What is Reddit's opinion of Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death?

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Please check out "Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death"by a psychiatrist who specializes in thanatology (study of death). Or do what I do and shove this terror way down deep and promise to analyze it and cope with it another day. :)

Recommendation first: Staring at the Sun by Irvin D. Yalom , if you care to know anything more, please read on.

• How I came across this book:

I have always been terrified of death, every once in a while I'd have terrible anxiety about death, so much so I couldn't sleep at night, fearing that I won't wake up, it comes and goes throughout my life and recently it's gotten so severe that I had to see a psychiatrist and have prescription to mitigate it. While this was all happening I looked up many books that can help me deal with this, and this one stood out the most, for reasons I will explain below.

• What is this book about?

Principally, it introduces many notions that the author himself found useful in his treatment of patients with death-related anxiety, a brief overview is as follows:

This isn't really the right sub. But be completely honest with your counselor. Tell them everything you told us. If they're not able to help you in 3 to 6 months, start seeing someone else. Not all counselors and therapists are alike. It can take time to find the right help. But keep looking! Read everything you can on it too. Consider Staring at the Sun. Hang in there.

I'm an atheist too and I've also experienced death anxiety for about 8 years on and off now. It got really bad after my dad died, but nowadays it rarely hits me. It's still there if I allow myself to think too hard, but I try not to.

I found reading the book Staring at the Sun to be useful. It won't remove your death anxiety entirely, but it may help reduce it or help you manage it: https://www.amazon.com/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818

After reading Caitlin Daoughty's book I read this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818

Highly recommended. I still get sucked into fears sometimes but it has some good philosophy that you can let sink in to deal.

Have her read "Staring at the Sun" by Irvin Yalom. He is a psychiatrist/author who deals with the subject of death a lot and has helped people with fatal illnesses and young people paralyzed by their fear.

*Edit:Psychiatrist not psychologist

I hope you are very close to them, this generally sounds like best laid plans. The last thing I would want is for someone to have me focused on my own death constantly before I die, especially if I am essentially on a timer.

Being death positive tends to be a choice people can make for themselves in the wake of the end, not one we should share or push upon them. I wouldn't personally pursue this unless this person asks you for advice. Even as a death positivist I would not take this the right way if someone did it to me. I see it similar to gifting a religious book and asking me to find god. If they didn't ask for your help, don't give it when it comes to belief systems.

Obviously I don't know the whole story but I implore you to start a conversation about it first to see how they react rather than gifting them a book. You want to be there for them in person more than in material anyway, and this move could fry your relationship with the co-worker.

As for books, if you really find it appropriate at this point: Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, When Breath Becomes Air The last two are a little better and less directly focused.

This takes time to evolve your personality from previous you to the new you.

I had the similar experience more than ten years ago. The whole worlds, plans and projects, friends and traveling - everything imploded.

This books helped me tremendously:

https://www.amazon.com/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818/ref=d_pd_sbs_sccl_3_2/136-7996293-0007455?pd_rd_w=h6Ydt&content-id=amzn1.sym.d8274306-8eaa-4da3-9175-aca6400f9aa9&pf_rd_p=d8274306-8eaa-4da3-9175-aca6400f9aa9&pf_rd_r=VXDD7M9VJ67JX52F0HHW&pd_rd_wg=AaHDG&pd_rd_r=09920111-7c15-43c1-ab21-8b38164d07b9&pd_rd_i=0470401818&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I85NQ9U/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i3

I've been finding this book helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818

Same here. I've been reading this book, I've been finding it helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Schopenhauer_Cure

https://www.amazon.com.au/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818

He is a psychiatrist that has death anxiety. He has thought about it a lot! The books I found changed my view and brought relief. But no guarantee!

The best way to resolve it is psychodynamic therapy with a GOOD therapist. Anxiety has unconscious origins . No amount of logic will work. Dig deep and you will find why. But its tough and expensive work. Not many make it. But fir those that do, it is transforming.

Good luck my friend on your quest.

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

Yes, it's called "Death Anxiety" and it's an actual thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_anxiety_(psychology)

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I recommend reading this book if you struggle with this issue often:

https://www.amazon.com/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818

>Like ive been embarrassed by my death anxiety for years but online I can vent about it without instant reaction.

Hey. Are you me?

I felt/feel the exact same way. I maybe know of one or at most, two people, in my regular life where I can discuss this issue and not have them get awkward and uncomfortable. For me, reading books about the topic helped a lot. For those interested, this one was especially thought-provoking:

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https://www.amazon.com/Staring-Sun-Overcoming-Terror-Death/dp/0470401818

> But still, that realisation about what we all eventually become is like an anchor, it just prevents you from seeing any hope or purpose. Anything I do right now, will almost be as if I never did it at all in the future. It might have some effects, but those effects are only temporary and won't be felt given enough time. I don't know man, things are difficult, but still, I'll try and take your advice, and thank you for giving it.

What's happening here is that you still deeply believe that meta-meaning is a reasonable category. Trust me, I'm a therapist (hope our exchange isn't seen as a "gotcha", because you asking these questions means you're very healthy psychologically by being willing to make the unconscious conscious and asking the scary stuff even if it naturally leads to anxiety or despair), and I see this all the time: people can cognitively get what another person is saying, but they find a deeper part resisting. Well, this deeper part is resisting because it's still more deeply believing -- trapped by a belief -- in the ideas around meta-meaning and life not having a meaning unless meaning is handed down as with theism.

So if you're interested in it, I'd recommend continually challenging this belief, that life is meaningless if meanings (that is, pleasure-rewarding goals) aren't themselves rooted in something outside of ourselves. Actually, one secular reframe to use is that biology itself provides us with an objective basis for much of our meaning; e.g., our inbuilt tendency to propagate our genes makes having a family such a huge and deep meaning for so many people that even if they're theists they don't really need God at a deep level. You're taking part of the unimaginably complex, rare, and Promethean struggle that is Life with a capital "L"; you're not separate from it, you're part of it. That's quite an honor!

What I recommend to folks I've worked with who are atheists or theists and buy into this conception of meaning not given down is that they could try just jumping into meaningful activities (stuff that really gets your blood pumping, metaphorically or literally speaking) especially when they're feeling the existential despair we're talking about (again, based in the fallacy of equating meaning with a nonexistent meta-meaning framework); and when the part of your comes up that still thinks it's worthless (because there's no meta-meaning, or related concerns), just notice it -- be mindful of it, see it like it's something outside you in a sense, and the more you do this the more it does in a very real sense become outside you and not part of you. On other occasions challenge this belief, which you can do by putting down in writing whatever comes closest to summarizing why things are meaningless, and then imagining a friend or loved one saying it and giving them rational responses to it. Writing all this down can be key.

Also, check out the great contemporary existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom's excellent book on death anxiety, Staring At The Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death.

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