Fear of Death

Going to Catholic school positively warped my mind about death. In their efforts to scare us into submission, the nuns described death as just the worst thing anyone could imagine. Anything you did, that was viewed in their minds as being bad, unholy, or unfit, ultimately led to dying. Then there was the nun who assured us that no matter how good we might think we were, we most likely would have to spend time in purgatory, which is a division of hell. Yes, you would get to heaven, but you would have to roast there for a while to atone for sins. However, if people prayed for you, or you had the right number of prayers said just before you died, had a papal blessing or whatever else they were pushing that day, maybe then you could go directly to heaven. Not a lot of time was spent on the beauty or glory of heaven, or if it was, I don’t remember it.

Since our brains are primed for fear-a sound device when you live on a hostile planet-these stories made for many a sleepless night as a child, and periodically come back to haunt me. What if they were right?

Having spent 30 years working with people with various types of chronic and terminal conditions, I’ve learned a lot from the dying. As a young kid, I remember sitting at my desk thinking that the nuns had it all wrong. As an adult, I know they were wrong. All the same, how does that impact my fear of dying?

Even though I remember reading about Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross as a young kid in “Life” magazine, it was during my years of working in AIDS that I read her books and articles. With the arrival of new treatments, we were seeing far fewer deaths, so I was caught by surprise when one of the kids died from AIDS. I couldn’t see my way out of this one until I overheard someone talking about Kubler-Ross’s book “The Wheel of Life.” I immediately purchased it, very rare since I am a major library patron, and read it cover to cover in an afternoon. It transformed my understanding of death and my approach to work. Her writing kept me working in AIDS, long after many I knew had changed careers and I still read parts of it from time to time.

During a hospice in-service, I was given “Final Gifts” to read and it too became one of those transforming books. In fact, I keep extra copies of “The Wheel of Life” and “Final Gifts” just so I can loan them to people. All in all, I thought I had a good understanding of things. Then one of my closest friends developed a terminal disease and was dead in less than four months.

It’s taken a good 18 months to get some sort of perspective on this. Every pain or ache quickly was turning into some form of horrible illness in my mind. I realized that my anxiety was interfering with living and was probably causing the physical symptoms in the first place. It reminded me of how my friends would worry about getting pregnant month after month only to discover many years later that it would be difficult for them to conceive. As one woman said, “I have wasted so much time over something that was never even a problem.”

In reading an article by Dr. Morse, who has studied the near death experiences of children, entitled Coping with the Fear of Death, I realized that a combination of age and the impact of sudden loss was contributing to my anxiety. We fear death for a variety of reasons-sadness of growing older; it's an unknown; reluctance of giving up people that we love and enjoy; pain etc. Many turn to religion to find answers and support, others find it by delving into studying it. There is now a growing movement of neuro scientists that are seeking a newer understanding based on their knowledge of the brain.

Several years ago, a woman I served on a board with was dying of brain cancer. She asked that I call her nearly every day, just to check in. During the many conversations we had, I came away with two insightful comments that she made. The first was that she didn’t feel sorry for herself, “We all have to die and it’s just my turn.” On death itself, she said “I think I will know it when it happens and I will have spent years worrying for nothing.”

Maybe the take home point of this post is to recognize that fear of death is part of being human and that as we age and have different experiences our views will change. For some, reading and talking about dying is important. For others, belonging to a community of faith provides answers they are seeking. Whatever your beliefs, you are not alone if you fear death, just don’t let it cripple your living. Again and again we need to remind ourselves that we can’t live in the past or fast forward to the future. What we can do is to live mindfully in the present.

Some links that might be interest:

Overcoming the Fear of Death by Dr. Alex Lickerman, a physician and former Director of Primary Care at the University of

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight

Dr. Robert Lanza’s articles from the Huffington Post that deal with various aspects of death from a scientific bent