their great discovery of truth.

So instead of explaining their theories in a difficult way, they used simple concepts that ordinary people can imagine.

To put it simply, they said, “Oh, sure, it's hard for the average person to understand something this difficult. Okay, let's just say that when we die, we will go to a wonderful place called heaven. Death is not that scary.”

It's like telling a child who is afraid of ghosts, “Even if there is a ghost, you don't have to be afraid because Superman will save you.”

As you can imagine, it is no use telling a small child that, “It is not logical to believe in something as unscientific as ghosts. Then let me tell you the latest scientific research on how people will be afraid of ghosts!”

The reason they come out with unscientific things is to make it understandable to the general public. The reason they propagate is because they can't leave people suffering in front of them alone.

That's what I think.

When you think so, don't you think that religion is different from mere occultism?

(But religions that aim to make money are nonsense.)

If you look into the origins of religions like this, you will understand how religions have been accepted by people who fear death, and why these unscientific things still exist today.

And if you understand what they really wanted to tell you, maybe your fear of death will fade away.

[To try studying from easy-to-understand philosophy books.]

I don't want to name specific books because I don't want to make it sound like I'm promoting something, but I personally feel that the book that helped me the most was an introductory philosophy book.

When I encountered it, it seriously changed my life and sense of values.

If you study a full-fledged philosophy book, you too may become a philosopher or a monk in a few decades and overcome your fear of death with ease.

However, it is safe to say that almost no one will reach such a level.

Even for us ordinary people, by reading introductory books that explain the history and outline of philosophy up to now, we can understand what the purpose of philosophy is, even if we cannot understand the details.

As mentioned above, a person who is aware of the truth will not be overly afraid of death

To be more precise, he will not be particularly concerned even if his brain feels the fear of death.

There are not many people who can reach this state, but when they do, then they have no problem. If you can achieve this state, you will not only overcome your fear of death, but you will become a person who transcends many more things.

But even if you don't go that far, if you study Eastern philosophy and know that there is such a thing as truth(sometimes this is called Satori in Eastern philosophy), it can be a powerful basis for not being afraid of death.

This was a great support for me. Even if I cannot reach the truth on my own, the fact that people who have reached the truth are not afraid of death allows me to think, “I must be making a serious mistake because I am afraid of death so much while smart people are not.”

Sometimes it's good to doubt your senses.

Instead of letting your emotions and thoughts lead you to conclude that death is scary, ask yourself, “I think I'm scared of death, but is that really true?”.

[To try meditation.]

Meditation means to close your eyes quietly and look at your feelings calmly.

All you need to do is to sit down in a calm environment, close your eyes, and observe your emotions.

You may have a fear of dying or a variety of other emotions that come to mind, but don't try to erase them or do anything about them, just observe them.

The trick here is not to think that you are afraid, but to observe the fact that you are feeling fear.

If you observe calmly, you will see that “having an emotion” and “reacting to that emotion” are two completely different things.

It's not a big deal just to have an emotion. But when you feel like you have to do something about it, you suffer.

Continue to train yourself not to panic when an emotion arises.

When you feel the fear of dying, just think that “It's okay. I'm just having an emotion. That is all.”

You will eventually be able to calmly control your emotions, even when you are not meditating.

This is a method that can be used for emotions other than fear.

Even with anger and despair, calmly observing from the outside will ease the panic of being caught up in the emotion.

In order to do this, it is important to first have the belief and evidence that it is okay to feel the fear of death and despair.

If you start to think, “Oh no, I'm afraid of dying!”, then tell yourself that, “No, I'm pretty sure someone told me that there is no need to be afraid of death.“

Then, slowly remember the reasoning behind it.

If you keep doing this repeatedly, you will be able to calm down even when you panic.

If you change your sense of values, you will naturally become less preoccupied with the fear of death.

There are many ways to meditate, so please check them out if you like.

[To try to see the world from the perspective that everyone is going to die someday.]

This is only comforting, but it helped me a little.

As a matter of fact, all living things die at some point.

Your family and pets are no exception to this rule. The same phenomenon happens when you die.

The same goes for your favorite comedian, idol, or actor.

The thought of dying alone can make you feel lonely, but if you think that the people you love will also die and become just like you, you may feel a little less lonely.

[To watch Anime for children.]

When I came back from the worst period of my death phobia, I watched Pretty Cure(A Japanese Anime for young girls).

At first, I thought, “How can a grown man watch something like this?”

But Anime itself is made by many professionals. So it must be exciting even for adults.

No matter how much you understand logically that death is not scary, there are times when you cannot easily clear your gloomy mind.

At times like this, I find it soothing to watch children's anime where the main characters make straightforward efforts.

It's better if the content is cheerful, but it does not have to be. I think it's good to have a moment when you can forget about death by getting absorbed in anime.

The idea is to spend less time obsessing over death and more time thinking about whatever else is on your mind.

When you are preoccupied with death, you will think of death no matter what you are doing, so you have to gradually separate your thoughts from death.

The important thing is to focus on something other than death, so games and movies can help you recover from your fear too.

[To go to the hospital.]

If you can't help it, this is the last thing you should do.

Honestly speaking, if you are in trouble, leave everything to the professionals. Because they have treated and treated many people with the same symptoms as you, and they have probably treated people with much worse symptoms than you.

You may feel that the fear you are feeling is something special, or may think that just going to a hospital will not cure such a big fear.

You may think that you are not just sick.

You may think that you have some special condition that even doctors cannot cure.

Or you may think that going to a hospital will not solve the problem of dying itself.

You are right. Going to a hospital won't solve the problem of dying itself.

But that's okay.

It is true that death itself is a phenomenon that can never be changed by seeing a doctor, but the condition of being too afraid of death can be changed in a hospital.

In other words, there is a possibility that you are not really afraid of death, but that you are just more prone to produce substances in your brain that make you afraid.

It's no longer a fear of death, it's just the result of a chemical reaction.

If that's the case, there is nothing wrong with you at all.

It is natural to feel scared when there are a lot of bad substances in your brain. That's because it's meant to make you feel scared.

No matter what philosophy you may study or what religion you may believe in, it does not matter.

If your brain produces some substances, you will react.

You feel salty if you lick salt.

That's all there is to it.

It doesn't matter if you are an ordinary person or a philosophical genius, you feel fear when you are aware of death. The only difference is whether you understand the fear correctly or not.

If you don't understand it correctly, you will become afraid of death, and you will stay in a state of fear.

If you understand fear correctly, you can say, “Oh, I'm feeling fear now. But this is something I don't need to be afraid of.”

But when your brain is flooded with negative chemicals, no matter how much you change your thinking, there is nothing you can do about it.

So, the only thing to do is to go to the hospital without complaining.

Just as a broken bone cannot be cured by a spirit, the symptom of feeling fear easily cannot be cured by a spirit either.

There is no need to feel embarrassed about going to the hospital. There are plenty of people who go to psychosomatic medicine or psychiatry.

There is nothing special about being mentally ill. If you have a toothache, you go to a dentist; if you have a mental illness, you go to a psychosomatic department.

Modern medicine can certainly alleviate your suffering.

[To believe in the author.]

I've written a lot of things up to this point, but anyway, here is a person who has actually overcome his fear of death.

And I am seriously writing this article with the intention of addressing myself who used to suffer from death phobia.

Otherwise, I wouldn't have spent hours writing something like this, which is unlikely to be buzzed! It's not even going to make me any money!

The first step to overcoming a fear of death is to believe that it is something that can be overcome.

Why don't you believe in me?

[Afterword]

When I was really afraid of dying, I googled for ways to deal with your fear of death.

Then I found a lot of stuff like “I was able to get back on my feet thanks to my girlfriend lol” or “Don't just think about dying, know how wonderful life is lol”.

Shut the fxxk up! No one is asking you that, dumbass! I'm literally about to die of fear!

Tell me how to deal with this despair right now! Please help me!

I feel like that.

I want to be the last person to feel that way.

I really hope it reaches the people who are suffering somehow.