Death

[Casey_03]

I can't stop thinking about death lately. But the strange thing is that I'm not depressed .....

Anyone else ever experience this? I thought that maybe it's just because I have a baby now, and babies tend to make you think more about mortality. But this death fixation has only started recently; I didn't experience it in the first six months of the baby's life. So why now?

Every day, my thoughts are interrupted (multiple times) by thoughts about death -- myself dying or people I know. I constantly find myself thinking I might die in my sleep any day now. I even get images in my mind of what people I know will look like when they die. It's horrible.

Again, I'm not depressed, so i find this strange. And I guess I should edit this post to add that while I DO have an idea why this is happening (my grandma is basically on her deathbed and my cousin recently nearly died of an overdose), I don't really know how to deal with it. And I don't understand why these situations are affecting me so much more severely than any other deaths in my life ... I never had this problem after my mother died, and I literally watched her die.

Can anyone shed some insight on this using their own experience? Thanks in advance.

 

[mamachick]

How long ago did your mother die? I know that after my mom died, I had this cloud over my head with bit of anxiety about death. My kids were like 12 and 14. I finally discovered it to be that it is the realization that when parent dies, we are next generation to go.

When my kids were babies, I also had some fear...fear of something bad happening to them, but also fear of my own death. (don't think I had ptsd then). Babies/little ones seem to remind us of the enormous amount of responsibility we feel in raising them. When they were 16 and 18, I had a scare when they told me I had a blood clot in my lung. I awfulized, just looked at them and thought-I won't be here to watch them graduate from hight school and college. As time passed, and their antics continued as did my illness...I have lost most all fear of death. After my sisters death, I even started welcoming it. (mostly due to much physical pain, ptsd, and general life quality). Hey, kids have bloomed well.

Don't know if this is any help, if not, just disregard.

 

[Ka-9]

I'm completely preoccupied with it. I've seen enough deaths, or dead folks... but I don't think that is the cause. Loss of working dogs did it mostly, and this condition just seems to make things ultimately seem pointless in the end, which exasperates it. I dread falling asleep when it's bad....Seems more linked to my depressive episodes.

 

[Riot]

Sounds like OCD, to be honest.

 

[Powder]

Sometimes we fixate on something broad "Death" to understand something small and particular inside our experience and emotions that still needs to be processed or re-processed for our new circumstances.

As a parent now, you may have to work through some stuff you thought you already processed in light of your new understandings. This is difficult with PTSD avoidance, which makes us dodge the real deal and pass it off as something else, usually more/too broad, as a self-defeating defense strategy.

 

[Casey_03]

Thanks to everyone who offered their thoughts on this. I think everybody is basically right -- it's probably a little bit of everything. Also, don't know why I didn't realize this before, but it may also be the stress of being back in my hometown after 10 years away ... facing up to things that I didn't face up to before (my mother's death and other bad things). Also, a lot of family members have died since I've been away. So I guess it's perfectly understandable to feel a preoccupation with death, especially with a baby in the picture now.

 

[VioletButterfly]

grandma seems to be very close to death

This might have something to do with it? I know I've had some episodes of being unconsciously preoccupied with and dreaming about death since I was told by the doctor that my mom has only a few months to live maybe. Can't really tell as some Alzheimer's Dementia patients can and do rebound sometimes. At any rate, in making a very insane trip up to where she lives and back, planning her funeral and going to the cemetery to look for grave sites, shopping for skilled nursing units, seeing her and also my dad, it's not really any wonder why this would pop up. Very stressful and involving those who are closely related to us. Yeh, that can do a number on you, at least it did me. I was surprised just as you seem to be and didn't make the immediate connection. It has since abated.

 

[Powder]

I was told my a therapist that when someone "close" to you (genetically or family wise) has something happen to them, death, divorce, illness, etc. that it feels like its actually creeping towards ourselves.

I still don't get it, but that's what they say.

With PTSD, I feel like death is always around. I'm a mouse, it's the cat.