Thanatophobia

If you ask me, one of the benefits of aging is the mitigation of thanatophobia. Yes. It’s a word. And no; I did not pull the word out of my dusty old brain. You know how I found it and it means the fear of death. Phobia words are fun. Especially the word panophobia, which literally means the fear of everything phobia. But @Adin, you didn’t ask us prosers our opinion on phobias, so I won’t digress further. I will return to the business of answering your question. “Don’t want to die,” (brilliant question by the way) which brings me back to thanatophobia.

Do any of you remember the first time you became aware of your own mortality? Were you paralyzed with fear, with thanatophobia the way I was?

I struggled as a teenager but every living human has their struggles. Some more than others, but a very wise man, my father, once said to me, “Even a newborn baby has their own personal angst. How can they know there is a breast to suckle, an arm to comfort?” Through his humility I was able to see each and every one of us as equal; from that newborn baby to the teenage girl ready to die over a pimple, or the kid that didn’t make the team, or get asked to the party, contrasted by but not unequal to the child of abuse, or the homeless, or the soldier wounded on the battlefield. We are all human; living in our circumstance. We all have needs that go unmet, and struggles. We all matter. We all want to be heard.

It was the middle of the night for me when I became aware of my own mortality. At 14, I woke up abruptly and suddenly realized I could die. I began to panic. Literally. Manifesting a full blown panic attack, but what did I know? There was an adult in the house, my mother, but I could not go to her. Those of you that have read my posts will understand why, but my father was always one phone call away, so at approximately 2 a.m. I called him and he answered on the first ring.

When he heard my voice he said, “What’s wrong?”

I said, “I’m dying.”

He said, “Hang on. I’ll be right there.”

And fifteen minutes later, the distance between his apartment and my house, we were on the way to the emergency room. I think he knew I was having a panic attack, but if any of you have read my posts about my father, his taking me to the emergency room was totally within his character. (He’s a guy who took my broken favorite doll to a non existent doll hospital.)

Not that I was emotionally fully present during my examination, since I was still consumed with thanatophobia, but if I think back, I recollect a wink wink smile between the doctor and my father, while the doctor explained to me the definition of a panic attack.

And I looked at him hard, as a young lady that always respected authority and said, “You mean I imagined I was dying?”

He said, “Pretty much. Your symptoms were real, but they are also a manifestation of the mind.”

And I believed him and then we left the hospital. My father walked me out to his car with his arm tightly around me, and I felt as close to him as an infant to the breast, yet exhausted, but also relaxing into reality, in the present moment. We drove back to my house where he reluctantly dropped me off. He was bound by a divorce decree that would not fly in 2020. My mother never even knew I had left the house.

Through the years, from time to time my thanatophobia has reared its ugly head. Less and less with age and never like the way I have just explained. That was my one and only panic attack. I have no idea who that doctor was, but he set me straight.

So how is it that I don’t want to die? I don’t want to die in fear. I want to stare thanatophobia in the face and kick it in the nuts with a smile on my face. No matter whatsoever may be the cause of my impending demise, I want to die in peace. Not in angst. With angst; that’s how I don’t want to die.