Fear of life and fear of death. Correction of fears. Phenibut for anxiety and fear.

Fear of life is a generalized name for various fears and concerns that haunt a person and prevent him from leading a normal existence. Each person experiences fears to varying degrees of strength. In extreme cases, due to an insurmountable fear of living, a person can be so immersed in his experiences that he prefers not to change anything in life, not to do anything, as long as things don’t get worse. Often, prolonged stay in this state leads to deep depression.

Signs of being afraid to live

The existence of a person living in fear can be described as follows:

Every next day is no different from the previous one.
Life turns into a boring and predictable existence, the future of which is also determined.
Nothing happens around a person, that is, there are no events.
The appearance of any novelty (offers, new acquaintances, interesting events) is so frightening that a person cannot control his anxiety. Therefore, such people try to avoid changes in life and choose a familiar and safe existence.

For himself, the individual explains his seclusion with the following reasons:

Life is thus taken under control.
Nothing interesting or pleasant happens, but nothing bad happens either.
The likelihood of getting into a disaster is reduced to a minimum. For example, if you don’t leave the house, you won’t get hit by a car, etc.
In order not to experience pain and disappointment from relationships with the opposite sex, it is better not to get married, or better not to get acquainted at all. Then there will be no quarrels, divorce and resentment.
Predictability, clarity and orderliness of future events are quite suitable for living in safety.

The biggest fears of people who are afraid of life include fears about their helplessness in terms of control over life-changing events: you can get a terrible disease; you can become disabled in a car or plane accident; loved ones may die; what if there is a fire or a flood; you can go to jail, etc.

That is, the inability to influence something or change it in any way causes panic in a person. Therefore, in order to minimize the occurrence of possible troubles, he may simply not go, not go, not do, not create anything, not make acquaintances, etc.

Distinctive characteristics of those who are afraid of life

Psychologists have identified the following distinctive features in people experiencing fear of life:

Pessimism

The individual sees the whole world in gray tones, and looks only for shortcomings in everything. He is not interested in advantages at all. For example, if a person goes to some beautiful corner of the world on vacation, he will be dissatisfied with the food, he will see heaps of garbage or unsanitary conditions, he will come across beggars or sick people, and so on. But the beauty itself: the ocean or sea, picturesque nature, waterfalls, exotic fruits - he will not notice, and will continue to grumble.

Also, a pessimist likes to watch news on TV, especially if it is negative, remember it, and share this information with others. In this way, he tries to prove to everyone that life is hard, justifying his pessimism.

Anhedonia

This state is similar to when a person takes a tranquilizer: a complete absence of joy. That is, the person is not sad, but not joyful either. He doesn't care. It's like he's ready for anything. In a state of anhedonia, an individual can even celebrate all public holidays, his birthday or go on vacation. Although he will not experience any pleasure from this, nothing bad happens to him.

Catastrophization

Exaggerating the seriousness of events. A person who experiences fear of life tends to exaggerate many times all situations and events in which he takes part or learns about them through rumors. For example, a woman was fined for crossing the road in the wrong place. It would seem that this is a common situation that can happen to anyone, and there is nothing terrible about it: you just need to pay a fine and not do it again. But for her this is a disaster: she starts screaming and hysterical, trying to prove something and behaving inappropriately. This behavior is explained by the woman’s defensive reaction, since she was not prepared for such a turn of events and was unable to take control of what happened. In her opinion, anything can happen to her at any time, and she will not be able to prevent it. Therefore, understanding your helplessness causes panic and appropriate behavior.

Fear of Inadequacy

People who are afraid to live are afraid that they may be judged negatively, or they are afraid of not fitting into some mold. For example, they don’t dare to go to university or get a job, saying: “I’m ugly,” “I’m too old for this,” “They still won’t hire me after studying,” “I’m afraid I can’t handle it,” “I I don’t know how to speak beautifully,” etc. All these are excuses under which a person tries to hide the fear of living, and, first of all, to hide it from himself.

Write in the comments what you chose and why this survey item.

Take part in a psychological workshop from a happiness psychologist to take control of your fears and phobias right now.

Make a list of your fears.

To help you better understand how we bring unreasonable fear into our lives, make a list of what you are afraid to do.

This is not a list of things you're afraid of, like spiders, snakes, or the dark, but of things you're afraid of doing, like being afraid to pick up a spider or going into a dark room.

For example, I'm afraid:

Ask your boss for a promotion or salary increase.
Tell a man you know that you like him.
Jump with a parachute.
Leave the children at home with a nanny.
Quit this hated job.
Take a vacation for 2 weeks and move away.
Ask my friends to help me open a new business.
Entrust some of the work to other people.

Reframe your fears as follows.

Now go back to the first fear you wrote down and restate each fear using the following pattern:

I want to _____________, but I'm afraid, imagining ______________.

Key words - I'm afraid, imagining.

Conquer your created fears.

Let's look at several ways to free yourself from fears and breathe deeply.

1) Change the image of the future.

One way to free yourself from fear is to ask yourself which image of the future scares you, and then replace that image with its positive opposite.

For example, replace a picture of your boss being angry and rejecting you with an image of him smiling and giving you the promotion order while firmly shaking your hand.

2) Change the physical sensation.

There is another technique that is also effective for eliminating fear - focusing on the momentary physical sensations that fear brings.

Then you need to concentrate on the feelings and sensations that you would like to experience in return - courage, self-confidence, calmness, joy.

For example, replace the tension in the first picture with delight and pride in the second picture from the previous example.

Fix both types of sensations in front of your mind's eye and slowly move your gaze (mentally, of course) from one to the other, lingering on each for 15 seconds. After 1-2 minutes of work, the fear will dissipate, and you will remain calm and focused.

Apply this technique in front of your boss's office when you go to ask for a raise.

3) Look fear in the face.

Remember when you managed to defeat your fear.

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Share the technique of getting rid of fear with your friends!

Write in the comments what are you afraid of and how is your fear of living expressed?

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Causes of fear of life

The reasons for the appearance of this phobia can be provoked by events from a person’s early childhood, and other factors:

Genetic factor. There is an assumption that cowardice can be passed on through the family. For example, if a person had a cowardly father, grandfather or great-grandfather, then he will not shine with courage.
Overprotection. Fear of life may appear from early childhood, when parents, in order to protect their child from danger, intimidated him, citing as examples frightening and terrible stories that allegedly happened to other children or adults, and in any situations, they tried to “spread a straw” . And since the child has unlimited trust in his parents, especially in his mother, he begins to believe that the world around him is very aggressive, scary and dangerous in relation to him and other children.
Social environment. The environment in which a child was brought up and grew up can also determine his attitude towards life. For example, what kindergarten did he go to, how did he study at school, and did he have any conflicts in his school life, what was the situation in the country during this period (war, revolution, reforms, economic collapse, etc.).
Indifference. The careless attitude of parents towards their baby gives him a feeling of insecurity and fear of life, since he has already learned from his personal experience: what a hot iron is, why there is a socket in the wall, why beautiful pills make it so bad, and a lot of other troubles from who had no one to protect him.
Psychotrauma has a very strong impact on a child. Moreover, the younger he is, the more strongly the psychological trauma is imprinted in his consciousness. For example, if a child saw his parents fight, which led to sad consequences, or during the scandal, threats of murder or violence were made, or the child poured boiling water on himself, then all these and possible other traumas take root and become prerequisites for the emergence of various phobias. In the future, fears that something might happen will limit a person's creative endeavors and his happiness. After all, sudden “bad things” have already happened to him, and can happen again. Therefore, his fear of life is expressed in a subconscious readiness for negative situations.

I'm scared to live.

I'm afraid to live - more and more people are contacting the author of this blog with a request about the fear of life.

All kinds of fears, phobias, anxious thoughts and panic attacks - this is the scourge of today's life. Psychologist of Happiness.

Millions of years ago, fear was our body's way of signaling to us that we were out of our comfort zone.

Fear put our body on alert in the face of real danger and gave a surge of adrenaline into the blood if we had to run away.

Today, fear signals us rather that we must be careful. However, for some of us, fear has become firmly established in our minds and has taken the form of a fear of our entire lives.