How do you cope with the finality of death?

[CleverMoniker]

I decided against suicide a few years ago, but I can't stop imagining the end. I'm not a particularly religious person. I feel like I'm looking into an eternity of nothingness and I can't understand it. As far as I am concerned, I have always been. I can't imagine not being. I don't want to stop being.

 

[dreadpirateroberts69]

Though I've made peace with the fact that I won't always exist, the finality of choosing to end my own life it is the hardest thing for me to accept too. For me it helps to think about my body decomposing and becoming one with the earth after I die. I will no longer be "me", but in a way I will still be here. I know I will live on in the memories of others as well. I just feel like I have to be *absolutely* sure it's what I want before I do it, because of how utterly final it is.

 

[Foresight]

I cushion it with contemplation and a bucket list. I'm not comfortable with it either but we have no choice.

 

[motel rooms]

I'm not a particularly religious person. I feel like I'm looking into an eternity of nothingness and I can't understand it. As far as I am concerned, I have always been. I can't imagine not being. I don't want to stop being.

Invent your own "spirituality" & believe you're immortal & anything else that makes you happy. You don't have to be religious to do it. I find that a lame move, but who cares what people like me think?

I cope with the finality of death by being aware that death is unavoidable. Mind-blowingly original, I know.

 

[Hydrokhoos]

I'm also not really religious or spiritual and some days I find comfort in the thought of no longer existing (especially if the afterlife could be anything like what's depicted in The Good Place, even what was supposed to seem like heaven just looked like introvert hell). But most days I wonder what the likelihood of becoming a ghost and being able to see events after I ctb would be

 

[Mukey]

im 50/50 on it, its very evident that there might be nothing after death but some weird phenomena's i've experienced in my life think otherwise

 

[Ringo]

After thinking about it for a while I realized how terrifying eternity is, being a consciousness that lasts infinitely, there would come a point where I'll be tremendously bored and I'd have already tried everything and there would still be another eternity ahead of me. As much as I wish there was something else, the truth is what it is, regardless of what I want, I'll find out when the time comes, so I don't want to worry about it right now.

 

[Mixo]

Accepting finality of death is hard. I am not big on therapy now, but I often wish I could speak to a therapist in order to fully accept that life is going to end and that it is okay. Of course, no therapist would ever willingly "treat" me in the way I want to be treated, in that sense, so I'm here on SS.

I also try to be honest with myself. Being alive, chronically ill, in pain, and just generally miserable is not better than nonexistence, even though my mind may be trying to trick me into believing this to be so.

 

[RN12]

Accepting finality of death is hard. I am not big on therapy now, but I often wish I could speak to a therapist in order to fully accept that life is going to end and that it is okay. Of course, no therapist would ever willingly "treat" me in the way I want to be treated, in that sense, so I'm here on SS.

I also try to be honest with myself. Being alive, chronically ill, in pain, and just generally miserable is not better than nonexistence, even though my mind may be trying to trick me into believing this to be so.

yes it sucks, chronic pain, illness destroyed body on young age :( I want to live but not like this

 

[FuneralCry]

For me, the fact that death is so final is the most comforting part. I want everything to end, I do not want to think or feel ever again. The way I see it, we will all die eventually and death is inevitable. Life is basically just waiting around to die. I see life as being completely meaningless, I do not believe in religion or that there is anything after this. I think many people struggle to cope with the fact that we will die as existence is all we know and we cannot comprehend what death is like. I have no problem with any of this, like I said, I only struggle to cope with life. Death is the end of all of this pointless suffering.

 

[Angst Filled Fuck Up]

I can't cope with it, so I'm with you there. I still can't come to terms with never eating a pizza again. Never having an orgasm again. Never watching a good show again. The little things have kept me going thus far, so to never have any of them again, yeah I dunno. On balance there's still more bad than good in life, but when that shifts to a really imbalanced ratio of being virtually all bad, I will probably be better equipped to cope with the idea of never experiencing anything again. I don't experience physical pain either, day to day, so that's a plus that makes life at least a bit tolerable.

 

[Luchs]

I believe that it can't be over. It is not founded on any concrete logic, but a gut feeling and reading some philosophy books.

"For those with faith, no evidence is necessary; for those without it, no evidence will suffice."

 

[WonderingSoul]

Might be just me, but I never saw death as the complete end. Just the end of this horrible life and it's burdens. That's what helped me, knowing once I die I'll never have to see the people who ruined my life in this harsh world. I'm absolutely ok with eternal nothingness. There is no feeling, not even the feeling of nothing. Sounds beautiful. Though I'm agnostic so I never know what's going to happen after I die.

 

[Interloper]

I've been staring it right in the eyes for 2+ weeks now and I just cannot comprehend it, and I am completely unable to cope as of now.

 

[NumbItAll]

Fearing death is extremely common because we are wired to survive. In my opinion it is irrational because you won't feel anything when you're dead. I am still afraid though like everybody else and have not found a way to cope with it. The best I've come up with is to hate life so much that I want to be dead anyway... not exactly palatable. Either way, eventually this will be over and none of it will have mattered.

 

[Death is beautiful]

I am ready to accept death, I am happy about its inevitability, death solves all my problems and after death nothing matters. In death, everyone is equal

 

[LADY007]

I can't cope with it, so I'm with you there. I still can't come to terms with never eating a pizza again. Never having an orgasm again. Never watching a good show again. The little things have kept me going thus far, so to never have any of them again, yeah I dunno. On balance there's still more bad than good in life, but when that shifts to a really imbalanced ratio of being virtually all bad, I will probably be better equipped to cope with the idea of never experiencing anything again. I don't experience physical pain either, day to day, so that's a plus that makes life at least a bit tolerable.

There is free pizza and wine where we are going! I can also believe what I want to! haha!

 

[whatevs]

Weirdly enough I'm more scared of having to live than death. Now, when it comes to what you become when you die, it's the same thing you used to be before being born. For many that is nothingness, but something doesn't come from nothing, so that's not it. Whatever it is though, we have no way to how it feels, if it even feels anything.

 

[Sherri]

I'm not religious at all, but my great great nana used to pray every night to her holy Mary and God that if death came for her that she wanted to die in bed without feeling a thing, that's what I wish for myself too. By the way she died like the prayers she prayed. I was too small to remember but my nana says that all the time, that she died the way she asked. I wish that to myself too.

 

[Sunset Limited]

Invent your own "spirituality" & believe you're immortal & anything else that makes you happy. You don't have to be religious to do it. I find that a lame move, but who cares what people like me think?

I cope with the finality of death by being aware that death is unavoidable. Mind-blowingly original, I know.

"Invent your own "spirituality" & believe you're immortal & anything else that makes you happy. You don't have to be religious to do it."

An excellent approach. I think the same way. I believe this is a matrix. We will leave here with the experience of those before us. This helps me.

- What the caterpillar calls death, the poet calls a butterfly. -