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Julie Answers: How Can I Cope with Death Anxiety?
B. asked: How do I deal with constant death anxiety that interferes with everything I do?
Dear B.,
I want to start by asking you to reflect on how long you have been feeling this way, how long death anxiety has cast such a big shadow over your life. The reason that is important is because states of fear like that can come and go in our lives. Some people are more contemplative by nature; their families might tell them that they started asking “the big questions” from a young age, and as they’ve grown up they have continued to look beneath the surface to the deeper existential questions that recede into the background for most people during day-to-day life.
For others, this preoccupation is not so much a lifelong trait as a response to life circumstances or stress. So, while later in my answer I will address death anxiety specifically and offer some suggestions about how to cope with it, first I’ll present some questions to ask yourself, especially if this anxiety is something that has arisen and taken over your life more recently.
First of all, this past year has been a scary one in which I think everyone has become more aware of their own mortality, and that of their loved ones. It is statistically likely that you know someone who has had Covid, and maybe someone who has lost their…
