Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with death and anxiety

You gave me life but it belongs to me now

Chrysalis — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:25:24 -0800

How do I stop feeling responsible to my family for keeping myself safe and guitly for taking risks? I'm terrified of dying, not because of dying itself but because of how guitly I would feel for the affect it would have on my family, especially my mother. Ever since her you get brother died when I was 5, she has been overprotective of my brother and I. I grew up constantly anxious of how close to death myself or others might be. I'm now i'n my late 20s and still avoid physically risky activities because I would feel horrible to leave my mother unable to cope. I want to live my life though! How do I deal with this? Should I talk to her about it? We are very close. Last night I had a vision of myself lying in a pool of my own blood and the scariest part of it was looking at my mum's face knowing I was leaving her. I haven't been able to relax since. I want her permission, or my permission, to do what I want with the life she gave me and not feel like I'm responsible for guarding her from my death. Help?

everyone you know someday will die

apophenia — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:41:19 -0800

Why am I unreasonably anxious about death? I find myself often worried that my close friends will lose people important to them and I am constantly holding my breath, waiting for things to fall apart.

Additionally, although I'd also be devastated by the death of my brother, my parents, or any one of my friends, I almost feel like I would rather lose someone I care about deeply rather than see someone I care about grieving over someone they care about. While I understand that a fear of death is probably a normal human feature, this is beginning to get ridiculous. This keeps me up at night and has, on a few rare occasions, left me on the verge of tears.

What gives? Is there some sort of logical explanation for this?

worried about worrying.

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:03:50 -0800

How can I differentiate anxiety about my health from legitimate medical concern? Long back-story: I'm 32 a year-old male living in the USA. In my mid-20s I lived a very high risk lifestyle, all kinds of drugs, lots of casual unprotected sex and an insane amount of booze. Somehow, thorugh it all, I always seemed to be in great health.

In the last four years, I've cleaned up, gotten married and developed a healthy relationship with alcohol. I've also gotten sick.

For the last two years, I've had a never-ending list of ailments: Chest pain, abdominal pain, headaches, cold and tingling hands and feet, light-headedness, disorientation, roving pains throughout the rest of my body. I've seen several doctors and had all kinds of tests done and, so far as anyone can tell, I'm perfectly healthy. I'm 6'0", 175 pounds, I eat well and I can run 8 miles in an an hour.

Over this time period, I've serially convinced myself that I'm dying of various different things. I thought I was having heart failure. But no, my blood pressure is fine, my cholesterol is fine, my ECG reads fine. I thought I had stomach cancer. But an endoscopy and an abdominal CAT scan show a healthy and tumor free digestive tract. I thought I was having liver or kidney failure because of years of alcohol and substance abuse. But, unbelievably, my liver and kidney function are like those of a teetotaler. In fact, I scored near the center of the ideal range on every single test in the Comprehensive Metabolic Panel.

Most recently, after the roving pain settled in my testicles for a while, I've become convinced I have syphilis. Almost all of the symptoms I've had could be connected to tertiary syphilis. And last year, I had an itchy and blistery rash on my hands and genitals. At the time, we dismissed it as poison ivy but now, of course, I see it as more sinister.

I had an STD panel done before I got married, and it came back clean on everything. but it was in a different country and I don't have access to the records. I don't remember whether they tested me for syphilis, or just HIV and Hepatitis.

So I went to my doctor and requested that I be tested. Clean on everything, including syphilis. But, of course, I went ahead and looked up the specific syphilis test she administered (RPR) online and found out that, as it tests for antibodies rather than the illness itself, it can have a high incidence of false negatives in late-stage infections.

So now, I find myself convinced that, not only do I have syphilis, but that it's going to progress untreated because I've received a false negative on the test. I've been considering the merits of going back to my doctor and demanding a more specific test. This despite having received a clear test result, my wife having received a separate clear test result, and me not actually having any evidence that anyone I have ever slept with has been exposed to the disease.

So, what I'm getting at is that I think I might be crazy.

It may not have escaped the more astute YANMD-filter readers that almost all of the symptoms I named are also symptoms of anxiety. My doctor has hinted at this possibility before, but I dismissed it.

I have never had the slightest issue with anxiety in my life. In fact, if anything I tend to get myself in trouble by not worrying enough. For my entire life, I've had "It'll all work out fine" as a completely impervious axiom of my psyche. Until recently, I was the kind of person who never visited the doctor, convinced that whatever was wrong with me would just get better on it's own. I recognize that these beliefs and behaviors have their own downsides, but anxiety doesn't seem like it should be one of them.

I'm very happy in my marriage, in my career, in my life in general. I would go so far as to say that if my health would just sort itself out, I would have no complaints whatsoever.

All the same, I can't ignore the possibility that my health problems are being caused by anxiety. In a way, it would be a relief to believe that. I don't think I would even need medication. If I could give myself permission to stop worrying about my health, my life would be easy again. I have the strength to live with these symptoms I'm having, even if they don't go away.

But what if I give myself that license and, as a result, my syphilis or lupus or brain cancer or whatever continues to ravage my body untreated?

So, um, help? How can I know whether my concern that I'm dying in the face of all medical evidence that I'm perfectly healthy is well-founded or not? At what point do reasonable people just suck up the roving pain and the tingling extremities?

Scared to death?

ladypants — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:11:52 -0800

What is this story about someone literally scared to death? Please help me find this story:

In India, a team executed a prisoner by telling him that he would bleed to death drop by drop, and then instead letting water drip on to the floor. And then he died. Something to this effect.

Somehow it was an experiment about the mind-body connection. And maybe it was quoted by Jerome Groopman (or in another pop medical book).

I recall that it was quoted as an actual medical article with references. Has anyone else head of this article? Could you direct me to it? Anything similar in PubMed?

Is there help for people who suck at helping themselves?

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:13:16 -0800

Angst and melancholy aside, I persistently fear that I will never be able to happily integrate into society. I know I need help, but I can’t figure out how to overcome my negative emotions and in succumbing to them I only feed into my cycle of avoidance and disappointment. I live in a state of persistent flight response. The depressive lethargy that accompanies this anxiety only worsens the problem. It has taken a long time for me to understand the avoidant urges I experience as anxiety. Basic functional tasks have become drawn out, painful exercises in will. Mustering the energy to overcome an irrational fear of showering can take half the day. Yet I know that I feel energized and happy when I am clean and comfortable. I’m not afraid of the shower – I think I subconsciously fear being rejected or negatively judged in spite of my efforts to adhere to social norms. I experience the same process whether I want to buy groceries or do my class work. It is hard to describe, but I am regularly overtaken by an intense “scrunched up” feeling, as if there were a black hole in my chest about to implode my limbs and body. I have had a very moderate amount of success overcoming this by telling myself that the worst case scenario is better than the outcome of avoiding the situation/activity that stimulated the fear. How can I approach this subconscious mechanism so that I may understand the reasons I respond the way I do and effectively change my behavior?

At the same time, I consciously reject many of the principles that direct modern society. I am not religious, I believe in the spirit of capitalism but am appalled by the excess and irresponsibility of our consumption oriented culture, I would rather make someone happy than make a profit. To be concise, I love humanity but am overwhelmed by society. I fear that even if I successfully finish my studies and find a productive role within society that any good I am able to accomplish will be outweighed by my taking of a functional role within a civilization that values punishment over forgiveness, wealth over health, and violence before understanding. I’m not okay with that on a deeply existential level. It’s hard for me to accept that in order to meet the expectations of society I must condone some level of morally reprehensible actions.

I also need grief counseling. My mom was diagnosed three years ago with terminal cancer, and while she’s alive and doing well I cannot avoid the ticking time-bomb of reality. I spent a long time helping my mom through her initial treatment and have grown closer to her. But the topics of death or cancer are usually enough to set me off. I can’t handle it now – what can I do to maintain some dignity and respect when things finally go pear shaped? In truth, I am writing this because I encountered the topic of death in my studies and couldn’t bring myself to do the related work. Though I have experienced anxiety throughout my life, I suspect my response to my mother’s illness has exacerbated the problem. If I were to rate my emotional stability, I would say that I am less stable today -- more prone to outbursts of anger, fear or sadness – but the actual presence of negative emotions is not significantly greater than my historical baseline.

Understanding that I hardly qualify as a functional human, how can I overcome my subconscious perceptions and become a productive member of society? I need friends and social support, but I am very isolated. I am going to give pharmaceuticals a chance, but I haven’t come to terms with the fact that I may need to pay for a magic substance to “fix” the way my brain functions. There is something sick and twisted about paying to pharmacologically manipulate my neurochemistry so that I can functionally exist within a consumption oriented society so I can have enough money to pay for my pills so I can maintain a job so I can buy more crap ad infinitum.

Is there a support group or some form of social assistance for people like me? I just want to be happy and productive. I want to have the energy to read a book, keep my house clean, and maintain friendships. I am sick of this miasmatic angst that clouds my perception and prevents me from achieving a functional existence. Your thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated. I've set up a throwaway email account if you wish to contact me.

Doomed. I'm Doomed. (Am I?)

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:45:54 -0800

Every member of my family, save one, has died young from a heart attack. Am I doomed? YANAD, YANMD.

My parents, grandparents and many other relatives have all died at young ages (40-60) from their first heart attack. All smoked, most were overweight, all led mostly sedentary lifestyles, and didn't do much in the way of "eating healthy foods".

I'm a woman in her 30s who is overweight - due to being fairly sedentary and from a diagnosis of PCOS. This is the bad side.

On the "good" side, I don't smoke cigarettes, I don't drink other than a few times a year (socially), and I eat reasonably well with no fast food or other grease-laden meals. I take my vitamins (including some "heart-healthy" supplements) daily. I floss and get regular dental checkups.

I've had various tests done on my heart over the years and all have come back normal with no problems. At last check, my cholesterol was fine and my blood pressure was on the higher side of normal but my doctor (aware of my family history) is not concerned.

The problem is that I can't stop thinking that I'm going to die - any minute now - from a heart attack. Every twinge in my arm, shoulder, neck or back is surely an indicator that I'm about to drop dead. Every bit of nausea is the first stage of a heart attack. Every sore muscle is a.. well, you get the point.

It doesn't help that women have different heart attack symptoms than men - and that women tend to have vague signs like, "a general feeling of being unwell" or "panic" or "nausea" instead of some strong arm pain and crushing chest pain. Hello, I have that ALL THE TIME because I think I'm about to die!

Second to that, I have a completely fatalistic perspective on it - that there's nothing I can do to change the outcome because, thanks to my family history, I'm doomed due to genetics. I'm related to all these fatal heart attacks!

If I lose weight, get more exercise, and continue to eat healthily, can I prevent a heart attack? Has anyone beat the genetic odds? If I do have a heart attack, can I avoid dying or does the fact that no one else survived mean that, even if I get to the hospital quickly, I'll be toast?

Short of making friends with a cardiologist, do you have any advice for me?

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst

anoirmarie — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:38:56 -0800

Can anyone help me find any books, serious or not, on surviving a global catastrophe (of any kind), and/or any books with a central theme of love and hope (as a sort of guide to living happily while dealing with an extreme anxiety over the future of the planet and humanity)? Perhaps this is a little broad, but any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. These recommendations will be given to an avid reader in his mid-twenties with a terrific sense of humor, but who is struggling with anxiety in regards to the future, i.e the destruction of the planet, raising a family in a post-apocalyptic environment, etc. etc. Anything sincere, anything funny. Please.