irrational fear...........

[tharidler]

after being on the forum before and posting i felt it was time to give up another slice of my mental pie first of all i'm sorry if this upsets anyone as i know sometimes its uncomfortable to read certain things my problem is ironic as i have seriously considered suicide i have a terrible fear of dying to the point i think about it every day and night along with my other problems it has caused me to spend a long time in therapy the trouble is whilst i can from a logical point see it is pointless to spend all this time and energy on such a distressing subject i cannot help as lord knows i've tried it has been suggested by my therapist that it goes back to my childhood being a child of the eighties(the best decade ever)anyone who grew up around that time would remember there was a little arms race going on between america and russia and frankly it scared me more than a little now that alone may not be the root of the problems but that and the fact that my father being a believer in tough love and not mincing his words would tell us there was no point in worrying about it as once you were gone (dead) that was that and you wouldn't know about it well there is a certain logic to that but to my fragile mind it was more than i could cope with especially considering i was about 9 years at this stage i would lie awake at night trying to work out how long i had left what year i might die and how many birthdays and christmas's i would have left ( i was 9 after all) these things all affected me deeply but i was bought up in a family where that sort of talk would have been seen as a weakness and dissmissed out of hand it eventually came to a point as i grew up that i was able to lock these fears away in a little box in the back of my mind untill some years ago along with some other problems these started to manifest themselves in all the classic markers of a myriad of mental health issues i'm sorry if this is a bit of a ramble and i'm not sure if there really is a point but up untill now only my wife and doctors know about this and i needed to be in the right frame of mind to put it down for others to read i've tried to find comfort in faith but i find it hard to believe and lets face it that would be too easy its not that i don't want to believe i do but i just can't the way i would like i understand that we all die but my problem i have been told is linked to not being able to control my destiny and i understand the points have been made and my therapist went so far as to say maybe if i embrace the idea that i will know nothing does it matter (well yes as i have pointed out i'm scared of dying) i never expected for them to tell me the secret that only they know about the afterlife but when they had gone as far as they could with therapy i'm left on my own still not knowing how to cope and having been signed out of their care i think what can i do i never expected a miracle cure and i had to jump through hoops to get the care that i did but what do we do other than repeat past work and hope it helps my wife is very bitter about this as from her point of view although i'm better than i used to be i'm still unwell yet you are cut loose anyway anyway thanks for reading i just had to get it out in this non stop rambling way otherwise i probably would have deleted after the first few lines

[Zaf]

Do you know what exactly the fear is?  For instance leaving behind responsibilities, leaving loved ones etc

[tharidler]

zaf thanks for the reply
in answer to your question i'm not sure, my fear of death although seemingly linked to my childhood,father and news of the time its been suggested that it's really a fear of not being able to control the fact that we die although this is true in the sense we have no control i'm not sure thats the whole thing i get very scared and panicky just thinking of it and i'm not sure that i have ever had an answer that helps me i'm not sure about the thought of responsibilities or loved ones being lost as this was never discussed and it always came across as a control issue to me although i never really felt like that in all honesty i don't know what else to say as i am still very confused over the issue and believe it can never be resolved

[Zaf]

have you ever spoken to a counsellor about it, someone experienced in that field may be able to find out why and help you overcome it.

xx

[tharidler]

hello zaf
believe it or not i was under the care of a clinical psychologist for nearly four years and underwent several therapies including a double dose cbt this in part is why my wife does not understand that if not cured as i understand is not always going to happen but at least a good understanding of the problem which in this area i thought i did have but now doubt !!!

[Zaf]

It cant be easy to get rid of the fear if you arent sure why you have it

Z xx