Afraid of going to bed at night in fear of not waking up

[griffame]

Hi all,

I am a 20 year old college student living about an hour away from home. I have always been a catastrophic thinker but for the past month or so this thinking has snowballed into horrible anxiety over my health and over my own sudden death. I fear terribly of having some kind of accident or something where I just keel over and go. I am not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of my parents' ability to handle that kind of situation. They are both very supportive of each other but my mom is very sensitive to emotions just like I am, and I fear they would just fall apart.

Anyways, I am usually able to shake the fears of accidents and horrible medical conditions that will stop me in my tracks. Except for one - the one I can't seem to shake is going to sleep at night. Right when all this anxiety started, before I knew what a problem it was, I stumbled across a few articles about people my age who had died in their sleep. One was a girl who died from alcohol poisoning, so that one didn't freak me out so much, but there was a more recent event where a college football player died in his sleep, and there are still no answers as to why. When I got hung up on this, I started researching the most common causes of death in sleep and now I am just so paranoid something is wrong with my heart or something and that one night I will go to sleep and never wake up. I am supposed to be starting counseling soon but this has got to be the worst thing I have ever experienced. I can talk myself down from just about any other anxiety, but not this one, no matter how hard I try. I had an EKG two weeks ago and it came back normal, except for I had "right axis deviation." The doctor explained it to me and it didn't seem like it was serious and he wasn't concerned about it - he was more concerned about addressing my anxiety, but he was hard to understand and I struggle to find information about it. I am just so terrified that something will happen to me when I go to sleep and I know it's ridiculous, but I just can't shake it. I used to be a lover of sleep in any and all respects and I miss so much being able to just happily crawl in my bed instead of completely dreading it every single night. Does anyone have any suggestions for sleeping easier? I know reassurance doesn't do any good in the long-term but I'll surely take it if you have it. I know this stuff is so rare and that's why it's in the news and that the two young people this has happened to this year are honestly probably going to be the only two young people it happens to, but that doesn't mean it doesn't just absolutely terrify me. Anything you can offer me would be so appreciated.

[Paxiled]

Are you in therapy?  Dying in one's sleep is everyone's dream.  It's the best way to die -- no pain, no fear, no problem.  The problem you're having is focusing on this obsessively, which is anxious thinking.  Therapy can help you with this.