When Thanos Comes to Visit: Dealing with Death Anxiety

Oct 24, 2024

anxiety , death , mortality

Death is our one certainty, and death anxiety is totally natural, even if we find it very difficult to speak about
Psychotherapist Kate Graham offers some questions to help you reframe your relationship to mortality

It’s a lovely day, and I am popping round the corner to the grocer to get some milk. I'm feeling fine. But then suddenly, I am awash with fear. My gut seizes up, my heart starts pounding, my breath clogs my chest as it races to keep up. What if I was to die now? What if my sister was to die, my husband, my son? At any time, my cosy life could all change. What can I do to stop myself dying?

I hug the inside edge of the pavement, look carefully as I cross the road. So many cars, being driven so fast. Any of them could spin out of control and… Stop. I question myself: what are these thoughts for? Why am I torturing myself? Is it a rehearsal so that I am ready? Is it a wake-up call to pay attention to the people I love, and possibly also myself? Am I fully living my life?

We aren't good at talking about death, and we also don't talk about death anxiety, or thanatophobia, from the Greek word thanos meaning death. But death anxiety is easier to say and more immediate.

It can happen to anyone, but not always explicitly. It can appear in different ways, disguised as generalised anxiety, paranoia or catastrophising. It can catch us unawares, popping up at times we least expect it, and it can appear at any age – you don't have to be old. It can cause repetitive behaviours, overdone rituals to safeguard ourselves, endless trips to the GP to get things checked out, and frenetic exercise and dieting.

Death anxiety is a completely normal feeling: we are all going to die at some point. The fear I experience encompasses powerlessness, a lack of control, and a fear of abandonment. It also involves an existential element: how do I imagine not existing? This has always been a conundrum. The difference is that now, at the age of 63, mortality is much more present. I have lost a beloved friend of my own age, my mother died when she was slightly younger than I am now, and my parents’ generation is disappearing. The Tibetan Book of the Dead counsels us to be ready for death, both emotionally and practically, recognising that we will not know when this will arrive.

Powerlessness is an integral part of our relationship with death. As I sat with my cousin dying of cancer in her early thirties, I felt powerless, adrift, wondering how this could be possible. When my mother died, on a beautiful June day, I found myself struggling to accept that I couldn’t prevent this: all my childish magical thinking, all my love, wasn’t enough to stop her from leaving us and going away for ever.

I have no idea what does happen after death, but I am pretty sure it is utterly different from this earthly plane. It’s my life here on earth that I envisage leaving – my memories, my family, the people and places that I love. I wonder if it is ever possible to say goodbye, to leave your children, but then I remember all those people who have died leaving young children. It isn’t a choice.

When we die, we disappear, leaving a legacy of memories, friendships, words, music, art, history, wars and death, philosophy: something out there. We can pass self-belief, courage, responsibility and purpose down through the generations (as well as any trauma). A sense of history may help, seeing people through the ages, come, live their lives and go.

What purpose might death anxiety be serving? Is there something we need to pay attention to in our lives? Anxiety generally has a purpose in some way, whether waking up to the destruction of climate change, the numbing effect of social media, or protecting us from the pain of childhood losses and trauma. How can death anxiety help? Shouldn’t we just come to terms with death and accept it?

When Steve Jobs, founder of Apple was dying at the age of 56, he said:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

His acknowledgement of his feelings about his untimely death, and his acceptance of it, gives him and his words a lasting power, that I find encouraging.

Death anxiety brings with it an energy, a desire to live: a “hang on I'm not done yet!” feeling. It’s a useful feeling challenging me to ask myself what I value, what it is that I still want to do with my life. It is a reminder that this is it, this is the only life that we get (at least in our conscious awareness) and whatever your beliefs about what happens after death, it is up to us to make the most of our lives right now.

That might mean asking ourselves some important questions, such as:

Who am I? A question to return to…
Who am I if not living up to other people’s expectations? What is my shape in the world? Someone asked me this ten years ago, and it stopped me in my tracks. It has help me shift from life as a performance for my parent’s approval to living with care and love for myself and others
What do I really value? What brings meaning to my life? The answer to this may change as you journey through life, for me changing from a need to be useful (though still important) to being loving, and being at one with nature, connecting to my wild soul

If we acknowledge death as part of being human, and feel the emotions and questions that come with this, we open ourselves to living more fully. Yalom advises us to see our lives as a stone cast into a pond, noticing the ripples spreading out, the impact that we do have. We cannot not die, but we can live, in the full knowledge that this life is finite.

If you are struggling with death anxiety and none of this seems to be helping, these questions are best explored in relationship with someone who can help you sit with your feelings and fears, whether friend, relative or therapist. If there is a Death Café operating nearby, or online, you could try this. Sometimes overwhelming anxiety in later life may be a result of early trauma or losses, and therapy can help to explore and ground this.

Dying, coming to the end of our lives, is an essential part of being human. It is our mortality that makes us part of our wider humanity, our vulnerability that is also our gift.

Kate Graham is a verified Welldoing psychotherapist in Ilkley and online