Hi David I used to be afraid of death but as I haved aged (80 this year) the fear has decreased to almost nothing. I think we have evolved to face death more easily as we age. So just avoid those buses, fast cars, eat well and exercise more than just using your laptop and you too may get to easily facing your demise. I enjoy your newsletters immensely.
At the risk of turning your comments section into a group therapy session, here is a personal anecdote.
I found myself temporarily dead a few years back.
Something went wrong during routine surgery and my heart stopped.
There was nothing to it. I had faded out pretty quickly and felt no anxiety at any time. There was no sensory experience at all. No bright white lights, no ghosts of past family members, no choirs of angels, no feeling of warmth or cold. Just nothing. Hard to describe really.
I came back to the recovery nurse leaning over me and saying, “There you are! You gave us a scare. We thought we’d lost you for a bit”, which was somewhat disconcerting to my foggy brain.
My wife was sitting in a chair nearby, looking ashen, but relieved.
The experience has removed my fear of death, but I would still prefer to have it happen later on, thanks.
I don’t think anyone should try it just as an exercise to diminish their fear, but I found it reassuring.
I am chronically suicidal, have been most of my life unfortunately. The world is terrifying, I’m in constant pain and struggle with some big traumas.
It’s a constant battle to keep those thoughts and feelings under control.
But ironically* (I think) I’m a very neurotic paranoid person. I am petrified of flying, don’t drive because I am terrified to crash, I can slip into hypochondria easily - inspecting tiny spots or focusing on new pains and aches, terrified this new symptom will spell the end of me.
Sometimes I think I’m too scared to live and too scared to die, while living takes longer, death is forever. There’s no answer really. But sometimes it’s comforting to see your death as your own, like a friend you will meet, who belongs only to you. And hopefully I’ll be able to be a ghost that can fly or something and I can just explore the world like I couldn’t alive.
Jan 6, 2022·edited Jan 6, 2022Liked by David Farrier
I spent many years working in veterinary medicine where euthanasia is a daily occurrence. Euthanasia meaning, of course, a “good death.” And honestly, I will never understand why we don’t offer the same death to humans. A sedative first, falling asleep amongst the people who love you, and then just…nothing. Knowing that it can be that simple makes it so much worse to imagine languishing at the end of my life.
I spoke to my therapist about this recently. I’m an atheist and while I don’t fear dying, I fear not being alive and being remembered occasionally until I’m forgotten. That bothers me a whole lot. She thinks it could be linked to my childhood of severe emotional neglect and a history of being with emotionally unavailable men. Apparently, it’s going into death without having truly been seen, understood or loved that I fear, not dying. Interesting stuff. Sad but something to work on at least.
What the hospice nurse says about terminal people hearing children or seeing deceased loved ones before they die rings true. My grandmother suffered from advanced dementia in the last few years of her life. My grandfather, her husband of 67 years, died about five years before she did. In the last few days of my grandmothers life she started conversing with my grandfather as if he was in the room. She was totally lucid for the first time in ages.
My aunt, her daughter, who never believed in afterlife, despite her own husband’s death at an early age, now believes. She experienced her mother’s spirit patting her on the hand shortly after her death. She saw her dogs behaving as if my grandfather was still there and about to feed them treats.
I cannot stop laughing at the classic NZ/Aus abuse. I want someone to heckle me by saying ‘you’re a f*ckin wanker aye’ and ‘I bet a dj rooted her bloke’
Death is really interesting to me and this was a great read. The letter from the Hospice worker was especially insightful.
Other than a grandparent dying when I was younger I’d never had to face the death of anyone close to me, until 2019.
My daughters father passed away at 29 years old in a car crash. We had been separated for a few years but it still hit me really hard. I think when sudden deaths like that occur and there is not build up from a terminal illness or old age it is quite confronting and shocking to deal with.
It’s really made me question this whole life thing and how it can be snapped up in a millisecond (sorry, that probably doesn’t help with your anxiety). The experience has made me more eager to live my life doing things I want to do rather than existing on the hamster wheel. After a few months I quit my job, started my own business, started a mental health blog & podcast and it’s all lead to really great places.
For me, although tragic and sad, experiencing death in this way helped me to live my life more freely and with purpose.
It was also really interesting to be part of a Tangi (traditional Maori funeral) where you spend 2-3 days with the persons body. The opportunity to be close to and with the person in their own home for a number of days prior to the funeral is quite the experience. It seems to be strangely settling.
As far as the after life goes. I still have zero idea what to believe there. Think I’ll just wait and see before I make my mind up 🙂
Jan 6, 2022·edited Jan 6, 2022Liked by David Farrier
I'm 38. My mum died in hospice when she was 48, and I wasn't physically present for a number of reasons (including that she didn't want me and my sister to see her actively dying). It really helped me to read about the physical process of death on some hospice websites. Knowing that it was as standard as a Windows XP shutdown somehow comforted me.
The part I'm dealing with now is that I'm nearly her age at death. I wouldn't say I'm at peace with that exactly. But what I have done is made some plans that would help ease the burden on those around me, like telling people my funeral wishes and having income and life insurance. Deeply boring and practical, I know!
Hi David, anxiety is a bitch to live with, whether it’s specific, like your fear of death, or generalised ie fear of pretty much everything which troubled me for half my life. It can be crippling and I certainly identify with your sleep issues. With a lot of help I live more normally these days but an odd consequence is that I now want to gobble up as much life as I can stuff into myself. And the longer I can do this for the better. So you could say My FOMO makes me afraid of death too.
Which brings me to the DJ. What do these people actually do? In my salad days a DJ was what you had when you couldn’t afford real musicians, with actual talent. And the one who brought us the gift of Omicron strikes me as a particularly vile variant of the old aphorism, ‘Those who can, play. those who can’t DJ.’ I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.
Keep hanging in there David, you are a constant source of joy and whoops of uncontrollable mirth. PS Yellowjackets is pure genius.
I really do wonder why you thought the disturbing corpse photos would help, but I must hand it to you for making such a bold move. I find the concept of directly confronting and discussing your fears very uncomfortable; I have one major phobia and it's so bad that I can't even type what it is here.
I've said stuff like this on here in the past, but I've long since stopped being obsessed with maximizing the longevity of life. It's likely due at least in part to my personal brushes with mortality (cancer, mental illness, the usual suspects). I'd rather just do and experience as much cool shit as possible in whatever time I'm allotted. I don't really mean that in a "carpe diem" way — in fact overall, I have carpe'd very few diems — I just mean that I want to have a bunch of cool stories to tell. Maybe write them down at some point.
However, I also experience rather heavy millennial nihilism. I'm not so sure how long this place will be inhabitable, so sometimes I'm just like *shrug* what's it matter anyway?
But if granted the choice, I would definitely want to go out in some cool, crazy way. A painless one, but a cool one.
Anyway I'm currently still in major Witcher/Dexter overload but Yellowjackets is next up bc all the Fannibals are way into it.
I believe in an afterlife and I’m still terrified of death. I turn 50 this year (fark) and have this overwhelming sense of shit it’s getting too late . For what exactly I’m not sure . Lols .
I was waiting for your response regarding the DJs. You make me laugh and I thoroughly enjoyed your response.
Also, the whole death thing. I feel the exact same way. The thought of just going and then what? Nothing? Just NOTHING? I’m just gone? Silence? That scares me a lot. I don’t like the idea of not ever having thoughts again. Thanks for this post though, I think it has helped with the dread.
Also, Bo Burnhams mum worked in hospice care and he did a little interview with Ethan Klein on the H3 podcast about his experience knowing that is what his mum did for a living. It was really humbling.
I hope 2022 is great for you David! And hope you are able to get back here at home soon!
I am definitely a "rager against the dying of the light". The fact that we die makes me SO unreasonably and irrationally angry - coz it is inevitable as we all know. But it seems so freaking unfair to us all that life is so short and that we have to face the pain of loss and grief over those we love who die, before we do it ourselves. It sux, and I really want to kick the arses of whatever process made us the way we are. If any of the Bible can be believed, some earlier humans lived for hundreds of years, and Noah and Methuselah over 1000 years. That would be okay - I reckon we could deal with death at that point, but after less than 100 most of us? So freaking unfair and it makes me so mad! Though I admit, the stories of the kids visiting people who were still lucid, days before death, is spooky and cool. I have a sense of acceptance in that I do NOT fear my pre-birth time - which is obviously as unknown and non-existent as my post-death time is to me in this world. Still mad though.....but here's a thing. I don't have a belief in the afterlife as such given the lack of evidence (other than chemically flooded brains close to death itself) for it. But I did ask my Mum to let me know somehow, in a way I could not deny, if she was okay after she passed away and that there is something else beyond this existence - IF she could do so. She promised me she would if she could. And, well, a few things have definitely happened - but all of which I have been able to explain away (it is weird that I even tried to, but I wanted the evidence to be undeniable). Finally - it would appear in frustration at our stupidity - she gave both my sister and I (recently returned from Berlin to see our unwell Dad) a message that we should not and could not deny. But - being stupid humans - we have just gone into complete shock and denial. Still looking for a rationale explanation - still haven't found one. Should I just relax and believe? *shrug*
I loved this newsletter - it really resonated with me.
I remember a moment in my mid 20s, when my life was all mine for the taking; I was travelling the world, discovering who I was, who I wanted to be & just loving living, when it suddenly dawned on me that my time on this mortal plane was limited! I started to become terrified about how fast it was all going and the idea of not being here anymore was devastating to me! So while reading Caitlin Doughty's part of the newsletter on dealing with what it was about death that was so scary to me, I realised it is FOMO related in my case, an affliction that I always suffer with now, being alive - let alone when I'm gone and have no choice in the matter!!!
After that scary epiphany back in my 20s, the fear of dying slowly subsided as life took over, and the little death panic only popped up every once in a while. However that all changes in February 2018, when my mum passed away suddenly, after a long illness.
We had no idea how far advanced her illness was, thanks in part to Mum's denial and also ours I guess (Mum's are always there right???), so it was a huge and horrible shock when it happened, so as the eldest of the kids, I put myself in charge of all the funeral planning/estate & house stuff, which was a great way to get through it all without focusing on the the loss and grief and all the feelings that went with it. I found it really cathartic and helpful to finalise everything for her, however all those death panics were right back at surface level again, and now I had a new panic to cope with too; the fact than anyone could die at any moment, not just me - awful.
So I worried when my husband was out, in case he ended up in a car accident or something, I worried when my friends went on holiday, in case their plane crashed, whenever a family member called, my mind went into panic mode convincing me that something awful had happened, but of course that was never the case, and after about a year or so I finally started feeling like myself again, a new version of myself though - losing mum (my best friend) was life changing and will forever leave a mum sized hole in my heart.
Then a few months later I did get that call from my family, my brother had committed suicide.
Mum's death was indescribably sad, but my brother's death was next level & all that secondary death panic was back in full force - now it didn't have to be just an accident to lose someone!
Happily I am back on track now and weirdly, it was a third loss that helped! A year after my brother's passing, a friend of ours passed away from a brain aneurism - it was so sad and my heart still breaks for his wife and children, but as there no warning, I realised it was just his time.
It made me understand that we only have a limited time here and that's really what makes life such a miracle!! The FOMO fear is still there for me, but it now pushes me to make the most of life and my family and friends and I try not to let life's little problems devour me like they used too - although not always convincingly of course!
When I feel the death panics come on now, I think about what I can do practically, even small things like knowing who our accounts & utilities are with, so I won't have to be a detective like I was for my mum's estate - and making sure my husband knows too, so he's not in the dark if it's me leaving first, and I find this helps me calm down again - lists and plans are my self love language it seems!
Life is awesome and it's death that makes it so awesome, but I'm definitely not ready to go yet!!!
Hi David I used to be afraid of death but as I haved aged (80 this year) the fear has decreased to almost nothing. I think we have evolved to face death more easily as we age. So just avoid those buses, fast cars, eat well and exercise more than just using your laptop and you too may get to easily facing your demise. I enjoy your newsletters immensely.
At the risk of turning your comments section into a group therapy session, here is a personal anecdote.
I found myself temporarily dead a few years back.
Something went wrong during routine surgery and my heart stopped.
There was nothing to it. I had faded out pretty quickly and felt no anxiety at any time. There was no sensory experience at all. No bright white lights, no ghosts of past family members, no choirs of angels, no feeling of warmth or cold. Just nothing. Hard to describe really.
I came back to the recovery nurse leaning over me and saying, “There you are! You gave us a scare. We thought we’d lost you for a bit”, which was somewhat disconcerting to my foggy brain.
My wife was sitting in a chair nearby, looking ashen, but relieved.
The experience has removed my fear of death, but I would still prefer to have it happen later on, thanks.
I don’t think anyone should try it just as an exercise to diminish their fear, but I found it reassuring.
I am chronically suicidal, have been most of my life unfortunately. The world is terrifying, I’m in constant pain and struggle with some big traumas.
It’s a constant battle to keep those thoughts and feelings under control.
But ironically* (I think) I’m a very neurotic paranoid person. I am petrified of flying, don’t drive because I am terrified to crash, I can slip into hypochondria easily - inspecting tiny spots or focusing on new pains and aches, terrified this new symptom will spell the end of me.
Sometimes I think I’m too scared to live and too scared to die, while living takes longer, death is forever. There’s no answer really. But sometimes it’s comforting to see your death as your own, like a friend you will meet, who belongs only to you. And hopefully I’ll be able to be a ghost that can fly or something and I can just explore the world like I couldn’t alive.
I spent many years working in veterinary medicine where euthanasia is a daily occurrence. Euthanasia meaning, of course, a “good death.” And honestly, I will never understand why we don’t offer the same death to humans. A sedative first, falling asleep amongst the people who love you, and then just…nothing. Knowing that it can be that simple makes it so much worse to imagine languishing at the end of my life.
I spoke to my therapist about this recently. I’m an atheist and while I don’t fear dying, I fear not being alive and being remembered occasionally until I’m forgotten. That bothers me a whole lot. She thinks it could be linked to my childhood of severe emotional neglect and a history of being with emotionally unavailable men. Apparently, it’s going into death without having truly been seen, understood or loved that I fear, not dying. Interesting stuff. Sad but something to work on at least.
What the hospice nurse says about terminal people hearing children or seeing deceased loved ones before they die rings true. My grandmother suffered from advanced dementia in the last few years of her life. My grandfather, her husband of 67 years, died about five years before she did. In the last few days of my grandmothers life she started conversing with my grandfather as if he was in the room. She was totally lucid for the first time in ages.
My aunt, her daughter, who never believed in afterlife, despite her own husband’s death at an early age, now believes. She experienced her mother’s spirit patting her on the hand shortly after her death. She saw her dogs behaving as if my grandfather was still there and about to feed them treats.
I cannot stop laughing at the classic NZ/Aus abuse. I want someone to heckle me by saying ‘you’re a f*ckin wanker aye’ and ‘I bet a dj rooted her bloke’
Death is really interesting to me and this was a great read. The letter from the Hospice worker was especially insightful.
Other than a grandparent dying when I was younger I’d never had to face the death of anyone close to me, until 2019.
My daughters father passed away at 29 years old in a car crash. We had been separated for a few years but it still hit me really hard. I think when sudden deaths like that occur and there is not build up from a terminal illness or old age it is quite confronting and shocking to deal with.
It’s really made me question this whole life thing and how it can be snapped up in a millisecond (sorry, that probably doesn’t help with your anxiety). The experience has made me more eager to live my life doing things I want to do rather than existing on the hamster wheel. After a few months I quit my job, started my own business, started a mental health blog & podcast and it’s all lead to really great places.
For me, although tragic and sad, experiencing death in this way helped me to live my life more freely and with purpose.
It was also really interesting to be part of a Tangi (traditional Maori funeral) where you spend 2-3 days with the persons body. The opportunity to be close to and with the person in their own home for a number of days prior to the funeral is quite the experience. It seems to be strangely settling.
As far as the after life goes. I still have zero idea what to believe there. Think I’ll just wait and see before I make my mind up 🙂
Jenna
Your nap-destroying anxiety breaks my heart, David, and I send you a huge, reassuring, empathetic, validating hug across the Pacific 💗
I'm 38. My mum died in hospice when she was 48, and I wasn't physically present for a number of reasons (including that she didn't want me and my sister to see her actively dying). It really helped me to read about the physical process of death on some hospice websites. Knowing that it was as standard as a Windows XP shutdown somehow comforted me.
The part I'm dealing with now is that I'm nearly her age at death. I wouldn't say I'm at peace with that exactly. But what I have done is made some plans that would help ease the burden on those around me, like telling people my funeral wishes and having income and life insurance. Deeply boring and practical, I know!
Hi David, anxiety is a bitch to live with, whether it’s specific, like your fear of death, or generalised ie fear of pretty much everything which troubled me for half my life. It can be crippling and I certainly identify with your sleep issues. With a lot of help I live more normally these days but an odd consequence is that I now want to gobble up as much life as I can stuff into myself. And the longer I can do this for the better. So you could say My FOMO makes me afraid of death too.
Which brings me to the DJ. What do these people actually do? In my salad days a DJ was what you had when you couldn’t afford real musicians, with actual talent. And the one who brought us the gift of Omicron strikes me as a particularly vile variant of the old aphorism, ‘Those who can, play. those who can’t DJ.’ I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.
Keep hanging in there David, you are a constant source of joy and whoops of uncontrollable mirth. PS Yellowjackets is pure genius.
I really do wonder why you thought the disturbing corpse photos would help, but I must hand it to you for making such a bold move. I find the concept of directly confronting and discussing your fears very uncomfortable; I have one major phobia and it's so bad that I can't even type what it is here.
I've said stuff like this on here in the past, but I've long since stopped being obsessed with maximizing the longevity of life. It's likely due at least in part to my personal brushes with mortality (cancer, mental illness, the usual suspects). I'd rather just do and experience as much cool shit as possible in whatever time I'm allotted. I don't really mean that in a "carpe diem" way — in fact overall, I have carpe'd very few diems — I just mean that I want to have a bunch of cool stories to tell. Maybe write them down at some point.
However, I also experience rather heavy millennial nihilism. I'm not so sure how long this place will be inhabitable, so sometimes I'm just like *shrug* what's it matter anyway?
But if granted the choice, I would definitely want to go out in some cool, crazy way. A painless one, but a cool one.
Anyway I'm currently still in major Witcher/Dexter overload but Yellowjackets is next up bc all the Fannibals are way into it.
I believe in an afterlife and I’m still terrified of death. I turn 50 this year (fark) and have this overwhelming sense of shit it’s getting too late . For what exactly I’m not sure . Lols .
I was waiting for your response regarding the DJs. You make me laugh and I thoroughly enjoyed your response.
Also, the whole death thing. I feel the exact same way. The thought of just going and then what? Nothing? Just NOTHING? I’m just gone? Silence? That scares me a lot. I don’t like the idea of not ever having thoughts again. Thanks for this post though, I think it has helped with the dread.
Also, Bo Burnhams mum worked in hospice care and he did a little interview with Ethan Klein on the H3 podcast about his experience knowing that is what his mum did for a living. It was really humbling.
I hope 2022 is great for you David! And hope you are able to get back here at home soon!
I am definitely a "rager against the dying of the light". The fact that we die makes me SO unreasonably and irrationally angry - coz it is inevitable as we all know. But it seems so freaking unfair to us all that life is so short and that we have to face the pain of loss and grief over those we love who die, before we do it ourselves. It sux, and I really want to kick the arses of whatever process made us the way we are. If any of the Bible can be believed, some earlier humans lived for hundreds of years, and Noah and Methuselah over 1000 years. That would be okay - I reckon we could deal with death at that point, but after less than 100 most of us? So freaking unfair and it makes me so mad! Though I admit, the stories of the kids visiting people who were still lucid, days before death, is spooky and cool. I have a sense of acceptance in that I do NOT fear my pre-birth time - which is obviously as unknown and non-existent as my post-death time is to me in this world. Still mad though.....but here's a thing. I don't have a belief in the afterlife as such given the lack of evidence (other than chemically flooded brains close to death itself) for it. But I did ask my Mum to let me know somehow, in a way I could not deny, if she was okay after she passed away and that there is something else beyond this existence - IF she could do so. She promised me she would if she could. And, well, a few things have definitely happened - but all of which I have been able to explain away (it is weird that I even tried to, but I wanted the evidence to be undeniable). Finally - it would appear in frustration at our stupidity - she gave both my sister and I (recently returned from Berlin to see our unwell Dad) a message that we should not and could not deny. But - being stupid humans - we have just gone into complete shock and denial. Still looking for a rationale explanation - still haven't found one. Should I just relax and believe? *shrug*
I loved this newsletter - it really resonated with me.
I remember a moment in my mid 20s, when my life was all mine for the taking; I was travelling the world, discovering who I was, who I wanted to be & just loving living, when it suddenly dawned on me that my time on this mortal plane was limited! I started to become terrified about how fast it was all going and the idea of not being here anymore was devastating to me! So while reading Caitlin Doughty's part of the newsletter on dealing with what it was about death that was so scary to me, I realised it is FOMO related in my case, an affliction that I always suffer with now, being alive - let alone when I'm gone and have no choice in the matter!!!
After that scary epiphany back in my 20s, the fear of dying slowly subsided as life took over, and the little death panic only popped up every once in a while. However that all changes in February 2018, when my mum passed away suddenly, after a long illness.
We had no idea how far advanced her illness was, thanks in part to Mum's denial and also ours I guess (Mum's are always there right???), so it was a huge and horrible shock when it happened, so as the eldest of the kids, I put myself in charge of all the funeral planning/estate & house stuff, which was a great way to get through it all without focusing on the the loss and grief and all the feelings that went with it. I found it really cathartic and helpful to finalise everything for her, however all those death panics were right back at surface level again, and now I had a new panic to cope with too; the fact than anyone could die at any moment, not just me - awful.
So I worried when my husband was out, in case he ended up in a car accident or something, I worried when my friends went on holiday, in case their plane crashed, whenever a family member called, my mind went into panic mode convincing me that something awful had happened, but of course that was never the case, and after about a year or so I finally started feeling like myself again, a new version of myself though - losing mum (my best friend) was life changing and will forever leave a mum sized hole in my heart.
Then a few months later I did get that call from my family, my brother had committed suicide.
Mum's death was indescribably sad, but my brother's death was next level & all that secondary death panic was back in full force - now it didn't have to be just an accident to lose someone!
Happily I am back on track now and weirdly, it was a third loss that helped! A year after my brother's passing, a friend of ours passed away from a brain aneurism - it was so sad and my heart still breaks for his wife and children, but as there no warning, I realised it was just his time.
It made me understand that we only have a limited time here and that's really what makes life such a miracle!! The FOMO fear is still there for me, but it now pushes me to make the most of life and my family and friends and I try not to let life's little problems devour me like they used too - although not always convincingly of course!
When I feel the death panics come on now, I think about what I can do practically, even small things like knowing who our accounts & utilities are with, so I won't have to be a detective like I was for my mum's estate - and making sure my husband knows too, so he's not in the dark if it's me leaving first, and I find this helps me calm down again - lists and plans are my self love language it seems!
Life is awesome and it's death that makes it so awesome, but I'm definitely not ready to go yet!!!