The majority of my life is governed by fear, and has been for a long time. I seem to have a far greater sensitivity to perceived threats than is normal or healthy. On top of that, I think I find it much harder to accept the suffering that this world contains.
You could get hit by a car tomorrow, and paralysed, and trapped in a state of chronic pain. Or any number of seemingly unlikely things. The longer you live, the greater the opportunity for something like that to happen. And I’ve never known how to be ok with that potential. It doesn’t seem worth the risk – I don’t see anything in my future that makes facing such threats seem worthwhile.
Which makes me think in some respects it’s better to choose your own exit – to leave the table before something really bad can happen. Now that presumes that death is definitely an end to your potential for suffering, which I don’t feel sure of by any means. So what it comes down to is which I fear more – the unknown of death or the risks of life.
I’m paralysed, trapped. Fear governs my life. Which is stupid, because when you’re afraid you suffer over something that hasn’t even happened yet.
4 comments
well, fear is a pretty serious thing to deal with. Getting over even one is work. I find testing an essential coping skill for fear. There’ll always be someone willing to report whatever data, especially if it’s selling you something. So the fear’s basis matters a lot. Some fears are entirely rational.
I guess I’m still planning my death, I just figure I can last long enough to make my idea work; get old, reach a point of being ready to quit and signal my body push off. I could get in a car accident, it’s possible. That’s the only wildcard in my life right now. No other inoppertune death is waiting that I know of. I wish sometimes.
Really in a car wreck it’s survive or die, that’s the really important bit. Getting seriously injured enough for a coma is rare even among car crashes, seems like. A fair amount of the time it kills you straight, almost any wreck in my truck would probably take me out.
However if you survive, you have to wake up to survive. If you die in a coma the accident caused, that’s dying in the accident, at least as far as the law is concerned. If you don’t wake up, someone will pull the plug eventually.
I’m not really talking about specific irrational phobias – more about all-encompassing existential fear. The awareness of the possibility of great suffering, and the struggle to accept that reality.
Forget car-crashes, you could get struck down out of nowhere by an undiagnosed health problem, paralysed, and spend the next 50 years being fed through a tube. It’s rare, but it happens. It’s not something you can protect against, is the point. In order to live, you have to accept the possibility (however small) of it happening to you. And it will happen to someone.
Or take something quicker. You could get caught in a house fire, and be unlucky enough not to pass out before you burn to death. Or rising tensions between global powers could finally result in a nuclear war, where billions of people get incinerated out of nowhere. If you’re lucky enough to be at the centre of a blast, great. Instant lights out. But further out, and you get to experience dying in a firestorm, or even from radiation poisoning (which seems to be one of the most excruciating fates possible, if you look up footage of victims of nuclear accidents.)
Improbable? Maybe. But it’s a very real possibility. The Cold War nearly tipped over into nuclear exchanges at multiple points. In order to continue to exist in this world, you have to face that risk, and others like it, every single day. Some of them will definitely happen to someone. It could be you.
And I think taking such risks can probably be worth it, if you have a good life. But I don’t, and I can’t see that changing. So for me, continuing to live is more about being caught between fear of the unknown (death), and fear of the possibilities of life. Which can be kind of paralyzing.
“Or any number of seemingly unlikely things.”
apparently it wasn’t “unlikely” for me. sigh. i guess i was born cursed after all, given ALL the shit thrown at me by the universe (and STILL doling out to me).
i wish i offed myself at age 7-9 when i wanted back then. would’ve literally saved a lifetime of pain and torment and severe depression. damn, that only “what if.” to do it now seems kinda moot, like i’ve already suffered all these decades. tho…i suppose if my life never improves then i ought to bow out sooner than later.
but like you, it’s not so easy to just “do it.” so i wind up alive and suffering. grrreat. -_-
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