Can We Be So Afraid Of Dying That We Are Afraid To Live?

.By Duncan Rinehart, Ph.D., NBC-HWC, ACSM-CPT

She caught a cold. Her voice was raspy. Her throat was sore. She had a bit of a cough. After a few days of gargling with saltwater, taking over-the-counter cold meds and sleeping a lot, she was feeling better. Yet her 89-year-old mother told her not to come to her 50^th wedding anniversary celebration that her sick daughter had been organizing for months. Much love went into orchestrating the event for the delight of the honorees and the families who had flown in from the coasts.

Fifty years of marriage is quite an achievement. The daughter had arranged several wonderful surprises for her mom and step-dad: a cake topper that looked like them the day they were married, a video of memories of them from family members, a timeline of key moments in their 50 years together written by their kids and grandkids. But mom told her daughter to stay away. She was too afraid of catching her daughter’s cold. After all, her medications suppressed her immune system, and colds can turn into pneumonia which is a leading cause of death for the elderly.

Fear of dying

Can we become so afraid of dying that we are afraid to live? It seems that for some, as they age and capabilities and health decline, fear escalates.

In her book “Elderhood” (2019), Dr. Louise Aronson describes how many doctors and many of us perceive old age as a stage of life where everything declines. Dr. Atul Gawande in “Being Mortal” (2014) describes a medical system where that decline is met with medications and treatments, one after another, that often prolong life and also suffering at the expense of quality of life. Many elders fear a lingering suffering death though such is common as Dr. Sherwin Nuland details in his book, “How We Die” (1993). There is reason to fear the end of our lives.

Added to the fear is cognitive decline, loss of independence, unresolved rifts in relationships, old yet still active wounds from our past even our childhood, and Judeo-Christian notions of sin and hell, our fear of dying is compounded. It is easy to see how we can become so afraid of death that we are afraid to live.

At her 50^th wedding anniversary, she was so afraid of catching a cold from her daughter that she banished her daughter from the very celebration her daughter had orchestrated out of love for her mom.

What happens to you when you die?

When I was teaching, I would ask my students “what happens to you when you die?” at 19 or 20 years of age, they had given it little thought. It wasn’t so important. But at 70, 80 or 90 it becomes more important. Individual beliefs about death, guided as they are by our religious affiliation are important as are how we feel about the life we’ve lived. We can feel better about our lives if we seek to resolve wrongs we have done, seek to repair relationships, seek to heal from internal wounds, seek to give more love.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in his book “From Age-ing to Sage-ing” (1995) offers ways to gain perspective on and appreciation for how we have lived our lives. One approach that I have found helpful is doing a life-review. By reflecting on our past experiences through journaling, meditation, interpersonal exercises, we can see the larger patterns of our lives to help us fully live our remaining years.

Fear of living?

In the book “After” (2021), Dr. Bruce Greyson presents many near-death experiences that he has documented. He says,

“Most people expect death to be a terrifying experience. However, experiencers almost universally report that having an NDE [near death experience] greatly diminished their fear of dying – and many say their fear was completely erased. … One consequence of their reduced fear of dying is that NDE’s paradoxically also reduce their fear of living. … The fact that being less afraid of death leads experiencers to feel less afraid of living may encourage the rest of us to open up and enjoy all life has to offer… .” (p. 218)

If life is so precious then why are we afraid of fully living those last years, months, days? Giving and seeking forgiveness, healing relationships, opening to deepening love, finding closure, giving what we can from our best selves; these are how we can fully live even as we approach our death.