I'm Climbing Up Those Walls Again

I was hoping to tie this post into my blog about Solaris, but I began to realize that the movie really didn’t focus on death as much as love, regret, and renewed life. So here comes my post on death. It includes a revealing tid-bit for you all to talk about, so read on!

Although I’ve grown accustomed to mentioning it casually when the situation permits, hardly anyone knows of the condition I had a little over a year and a half ago. Fall semester of sophomore year, I developed a pretty big problem with death anxiety. Being a secular humanist and an atheist creates a pretty easy world for me to live in, except when it comes to dealing with death. You see, for me, death is the end, there is nothing. You don’t exist. You don’t even think about not existing.

Understandably, this has always scared the shit out of me, although I had managed to keep it out of my mind for most of my life. During that second year at Clemson, I began to get panic attacks whenever I thought about death that usually involved me clutching my chest because I found it hard to breathe wherever I was. It would happen to me pretty much any time of the day, but often hit me during British lit (where we talked about issues involving death a lot) and during movies that focused a lot on it. I didn’t talk to anyone about it, managing to keep my problem hidden, and so it got worse throughout the semester.

In the last month or so, it got unbearable, so I finally told my mother (she’s a pediatric and psychiatric nurse practitioner) and my father. Just the act of telling them did a lot to help, but talking with them throughout the rest of the semester and through the Christmas break did a lot to reduce the number of panic attacks I had. They did a wonderful job of being there for me, although, quite understandably, they got a bit worried about me.

Soon after, I met Karen, and, except for one instance that I’ll get to, I never had any big problems with death anxiety again (every now and then I’ll get a bit scared, but nothing worse than normal). Being with someone made a great deal of the difference. I think before I was scared of death because I was so alone, and afterwards I was so happy that it was easy to enjoy life and not worry about such a silly thing.

Now there are few people that I know that are as accustomed to flying as I am. I’ve been on flights over the Atlantic almost once a year since I was 10 months old, and I’ve almost never been phased by it. I got a little more nervous after September 11th (even though it wasn’t warranted), but was still ok with flying. Last summer I was too sick to worry about the flight over to the UK, but the flight back was very different.

First, you have to understand that I was missing her so much at this point, as we had been apart for 2 months. Second, the cross-Atlantic flight and the ensuing one to Myrtle Beach were the two most turbulent flights I’d ever been on. Suddenly I was scared shitless again. I gripped my seat as the plane dipped every few seconds. I was seriously on the verge of freaking out, not because I was scared of what comes after death, like during my bout of death anxiety, but because if I died then, I’d never see her gain. That was all I wanted at that moment, to be with her, or at least let her know that I was thinking about her. The thought of being lost at sea or pulverized in the wasn’t nearly as bad as disappearing from her life and not letting her know how much she meant to me.

The plane landed, and I went on with life.

Now I’m 5 days away from getting on a plane again, and I don’t know how I feel about it. I’m more nervous during take off and landing, thanks to the comedian Billy Connolly, who said that after the first 3 or 4 feet off the ground, you’re above maiming height and would be stone dead if you crashed, so best not to worry. I don’t have problems with death anxiety, but should I still be scared of flying, now that I don’t have anyone to be afraid of never seeing?

I’m not going to assume I wouldn’t be missed of my Delta flight plummets into the ocean, and you’d all better as hell mourn forever if it did happen, but I don’t have that strong emotional connection that I did at the time, so would I be as bothered if my plane starts to bounce up and down again? I won’t be returning to my sweetheart after being taken away from her for 2 months, I’m going over to England to check out grad schools, and then will be coming back to do research from the comforts of my home (alone for the first week).

I suppose there is nothing about planes that is particularly scary, since you are much less likely to die in a plane than in a car. The difference is in control. You at least feel like you have some control over your fate in a car, but when a plane crashes, you are carried screaming for a minute into the ground, with nothing you can do about it.

Well, it’s hard to end on a happy note after all of that. I guess I shouldn't worry because, according to the Death Clock, I won't die until Saturday, September 29, 2057!

But to end on a serious note. If my plane ever did plummet: it's been really fun guys. It couldn't have been any better, and it's all been because of you and the other's I've had the pleasure of knowing.