Morbid Thoughts

I am sorry you feel like this Sebstar. I know what you mean.

Someone further up the thread mentioned putting everything in order and for me it was very good advice. I have done quite a number of things since then and I am extremely thankful I read that particular post (sorry I couldn't find the post to thank the poster). I feel more settled now I have done those things.

I sometimes feel sad because I don’t think I’ll live to a great age like my 91 year old mother. I’ve had a great deal of stress in my life which is ongoing with a very difficult adult daughter (mental health issues) and a much loved but extremely difficult and demanding elderly mother. I feel the same about my dear husband too. His parents are both alive and in their nineties. We both had stressful jobs, both take high blood pressure medication (only in our mid sixties) and I’ve suffered depression on and off all my life.
So yes, I worrry about losing my husband and I sometimes feel sad that I feel I won’t live to a great age. But I do try to make sure we have as good a life as we can now, so we travel quite a lot, which I love, and my councellor has suggested DH and I spend at least one day a week together, with no other support to adult daughter or elderly mother on the agenda ( short of an emergency) and we’ve really been enjoying that ( we are busy every other day providing childcare or ferrying mother to her various medical appointments or taking her shopping or sorting something out for her.) The problem for people our age is that we are caught between supporting adult children, providing childcare to much loved grandchildren, and seeing to the needs of elderly parents who are very often anything but considerate of our own needs, which become sacrificed on the alter of ‘supporting the family.’ We all need to put ourselves first at least sometimes, as my counsellor said, at least one day a week.

Years ago I was living in Walthamstow, East London. I had an elderly next door neighbour whom I had known for 30 odd years. He was like a grandfather to me.

He said he would like to die in his sleep so that he didn't know what was going on. I said that I wanted to be aware when I died because it's one of the most important things you do.

As it happened he had he had a stroke and died on his kitchen floor. I hope for his sake he was unaware.

I have made plans for when I die and I certainly think about it from time to time as death is a popular topic of conversation with the people I work with, but I don't fear it.

The Wonderful Man is ten years younger than me, as fit as a fiddle and from long lived stock. I, on the other hand, am a 'creaking door', having had a lot of health problems during our marriage; so whilst I don't worry about my death my poor darling does. He's always encouraging me to take better care of myself, de-stress, eat healthily, take enough rest, exercise more etc.

He says he doesn't want me to die a long time before he does. I think he'll manage rather well as an eligible widower, but the thought bothers him hugely.

Gillybob I am sure you are right, I was told by a CBT counsellor that something had happened in my childhood that stems from my death phobia. My dad died when I was 16months old. I also remember a time when a policeman knocked at our house to tell us they had found the body of my mums sisters body, she had drowned. Like you I also had a horrible cousin thinking he was clever telling me horror stories. My mum also brushed things under the table and was never explained to me.

Hi ReadyMeals, thank you for your comment, I have never heard of existential dread but I am going to look it up I am sure I will identify with it.

I thought it was just me that had these thoughts. I’m nearly 70 and constantly think in terms of how long I’ve got left. Not about me but the fact that I won’t see my family grow up and how my husband will cope. However I still enjoy life putting these thoughts to the back of my mind. I’m thankful that I’m still here when you here of so many people dyeing young.

I think it must be a woman’s thing as my husband says he never thinks about death.

I suppose because my father was almost 88 when he died and my mother almost 98 when she died I didnt give too much thought to dying even though I am 75 on Friday. But that all changed at the beginning of the year when I found I was facing cancer for the second time. Since then I have had many blood tests and scans and am now waiting the results of a gamma scan last week which is likely to say which stage it has reached. The last two months has been full of highs and lows for my husband and I and I just want to get treatment started without any more delay. Only two sons know about this and the rest dont know anything other than I have had hip problems.
I would like to live quite a bit longer to enjoy the contented life I now have with my husband after some very rough years before he was diagnosed with PTSD.

As for wills I received the projected cost of wills for both of us, a trust as we are leaving everything to my many grandchildren and LPAs for us both and the cost seems outrageous. So will have to do some searching.

Gonegirl Like you, I worried when my children were small. This was partly because my husband was often away working during the week. I asked my friend and next-door-neighbour to check if my curtains were open each morning or not, and to ring the doorbell if not. She had keys. It was just so I knew someone would help my kids if I wasn't able to. I think having your own children brings your mortality home to you.

Why worry about something that you cannot change and waste what time you do have worrying? I sometimes when I'm out and see a rainbow or smell some lovely flowers or feel the sun on me think that one day I will never see/feel theses things but then I give my head a wobble and think well I'll be dead so won't know what I'm missing so enjoy it all the more while I can. As for worrying about how others will cope without me well they just will because they'll have to. I miss my mum everyday but manage and have brought my kids up to be self sufficient. I hope they miss my love and fun things we do and have done but not because it means they have more work to do. Everyone is different but wasting your life worrying is such a waste.

I’m fed up with all advertising on tv about life ins & funeral plans. It is depressing ?

At the age of 81 I may be nearer that final step than most although one never knows what is round the corner.
I do not fear death, my family will cope fine without me and I am fortunate not to have very young GC.
It is going to happen and is just a natural stage of life.
My mother lived to 101 and was so wanting not to live any more.
What I do dread is outliving my friends and family.

Since DH died I think, what the heck, if it happens it happens. I fly frequently and used to worry about crashing. Now, I think I've become resigned to the inevitable should it happen. I just don't look forward to a long painful death lying in bed with tubes stuck in every orifice My ideal death would be going to sleep and never waking, well, that's what I hope for. Having said that, I'm fairly hale & hearty so not yet please ?. DH died from a massive heart attack, sudden but expected, boom, just like that. I don't think he suffered. It was just 'lights out' and that's how I'd like to go. I don't expect to meet up with him or anyone else. I've never felt his 'presence' nor that of any other loved ones. Lights out.....The End

Now 71 I have been thinking about death for a few years but not in a morbid way. Sometimes I think thank goodness, not much longer in this wearisome life but usually I think in more positive ways and DH and I treat it lightly (not worth decorating the hall, it will see us out/no need to worry about the roof, we'll need it for only about another 20 years if that). I'm planning my funeral service (I'm a practising Catholic) and have made enquiries about where to be buried. So I'm really quite cheerful about it. I hope I'll be reunited with my parents who died a long, long time ago and - maybe shouldn't say this - see if there really is life after death.

Hi Sebstar, my husband died Christmas Eve 2017. I haven't stopped thinking about death ever since. I haven't spoken to anyone about this but I'm glad I'm not the only one. Not sure what we can do about this but I do try some days just to be happy!

I think this is a conversation we should all have at least with ourselves.
Perhaps we should not consider it as morbid but as life we will all have to come to end.

Just as a quick thought, how many of us are thinking of this, now and how old are they and what sort of health are they in?
I am just 71. I leave that to you.

Who would consider assisted dying as Noel Conway is still fighting for. Canada and several other countries have very humane laws about it.

If you do not like this do ignore it or get upset.

Some lovely posts here, Sebstar, and I agree with those who think you could be suffering from clinical depression/anxiety. I really think a visit to your GP is in order because your thoughts are preventing you from living in the moment.
I have lived through bad depression and anxiety and sense a slight relapse in the latter at the moment - but my anxiety doesn't focus on death. It does with you, and it must be torture. You cannot just 'snap out of it' or count your blessings - anxiety keeps you prisoner and you definitely need help to help yourself. I'd also recommend contacting Mind, in case they can offer low-cost counselling or therapy locally to you. It doesn't make any difference what the focus of anxiety is: the feelings, the sensations are similar and totally horrible. I know them so well. If you are up to reading a self-help book on the subject I can recommend a few which helped me and gave me some comfort. You will not always feel this way.

Sebstar, there's not much I can add that others haven't already covered, but I do hope that if you can't talk to your husband you will try and find someone to talk to - whether it is a friend, a religious figure, a stranger, or an 'anonymous' friend on the Internet (or Gransnet), or somewhere like the Death Cafe mentioned. Sometimes it is nice just to have someone who, for example, will listen to our fears, who will let us moan or sound off, who maybe shares some of the thoughts and feelings we have.

I know I'm not alone in having health problems that bring my own mortality into focus more often but I try to be practical but avoid being morbid - like now being the time to start saving for my funeral. It's not death that scares me as much as the process of dying (like others I would want effective pain relief and would prefer to be compos mentis as such). My nan told me a few times that she didn't want to die alone so I was with her - I don't think she knew who I was any more as she had advanced dementia, but I hope she had some level of understanding that she was not alone - I've been told many times that hearing is the last sense to leave us as we die so made sure I babbled on about anything I could think of - sad that family stuff didn't seem to register much and only mentions of her long-term lover did - still, whatever made her happier/smile!

I do hope you don't let these thoughts become all-consuming

Sebstar, the minute you're born, the countdown starts, time starts running out and we are all going down, no exceptions! Someone once said, '....we shouldn't fear death... because death is as natural as being born'.

So, instead of counting down the days as one 'less', start counting them up as one 'more' ......one more day on this Earth to celebrate the sunshine, to hear a loved one's voice on the phone, to see your grandchildren perform in their school play; in short, one more opportunity to celebrate all the things that are good in life and to dwell on finding happiness even in the most simple things.

Every day you wake up in the morning, should be another notch in your 'count up'. Start savoring all the happy moments as you live them and add them up each day. Before you go to bed at night, make a mental list of your three happiest moments that day.

Speculating about a future event whose timing is unknown is an exercise in futility. Why so much doom and gloom? Between now and then, there could be many good things in store for you too....why not dwell on that?

I think to a certain extent we all at our ages, I am 67, think about death and worry that we may have to go through a great deal in the way of illness before we get there.

Please find someone you can talk to about it, as others have suggested.

I have found that by making a will that disposes of my property, includes what kind of funeral I want and appointing someone to take care of any pets I might have when I die, I have gained quite a lot of peace of mind. I am in the fortunate position that I can discuss these things with my husband, so we have also discussed terminal care, as neither of us want to be kept alive once it is clear we are dying.

I have also started going through family photos and papers, discarding those that no-one will want and making provision for the rest.

These kind of things may not be your cup of tea, but I find them helpful.

I hope you manage to sort out your thoughts on the matter and enjoy life again.

As others have said, it's good to know we're not alone in feeling these thoughts. However, for me the frightening thing is that I will have to make that final journey alone, no one is going to physically come with me which is the hard part because I've always been used to sharing my experiences with loved ones.

I was as good as given a bleak diagnosis last year and prepared myself by searching google and joining facebook support groups. That was the worst possible thing to have done because I became obsessed with the illness and dying. Every few days someone in the group would pass away and all I could do was see myself as being next. Further tests reassured the medical profession that I was not terminal, but I cannot get the thought out of my head and it is now spoiling every day for me.

Feel sorry for you. It’s awful when you can’t get worries out of your head. I, like a lot of others on here worry about what it will be like but it’s going to happen anyway so whenever I start to overthink things I immediately pick up a crossword or puzzle and therefore force my brain to think about something else. It works for me and has helped me through a lot of stressful times and overthinking things I cannot change.
Good luck and I hope you can get these thoughts out of your head.

I must be strange. I don't feel worried about dying. Not that I want to just yet as I am enjoying myself very much. It is simply natural to die. Ideally I would like it to be quick and relatively painless (wouldn't we all).
What I dread, and try not to think about, is losing my mind, becoming dependent on others to continue to exist. If I am lucky enough to know that I am either terminally ill or on the downward slope to dementia I intend to take my own life.
I shall buy a canister of Nitrogen, a mask and tubing and sleep away. Not in a sad, depressed way but positively, decisively and joyfully.

I think about it a lot. I have been doing death cleaning and also thinking why not go on a few more holidays. We have always saved up for our old age and hey presto here it is!

As a committed control freak the annoying part is not knowing how or when it will happen.

Family including GCS well launched, so just sitting back waiting for it. Having said that get on with stuff. I have been to a few death cafes. It helps to talk about it. Nowadays it is all so very hushed and often takes place out of sight in hospitals, whereas before in earlier years it more often happened at home and it and was a familiar part of life.

wellwalked I have been a churchgoer for a large part of my life, but still can't quite have the faith that you obviously have in a heavenly afterlife. You are very lucky if you have no doubts at all. Even my Parish Priest has admitted to having the occasional 'wobble'.

I live my life the best way I can, and leave the rest in the hands of God/Nature/whatever power is in charge of our destinies. I'm not afraid to die. It's just the manner of it, and what may go before, that most people are apprehensive about - and that is out of our hands!