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My grandfather passed away from Alzheimer's complications last year. After my experiences with Grandpa, I would have to say that I'm honestly looking forward to growing old. I look forward to gray hair, because I see it as a crown of life. I'm not afraid of much, but I am terribly afraid of losing myself before I die. I truly believe that my grandpa's soul was long gone by the time he passed away, but it just felt so terrible, to see his body in such pain. I know I don't get to choose (per se), but if I could, I wouldn't want to go that way.
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My grandfather passed away from Alzheimer's complications last year. After my experiences with Grandpa, I would have to say that I'm honestly looking forward to growing old. I look forward to gray hair, because I see it as a crown of life. I'm not afraid of much, but I am terribly afraid of losing myself before I die. I truly believe that my grandpa's soul was long gone by the time he passed away, but it just felt so terrible, to see his body in such pain. I know I don't get to choose (per se), but if I could, I wouldn't want to go that way.
To combat that fear, I strive to eat healthfully, exercise regularly, and challenge my mind whenever I can (by means of creativity, puzzles, etc.) My family's become very fond of the game Bananagrams. It's fantastic and fun and nearly everybody in my family and extended family can play.
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The notion of dementia scares the crap out of me. My 92 year old grandmother is in the latter throes of it, and it isn't pretty. A friend of mine recently made a really good short documentary that covers the subject with respect to an aging avant garde musician. I watched it yesterday and it managed to stir these feelings on the subject pretty close to the circuit. (I would share it, but he's not really in the sharing phase yet, so it isn't publicly available.)
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Like most people, I am afraid of losing my mind. At least I am not religious, because I know that if I am still conscious of my situation there is a perfectly reasonable and justified way out.
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Like most people, I am afraid of losing my mind. At least I am not religious, because I know that if I am still conscious of my situation there is a perfectly reasonable and justified way out.
Calgon, take me away!
Just kidding. Painless is the way to go, if I have to. I am not afraid of dying, there are much worse things than death.
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Yoga is good...don't dread it.
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Yoga is good...don't dread it.
I fear losing my appearance or stop caring about my appearance.
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losing my teeth...its a weird thing to fear but i don't know, once i saw this really old lady and when she open her mouth her teeth looked sawed in half it was disturbing and ever since then i brush my teeth too many time in a day i only drink water and some nights i lay in bed feeling around my mouth with my tongue looking for cracks...
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Running out of time to accomplish something that makes my value to the world exceed my cost.
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Volunteer one day in a nursing home, and you'll face your fears, and then some. Stay fit, Humans, and play lots of word games, and never ever stop learning new things.
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I can't think of anything about aging itself that I would consider a fear. I do have a fear of being declared brain dead and then being "harvested" for my body parts while inside I'm screaming "I'm alive, I'm alive...". I frankly don't think they know all there is to know about the nature of life and death to start cutting us up for parts while we're still warm.
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My fear: Quantity vs quality. Living long doesn't mean living well. I've seen it over and over. The boredom. because of lack of energy, disability and loss of faculties. I once said to my husband's grandmother (on her 100th birthday - she lived to be 103), wow, pretty cool! You've lived a century! I'm paraphrasing here..but she said something like, " I'm the only one. My friends are all gone. I can't see, I can't hear, I can't chew, my hands shake too much to write, I can't stay awake to read, I have trouble going to the bathroom, I don't sleep well, everything aches...but at least I can still laugh!" She was some was some tough cookie, that one!
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When you're young you think you have all the time in the world to do whatever you want and that anything is possible. As I get older and realize that's not true, I honestly fear that I'll give up the wrong goals and regret not having done something that I should've. Which makes me WANT to think that I can do whatever I want and that anything is possible. And then I remember that it's not true. It's a vicious cycle.
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My fear is my brain dying without me.. leering and sneering and my family and passers by pitying me and silently thinking how disgusting I am. and that the only place to get euthanized is somewhere in the mass of swizerland.. but I wouldn't even know.
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The biggest fear about aging is, not taking the FULL advantage of your youth to do the things you are meant to do and peruse your dreams.
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it 's normal but not rational. I think im going to move somewhere far away where old age is revered, which would NOT be in the U.S., which totally sucks. Im more scared of those people who have that creepy plastic surgery look.... and yoga can be fun. golf seems scarier to me.
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My biggest fear is becoming useless or even worse a burden... I can't stand the idea of not being able to walk, feed, or even use the can by myself and even worse making my family and/or friends pay or work hard to support me. I am an in debt college student and I don't even like the idea that if i kick the bucket for some reason my family would acquire my debt. Blech...not ideal. Although I don't think about dying all that often (probably a good thing...less depressing).
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I fear running out of time to do all the things I would like to accomplish. I also fear the stereotype youth hold of anyone over 40. Every youth holds this stereotype to some degree, until it the time comes when it hits them that they are no longer perceived as young--and boy does that ever hurt!
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I'm afraid of dying when i'm wondering "what is important during a life?" and i reports me that me spend too much time making useless things or making nothing. The problem is i'm afraid of changing my life even if i guess it will improve it. So i think the real fear is the fear to not be the person we would like to be.
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Okay this is slightly depressing but I sometimes think about the idea of all the people around me dying.
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Okay this is slightly depressing but I sometimes think about the idea of all the people around me dying.
As older we get the more people we know, older and younger, are likely to be disappearing from our lives. I was talking to my grandma, who likes to tell stories, and she would keep mentioning people in her life and names of people who are no longer with us. I realized something. The older age we make it to the less likely it is the people around us, especially all of the older people in our lives. Think about it, we almost live with two different sections of our lives. Almost all the people we will know in the second half of our lives didn't exist in the first. And if we outlive our friends, siblings, parents, and general loved ones of the same or older age, then all the people we knew in the first half no longer are alive in the second half of our life. We then become the older people there has to be people who died, if not them then it is us who pass on and leave someone else alone...
As Katrina mentions below I still would not know, how, if I make it to an older age, I would cope with the possible loneliness. Knowing all the people around me who I knew and loved my whole life no longer are with me. It's kind of inevitable, either we end up outliving and being left by other, or someone else will outlive us and we will leave others...
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Death. I have caught myself thinking of what it is going to be like when I am elderly, and I know my life will end soon. How do you cope with that? How do you make peace with that? How do you just accept that? Just thinking about it gives me extreme aniexty.
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I wasn't fearing anything about aging,it is part of the scene painted way before I arrived..until you gave me the thought ,that maybe I should.. :)
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Alzheimer's disease. I was 12 or 13 when my Grandmother was diagnosed with the disease and saw her deteriorate until I was 18 (when she passed on). Maybe because I saw it at such a sensitive age, it scares me so much. I can deal with the wrinkles and aching bones or whatever physical ailments come my way, but losing my memories and my personality are the most frightening aspects of aging for me.
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Loosing my youth. I get that awful feeling everytime I am doing something fun with my friends and I realize that in 20 years, I won't fit into the lifestyle I live now, which is sad since I am so happy where I am at now. I am sure I will find hapiness with age and new adventures, but becoming outdated scares the bejeezus out of me.
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