For me, it’s disappearing. That someday something will happen to me and no one will ever know what it was and where I am. That I will become one of those mysteries you see online and on TV shows. Whenever I think about it I feel nothing but dread.
Dementia
Alzheimer/Dementia is one of those few situations where I really can’t blame someone for going out on their own terms. The idea of being trapped inside your own effectively disintegrating mind is terrifying.
The same thought for your physical body also seems reasonable to me. Or just for intolerable pain.
Yeah I think its weird that it’s considered more morally sound to make them waste away in agony then let them willingly end their suffering through controlled means.
Like, if they’re gonna do it, they’re gonna do it. Wouldn’t it be better to make sure they do it in the cleanest way possible?
I live it everyday. Others around me see and deal with it. Very frustrating. Sometimes you know its happening and sometimes your just not functioning normal anymore. Its like being a shell of your former self.
This for me. Would love a peaceful death with next to know one ever knowing who I was but with me completely knowing who I was until the last moment (well ideally in sleep so that last part is a little malleable)
This or some kind of psychosis… Mental health, neurocognitive abnormalities scare the shit out of me. That its very possible it can happen to me.
I once met a guy who was stuck in a drug enduced psychosis when I was 12 or something. It shook me pretty badly. I’m not opposed to drugs at all, but I’ve always had an irrational fear of halucigenic drugs since.
Lots of people make almost full recoveries from psychosis. Not so much from dementia.
My biggest fear is that my office chair might break in such a way that the hydraulic piston breaks through the seat and punctures my colon.
Well thanks a lot, that’s now my fear too.
You are welcome!
Gotta get an ass guard, like Thor has
That’s niche.
Oh… oh no… Damn it, I will never sit in an office chair the same ever again without thinking about this.
I want to both upvote and downvote this comment… I chose upvote.
And I thank you.
Have you seen the Mythbusters episode?
I don’t remember it. But there’s enough metal hardware under the seat that I’m sure it’s basically impossible to break that way.
Having to work for another 20 years.
Haha only 20?
Checks calendar, “oh shit.”
I have another 40 :(
ooh. don’t make me think about that. If its even only 20.
I was in this crystal clear cliffside cove and could see in front of me maybe 10 m or so but the Rock only went out about 5 and then just plunged into the abyss. and after exploring the coastline I swim out about 10 ft past the rocks and realized that I could see nothing but the deepest blue I’d ever seen.
literally anything could be just a few body lengths away watching me were sensing me, it was almost overwhelming.
I felt this visceral terror, that I’ve felt before in the middle of reading a Lovecraft story.
very much looking into the eye of something unknowable.
Oh fuck no! Dark water is a big fear of mine. I like swimming, scuba diving, snorkeling BUT those dark patches in the water make me truly feel paralyzed and electrified at the same time brbrbrbr. One time I went to the Yucatan penninsula to swim in a couple of cenotes and boy did it make my body shiver! Let alone the meaning of cenotes in mayan cosmogony and what not but the pure sheer terror that that black water gave me was like nothing else.
I understand thalassophobia. The deep is scary. Funny thing is, though, I can handle being on a ship or flying over water, even though I think about how far down it might be.
yep, I’m good with either of those. and I love swimming far out as long as the bottom is still there.
It’s once the the Earth falls away that I don’t want to be there.
Oh shit, just reading about this scares me. It must have been so terrifying, not knowing what’s in the deep water
beaches are usually sandy or have detritus floating, but this was just stark clear, perfect blue getting deeper and deeper as it devoured the light.
Do you recall which Lovecraft story?
mountains of madness.
I had similar chills with other Lovecraft stories, but then my roommate in college told me that the first time he read mountain of madness he had like a mini breakdown because it was so terrifying, and I hadn’t read that story yet.
and the way he describes the immensity of surreal psychotic landscape is pretty terrifying.
I actually read through the story like three or four times in a week to feel the chill more than once.
I haven’t reached that one yet, but I’m close. I really enjoyed A Colour Out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, Rats in the Walls, The Temple, Call of Cthulhu, and the very beginning of The Festival, when he describes wandering along the seaside road toward the distant twinkling lights of a wintery village. The opening pages of that book are beautiful.
That’s great.
The gothic beauty of his writing is part of what’s so deceptive about his world building, he can seamlessly lull the reader into terror through hints and connotations even within beautiful descriptions until all of a sudden you’re mired in the psychic clutches of lunatic behemoths.
have fun, do you have his collected works?
I actually don’t remember the festival.
I have the collected works ready to read but haven’t restarted it yet.
I have this one here. It’s huge and leatherbound. Unfortunately it’s missing several of his less popular ones. The Hound is one I’d like to read, but it isn’t included in this volume.
oh awesome, that looks great.
I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there are many websites that have his complete works listed online for free.
here’s the hound:
The idea of living as if my life hadn’t really started yet and then one day realizing I’m old and I wasted my life.
There is no changing the future or past actions. The only time you can change anything is this very moment. If you focus on what you may or may not have tomorrow, you aren’t living today.
The speed at which we are (not) acting on climate change. Our tolerance for neoliberals/capitalists absolutely wiping their arse with the whole planet.
Everything. Everything scares me. If I stop and think about anything in particular, I slowly realize how frightening that thing really is.
Cat. Sits with its ass on your face while you sleep.
Dog. Eats its own vomit and greets others by sniffing their ass, then tries to lick you.
shivers
I have lived with cats, none has ever sat on my face.
There, there… I’m sure some cat will sit on your face someday.
Dental pain. Experienced it once and that was enough to give me lifetime nightmares. Absolute horror!
Dental procedures helped me understand that most of us would quickly buckle under torture
Oh fuck yes. I had a removed wisdom tooth get infected, and the dentist said “due to all the pus, the anesthesic won’t work as well, but don’t worry, we’ll go as fast as possible”.
It’s a phrase that features frequently in my nightmares.
That and the “You’ll feel some pressure” lie.
Yeah, no. I know how pressure feels and it is not that!
I am female therefore many medical procedures that should absolutely use some kind of anesthesia, do not because “it’ll be over in a pinch” “it’s mild discomfort” etc. IUD insertion is a big fear of mine.
Fwiw, my IUD track record is 1 easy insertion, 1 easy removal, 1 “that wasn’t fun” removal and 1 “maybe giving birth would be preferable” insertion.
Your mileage may vary.
Fuck that’s a lot to process!
Dementia.
My mother has dementia.
Every time I forget something I know I should know it terrifies me.
Get tested early. Your mother’s dementia may not have been found till late stage. We have treatments for the earlier stages
Thank you for that.
That’s a fear I have as well. I heard walnuts are good for brain health, but they taste like dry paste. I still eat them with some fermented foods and it helps. I also heard pizzle games are supposed to help keep your brain engaged.
Humanity. I know it’s kind of self-defeating or something, but humanity just scares the shit out of me.
You aren’t stuck in traffic, you are traffic.
Your comment makes it seem as if you exist outside of humanity. Unless you’re an alien or a robot, be the change you want to see.
I love that saying. And I’ve known that for a long time.
I’m afraid I’ll live my whole life in fear like I’m doing now, that I’ll never experience love, that one day I’ll wake up old and alone, in misery and just waiting to die but too afraid end it.
That last part I get. I want to face death calmly and rationale and if living is painful or such would like the accessibility and option and will to take a painless option.
A hypothetical fear of course, one with my wife who I’ve been with for 15 years now.
One day, maybe hopefully 30-50 years in the future, my wife and I look back and think about how good our lives were. We raised happy and successful kids. We bought a house. We had dozens of pets. We celebrate the end of our life together. But she doesn’t make it.
And I have to spend the final years alone with memories of her. Two controllers. Two spoons. Two of everything for decades. Now just me.
And Never being able to explain to the rest of the world how amazing she was.
I’m so terrified that my wife will go before me…
But I also don’t want to let her down by going before her and making her live her own last days/weeks/years alone…
Love is so difficult
Your fear of disappearing resonates the worst for me in regards to my daughter (4) doing so. It makes me want to vomit to think of her just gone, at the mercy of someone or something else, with no way to know where she is or how to save her. It rips my heart in half that so many parents throughout time have lived this exact nightmare and never received answers. I find some relief that I live in a very safe part of the world where child abductions rarely (if ever) happen, but there are a number of other ways your little girl can just vanish.
I wouldn’t say this perpetually weighs on my conscience, but every time I remember it can happen, it really fucks with my head.
Watch Pixar’s Coco, if you haven’t already. To me the idea of a part of us living on after death in the memories of others is very comforting (for the ones who have not died - I don’t think it’ll matter to the dead person).
That’s just parenting, mate. It makes you worry about all the details you never worried about before and it makes your hair turn grey and gives you sleepless nights. But all in all it’s all worth it somehow.
Extinction. Our technology gives us the power of gods, but we still have the brains of hunter-gatherers optimised for living in tribes of less than 150 people. My own death doesn’t worry me, I’m not bothered by knowing I’ll be forgotten, but the possibility that there might not be anyone to carry on is what I think about at 3 AM when I can’t sleep.
Micro-plastics
