Death Anxiety

I finally feel back in full swing and like I can handle the year ahead whatever it may throw in my direction. It’s only taken me over two weeks to get that New Year feeling. As promised, I would like to update you all on the goings on for the first half of this week, especially when there are some more exciting things left to happen.

On Sunday, Rachel and I hosted an event which I originally called ‘Death In The Afternoon’ but I may have to change due to a very popular podcast of the same name having been released since I decided on it. This has been a while in the making, trying to host an event similar to Death Cafe but at the weekend and in a much more relaxed style. It was at my house and all I asked was that attendees supplied the cake and I would supply the tea. I trialled this with some close friends and we played the Death Deck game that I have mentioned before. I think it was an absolute success and I hope those who came would agree, we laughed and had some excellent discussions about various aspects of death. I learnt some very insightful things about my friends too!

Improvising necessary when you only get two of some of your letters with your lightbox

Amazing cakes including the gravestones made by my friend Alison!

Yesterday was our monthly Death Cafe at The Sweet Rose Cakery in Upminster. I expected the numbers to be low due to the weather and the time of the year, however we also had the added factor of half the town being closed for gas works and all the buses on divert! All of that aside, we had a small but very cheery group of people get together and although we certainly went off on far more tangents than normal we had some interesting topics. Rather poignantly, the topic of death anxiety came up and I thought it was something to discuss further.

We talked about death anxiety, originally in relation to our own worrying about loved ones and imagining their deaths when we rationally know that’s not what has happened. I know I am guilty of this myself, my other half goes to work on a motorbike every day and if he hasn’t text me by midday I do start to get quite panicky that something has happened. My Mum made a very good point that this is a symptom of having a mobile phone, when she and Dad were first together they didn’t have them and he went to work with most days no contact until he came home. I guess the constant contact we have with people can be problematic in many ways but this is a big one.

In general, those that attended who were younger then went on to a conversation about Facebook and social media. It was clear that we are of a generation where communication comes very easy when we want it, but it comes with many disadvantages too. We might panic when we think we are being ignored, we could be the victim of trolls, and we worry about what has happened when communication doesn’t happen. We discussed worrying about our own deaths, our loved ones deaths and general anxiety around this. I can’t comment for everyone but I know that I have worried, even before I had my job it is important to note, on numerous occasions about death. I’m prone to worrying about my own death if I feel unwell, or at least it does cross my mind. Part of my reasoning for doing and liking my job is it’s almost like an immersion therapy. Surround yourself with something you’re naturally scared of and it becomes familiar and less scary.

A delightful bitmoji image I found once!

Something that also came from the (probably soon to be renamed) Death In The Afternoon was the comment from one friend that ‘Well, Death is just so final’. We all laughed in the obvious nature of this, but actually I think that’s the main reason for the anxiety around it. There’s no going back. There’s often nothing that can be done. It’s understandable why it’s scary and causes anxiety because it removes any control we have, and I think most of us do like to have control. Maybe by working in death I feel like I’m regaining some of that control.

Big day tomorrow and an interesting weekend coming up. I’m glad I could get this in today and hope you’re all having a good week so far!

MG x