Comments | innsmouth_eyes: E/N: What LJ was made for

innsmouth_eyes

E/N: What LJ was made for

May 14, 2007 23:53

I went through a several-year phase in high school where I was obsessed my parents' deaths. It really tore me up. I worried about them for every second I wasn't with them, if they got sick I was terrified. I had constant stomach aches and was anxious all the time. Sometimes I stayed awake all night and sometimes I cried myself to sleep. But I never ( Read more... )

Comments 7

vveritasv May 14 2007, 13:16:12 UTC

I think it's normal to go throught that phase, though maybe not for so long, and not in high school. In the Child Psychology books I read when I was pregnant it was discusssed at the pre-teen level: when kids realize for the first time that their parents aren't immortal gods...and how terribly terribly dependant they are on them. It is sometimes sparked by the death of a grandparent...then the kids get this rude awakening.

You may have just had a delayed development in that area and because you were older when it happened, it was more severe...the same way it is with chicken pox: it's nothing when you are 3 but you get real sick when you're 13.

Also, your mom may have been emphasizing death for a long time, as it is the cornerstone of her religion. Do you think that might have something to do with it?

innsmouth_eyes May 15 2007, 00:33:59 UTC

>>It is sometimes sparked by the death of a grandparent..

My grandpa died when I was 13 (and my dog died a little after that), so it was a little earlier than that but it may have had something to do with it.

>>Also, your mom may have been emphasizing death for a long time, as it is the cornerstone of her religion. Do you think that might have something to do with it?

This makes a lot of sense. It would also explain why I felt more anxiety thinking about my dad's death than my mom's, since at that time I believed that nonbelievers didn't go to heaven. So I'd see my mom again, but not my dad. Eternity in heaven wasn't worth not seeing my dad ever again.

vveritasv May 15 2007, 00:51:25 UTC

I remember when I was 14 I went on a spend-the-night trip with my friend and some other kids to her mom's beach house. That evening after everything was done and right before bed the mom began witnessing to us. It was a terrifying experience for me.

I didn't sleep a WINK. I remember lying in bed the whole night, terrified that I was going to suddenly die and go to Hell. I watched the clock, waiting for sunrise, as if daylight would save me. And strangely enough, as soon as I saw the sun come up over the ocean, I was at peace. I KNEW that I wasn't going to Hell. It was a very cathartic moment for me, but I will always remember the "Night of Terror".

innsmouth_eyes May 15 2007, 00:59:24 UTC

Agh. For me it was the "Time of Trouble" stories that my mom would tell. How the world was going to go crazy and the faithful would be driven into the hills where we would eat berries and live in caves until the Rapture. Of course, she never could tell me how my brother would get his insulin way out there. Maybe ravens would bring it to us.

draycevixen May 14 2007, 14:32:35 UTC

I'm sorry to hear that it ate up so much of your life. As Veri says, it normally happens earlier I think, but it is a normal thought process...

As to your friend who is preoccupied with thoughts of their own death, they made need treatment for depression. A psychologist friend of mine once told me that well-adjusted humans basically work on the assumption that aging and death apply to everyone else BUT NOT to themselves. We really are bizarre creatures aren't we?

misspinki777 May 14 2007, 17:22:22 UTC

I have a big problem talking about death. I get upset whenever people talk about it and I know we aren't meant to be on this planet for a long time, but I still don't like the idea of leaving one day. I've never really had anyone I've known die and the ones that have, I didn't know them all too well but it was still very sad and depressing. My close friends and immediate family are the most important things to me and if I ever lost any of them, I think a part of me would die. I don't know how I'd cope with it ( ... )

innsmouth_eyes May 15 2007, 00:38:19 UTC

You never know how you'll deal with those kinds of things until they happen. I think everybody has more strength to go on inside them than they realize. And it's okay to fall apart, it's expected. The real challenge is to pull yourself back together again. I'm sort of like you, I haven't really been tested yet. I was very young when my grandpa died and that's been the only major death in my family in my lifetime. I worry about how I'll handle it when it does happen.