Should I Be Thinking About Death This Much?
unpacking my preoccupation with death
I have the most vivid memory of when I first understood the concept of death. I was sitting with my mom on my antique, elaborately engraved, dark wood bed on top of an orange and yellow comforter. I don’t know why those specific details feel so lucid when the actual conversation feels very fuzzy.
We must have been talking about how people aren’t with us forever; maybe my mom was explaining the loss of one of her friends? I must have been 10 or so. In that moment, I finally made the connection between the abstract concept of death and the fact that I would die and my parents would die.
I described this scene to my therapist as a moment that shattered my naïveté. I sobbed in bed, with my mom consoling me. If my timeline is correct, that was about the same time I started getting severe separation anxiety from my parents, hardly letting them leave me alone for more than a few minutes. I also started getting neurotic about locking the doors of the house, even going so far to create little traps on my windows so if a burglar broke in I’d have time to run.
My therapist and I have been working on parts work, via reading “No Bad Parts” by Richard Schwartz. We decided that little Shattered Mal was one of my core parts. I spend much of my time as an adult fearing my own death, fearing my parents death, and now fearing Ryan’s death. That shattered part triggers my most intrusive thoughts.
In “No Bad Parts,” Schwartz writes that we all have many parts to us, probably an incalculable number. Trauma, pain, loss, grief, or just hard situations can put the parts into protective or maladaptive roles. Parts are not inherently bad; they are trying to help us navigate the world in the only way they know how. The parts are often stuck at the age where the trauma or loss happened, so they don’t realize we are fully grown adults now.
Shattered Mal is stuck at age 10. She’s really scared of death and has lost her childhood sense of invincibility. I’ve realized that over the years I’ve adopted quite a few compulsive behaviors to try to protect that shattered part. Those behaviors give me an illusion of control. Here are a few examples:
For as long as I can remember, I’ve said the same prayer before bed. I don’t believe in a solo god ruling or impacting the universe, but I remember deciding when I was little that there was no downside to praying if it possibly could save my parents. In the prayer, I wish for my parents to stay safe and healthy. On nights I forgot to pray, I’d wake up terrified that I’d find my parents dead.
I text my parents the same text, more or less, before bed every night. If they don’t respond before I fall asleep, I start spiraling. Sometimes I even call them if they don’t answer my text. Ryan has gotten very good at talking me down from this.
I’ve always been so scared of someone breaking into my house, so I had the same lock check routine growing up. Sometimes I’d even do the routine two or three times. I joke with Ryan that I like living in an apartment because there is only one door to lock.
These compulsive behaviors started before I even consciously understood their protective role. It wasn’t until recently that I really understood that even though my anxiety and OCD get in the way of my life at times, they are trying to help me. I just need to slowly teach those parts that I’m safe and my parents are safe. The weight of their lives is not on my shoulders.
Another element I find fascinating is how this all was potentially exacerbated by growing up without religion. I’m very happy with how I was raised; I loved going to the Unitarian Universalist church and watching religion documentaries with my dad. God and faith were not significant parts of my childhood.
When I asked Ryan when he first learned about death, he said he just remembered believing that when you die, you become an angel. There was less grappling with death for him because he was raised Catholic, a faith with a clear belief system around what it means to die. Consequently, death lacked the terrifying finality that atheists often grapple with. There are many belief systems within and outside of organized religions that provide similar safety and comfort. The point is that having a way of rationalizing death as not final softens the edge of an unsettling reality of life.
One of my favorite books as a child was “The Mountains of Tibet” by Mordicai Gerstein. The story follows a Tibetan woodcutter's life and death where he is given the choice to reincarnate into a new life on Earth. I became enthralled with idea of reincarnation after reading this book. I remember telling people that I was “an atheist that believes in reincarnation” which doesn’t make theological sense, but who cares?
My beliefs as an adult are evolving, but I’m find myself closer to the “death is final” side of the spectrum (with ample room for spirituality). I still fear death every day, mostly my parent’s death and now more often, Ryan’s. My next therapy book club book (the book club is just my therapist and me, it’s the best) is “Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death” by Irvin Yalom which I’m sure is going to be impactful and challenging.
Per “No Bad Parts,” I’m trying to talk to Shattered Mal more often and make sure she knows that I’m safe. The reality is my parents will die. I will die. Ryan will die. She is correct that all of that will happen. It is inevitable. But I’m trying to sit more often in the discomfort of the uncontrollable.
Irvin Yalom writes this beautiful line on the back of his book: “death anxiety is the price we pay for self-awareness” and I can’t shake the truth of it. But what if the self-awareness was rooted in the understanding that all we can do is live our most joyful life, that controlling everything is impossible, that life is brief and fleeting, but full of zest. I feel so lucky that I have so many people that I’d be devastated to lose. It’s just hard to know that I will lose them someday.