On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Kristin A. Ruhle wrote:
> > >I think there is such a thing as a deep primitive fear of dying in your
> > >sleep, at least as a kid I tended to be afraid of it. my mom would say so
> > >what? you wouldn't know the difference, but I intuitively *knew* sleep
> > >wasn't death!
> >
> > Your mom sounds cool. :)
> >
>
> well I had a more anxious temperament than she does (and life experience
> changes your perspective), besides she'd had more than one major
> operation in her life.
Did she ever come close to actually dying? I've had conversations about
this with someone who *did* come close to dying; he never had the bright
light part, he wasn't *that* close or anything, but if things had gone a
bit differently, he very well could have died. And it had to do with the
anesthesia, not the operation itself. Having that happen and finding out
after the fact just what went on makes you not take being alive so much
for granted.
> > >i've read that patients about to be anesthetized may be
> > >apprehensive because they're afraid they won't wake up; it's a pretty
> > >common fear.
> >
> > I can't blame them. But having thought about this, I'd rather die not
> > knowing it was coming and save myself those few seconds of anticipation and
> > panic. But maybe it's the anticipation that's the worry.
> >
>
> All anxiety is anticipation.
If you suspect there might be a problem that can be prevented, best to
take preventative action. (Like, a parent of the guy who almost died went
in for an operation later, and explained what had happened to the son, and
they just avoided the anesthesia in question. And there were absolutely
no problems with that one.)
It's a lot more frightening if someone you're close to has gone through
something really bad, and you find yourself about to go into a similar
situation.
Or if you yourself have been in a bad situation and someone else is about
to hit the milestone associated with it, it can really bug you.
On this last bit: my father died the day before my 19th birthday. A few
years later, I was spending time around a guy who was in some ways a lot
like me, and he was approaching his 19th birthday with some enthusiasm.
After about 2 weeks of all his excitement about his 19th birthday, I took
him aside and explained just what had happened at the time of my own 19th
birthday, and that I was getting scared for him, for no good reason, every
time he brought it up, and I asked him to not go on about it around me
until the actual day. And being enough like me, he understood, apologized
(which was unnecessary, since he didn't KNOW until I'd told him), and shut
up about it when I was in the room. I got him something for his birthday,
can't remember what, but once the day before his birthday was past, I felt
a lot better about the whole thing. (I just hope I don't start freaking
as my own child approaches the 19th birthday. I think I'm over a lot of
the stuff surrounding the date thing on that, and I figure it'll get
better as time passes.)
Julia
