I believe I have thanatophobia, I'm a 18 year old male and I've had countless sleepless nights because of panic attacks some worse then others and not always at night, once I got one on my train ride to school 3-4 years ago and it was after a bad fight with my girlfriend. My bialogical dad died when I was about 11-12 and I believe I have the panic attacks because of that. My fear starts with me thinking of the eternal nothingness loosing all 5 senses and brand activity I wonder is anything left? If there is when will that die? Everything we know has a start and an end so even the nothingness must end right? The uncertainty gets to me, I feel the need to plan so I can prevent death but with that being impossible I feel so small 'metaphorically'. Another fear of mine is there is no going back in life, I wish I could pause life but I can't what happens when your old and you know the next step is death but all you want To do is start from a child again. What makes it worse is I don't know what I want specifically meaning if I was given the choice of eternal life in any way would I take it, I not sure if you could chose your path of eternal life what would it be.
I seem to be the only one in my emmediate family who has these panic attacks. I've had no therapy nor medication I always just tried to face my fear but as I've learnt you can run but not hide the fear comes back when I was young I would prey lots, I still do & yet I've found that the occupying trick would help me aswell, I would for hours sit in the toilet in my house and tear the toilet paper off one piece at a time and stack them on the floor as neatly as I could untill I was so tired I would fall on my bed and sleep right away.
It's great to know others relate and in the time it has taken me to write this I have calmed down because I only searched this page up because I was shaking with fear. Does anyone know any other ways I can deal with my fears?