For most of us, death is the ultimate separation from someone we love, which is one of the biggest reasons we fear it. According to object relations theorists, such as Margaret Mahler, we spend our entire life battling the issue of separation and individuation. Hopefully, if we received the type of nurturing we needed as infants/children, we grew from helpless infants that needed constant attention and the presence of others, as a means of survival, to a child who was able to deal with the emotional sense of being a separate person from the parents. It is this separation that allows us to individuate into being our own person, with a distinct and separate personality.
At several points in our youth and adulthood, we can be challenged by the fear of separation; going to school for the first time, sharing our parents with a sibling, moving out of our family-of-origin’s home, divorce, the experience of having your children “leave the nest”, the death of others, and ultimately the death of self, forces us to face separation. Especially for those who believe that “this is it-you only have one life, so you had better live it fully”-death can be an even deeper fear, because they do not usually entertain the possibility that there is something else after leaving this life.
Another issue that contributes to our fear of death, is the fear of the unknown, and what is more unknown to us than death? We don’t know when we are going to die, or the circumstances-furthermore, what is the process? Do we feel a physical sensation as we are dying? Is it painful to die? Are we aware that we are dying during the process of death? Are we aware of others, and if so, can the help us, or are we just gone-not there-without consciousness-without awareness-just suddenly gone? All of these questions and more, cause us to fear that great abyss of death.
Another aspect of our death anxiety, has to do with loss, which often goes hand in hand with the separation issue already discussed in the earlier part of this article. As human beings, we fear loss, and often go to great extremes to prevent dealing with loss. Death, whether it be our own, or someone else’s, represents loss. It is in our nature, as humans, to try to avoid loss at all costs-we fear it-resent it-become angry by it, and ultimately experience profound sadness, when we must endure loss. Death and loss are undeniably woven together; missed opportunities, loss of time with those we love, unfulfilled opportunities, empty and unachieved dreams-these are all aspects of loss that we must face when the issue of death is present.
Kubler-Ross, the famous doctor who empirically researched death, helped others die with dignity, and broke through society’s denial about death (as much as we would let her), talked about 5 stages of death that must be worked through, before we can really accept the inevitability of our demise.These stages include denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance; however, it is more complicated than simply working through five stages, and it is not a neat and clean linear process, as many believe. One day, the dying person may be stuck in denial, the next day furious with anger, and then he or she may suffer many days of depression, before back-tracking to denial again. It is a bumpy path of hills and gullies, and it is not easily managed. Many of us are able to avoid the issue of death and these five stages, until we either loose someone close to us, or must face our own mortality. Since it takes ones of these extreme situations for us to really deal with the issue of death, most of us don’t, and therefore, for all of the reasons mentioned above, we fear death.
Even though I am a registered nurse and a psychologist, and have witnessed people die, and helped while my patients took their very last breath, it wasn’t until I lost my beloved grandmother, and had to face these fives stages very quickly, and helped her face them, that I really experienced death. After being there as she made this transition, and having watched the peace overtake her face, as she said good-bye to us-it was then, and only then, that some of the unknown was solved for me, and my death anxiety was neutralized a bit. Although I don’t want to die anytime soon, I am less afraid, thanks to having the sheer privilege of helping her make this journey.
The circle of life, made a full and brilliant circle right before my very eyes; she had been my life raft, and took care of me as an infant when my mother could not. She loved me, cared for me, helped me through my difficult life transitions, and always held me close to her heart. As her death was imminent, I held her, loved her, took care of her, and helped her cross over to the other side. While I had never felt that type of gut-wrenching pain and loss before in my life, I knew she was out of pain and at peace, and I had somehow been blessed enough to provide to her as she passed, just a little of what she gave to me my whole life-unconditional love and acceptance.
The acceptance of our own mortality, and the mortality of others, is a process not an event, and it can take a lifetime to work through the stages. When we are forced to do this early in our lifetime, through the death of someone close, there is going to be an adjustment period, where we will have to deal with many challenges. Still, when we manage to completely avoid this issue, there is going to be fear; although death is one of the things we all have in common, we fear that great abyss, and the great unknown.
