Generally, you want the best both for you and the people you love. And sometimes, doing what's best is the hardest thing in the universe.
u/WhiteSox1415 asked:
What's the hardest thing you ever had to say to someone?
Here were those answers:
Quality Of Life
GiphyI told my grandfather that the surgery he was scheduled to have in less than two hours, which was necessary to save his life, was going to leave him unable to take anything by mouth ever again- even water; and leave him hooked to an IV pretty much permanently. Being a fiercely independent person, he of course refused to move forward with the surgery (which he had previously agreed to, not knowing this). Then I had to inform my family that I had told him the truth, against their wishes, and that he had decided against the surgery.
It was the worst day of my life. I did what was right, even though it meant he would leave us within weeks, and I don't regret it, but ...damn. I still cry when I think about it.
True Loyalty
Not me but I had to watch my step-sister tell my step-mom that my dad was sending her very inappropriate text messages. I watched a daughter completely destroy her mother's world and have to still be there for her daughter.
A few days later my step-mom seemed to have blocked the whole thing out and essentially pick my dad over her daughter. That's when I realized I hate them. Even worse, I was the one who told her to rat on him.
Momentary Loss For Long Term Gain
Created an account just to post, long time listener first time caller.
I was asked to co-coach a competitive traveling baseball team of 10 year old boys (my son included). We had a try-out and would have to cut about 7 boys. I saw right away that my son would not be on the team unless I was the coach. We had 2 days of try-outs and after the first day my son gets in the truck and tells me that it was the most fun he has ever had playing baseball and he can't wait to spend the summer hanging out with his friends and me.
I had to tell my son right then and there, with all the hope and excitement in his eyes that he was not good enough to play on the team. It was the right thing to do but that didn't make me or him feel any better. Cutting your own kid from the team you are supposed to coach makes you feel like a d!ck head. I resigned as coach and spent that summer practicing (his request) every day after work. The next year he made the team, was selected as an All-Star of the league and led his team in batting. I'll never forget that day in my truck as long as I live. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Being Comfortable With Silence
Had to tell a friend she talks too much.
She's genuinely a good person so it hurt but she literally can't have silence at any time.
We can't just sit and enjoy something, she has to be talking. The minute someone has silence longer than a second she's talking about her job or what her mom had for lunch.
It's a constant stream of consciousness that never ends.
A movie? She's talking about what just happened on screen like she's the narrator.
Friend comes over who I haven't seen in years? She was talking over our whole greeting.
It's time to go? She doesn't get the hint and just...keeps...talking.
She asked me why people seem to only hang out with her once and then stop...why her bf was distant.
So I told her it's probably the amount she speaks. I asked her why she feels that it's weird to have silence.
She just said it made her feel uneasy when people weren't talking.
I told her it's worse to talk when you don't have anything to contribute to the conversation, and it's okay to have silence every once in awhile.
She's gotten better and thanked me because no one else had the heart to tell her
Never Easier
GiphyIn the course of my job (police) - I have had to deliver more death messages that I could count. It never gets any easier....
The worst was a elderly women who had died overnight. From the moment I arrived at the address the phone was constantly ringing....after an hour I had to answer (even though procedure is not too) as it obviously a loved one trying to get in contact.
I had to break the news over the phone to her daughter that she had died. She was hundreds of miles away....it was heartbreaking. She broke down and was sobbing. I told her I was with her Mum and would look after her. I told her to call me back when she was ready.
Her daughter (the granddaughter) called me back about 30 mins later. I explained what would happen and that they could contact me at anytime.
I understand they came into the station a few days later. I wasn't on duty so missed them. I wish I could have met them to pass condolences and just explain that I found her peacefully.
As all jobs - you get up's and down's. This was a down 😕
Truly For The Best
A friend and I were going through divorces at the exact same time. Both of our divorces were hard and rough, but hers was a bit uglier, and it came out that her ex-husband was cheating on her and was flaunting his new girlfriend all over the place.
After a couple of months of listening to my friend go mental over the new girl, how her ex was scum, how he was manipulating her kids, and how she knew all of this because she was facebook stalking the new girlfriend.
I had to have a long, sit down talk with her and get her to realize that facebook stalking her ex & his new squeeze was really - really - REALLY not healthy and not helping her heal from the whole divorce.
Apparently I was the only one who ever told her to just f*cking stop it.
No Way To Communicate
Trying to tell my taxi driver in Korea where to go. He spoke 0 English while I speak 0 Korean. 10 minutes of trying to show him maps on my phone and attempting to use Google translate until I found someone on the street who could translate.
I have had some horrible emotional conversations, but this takes the cake for most difficult as I literally could not say what I needed to for him to understand.
Fifty-Seventy Years
I had to call my fiancee a week before our wedding that I had cancer.
Good news, happily married for four and a half years and about to make my five year cancer-free mark next May.
Sometime mid February 2014: Go into some clinic because of a bronchitis flareup
March 1st 2014: Go back to small clinic because I could tell I had pneumonia from wheezing. Got a chest xray to confirm and there was a large mass at the top of my right lung. Plot twist: I DID have pneumonia as well. I went to two specialists same day and reached a rough diagnosis of advanced Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I called my fiancee and told her the blunt truth and she told me to come home. I arrived and she grabbed me by the shirt and told me, "we're getting married, so I'm getting you for at LEAST 50 more years. Preferably 70."
March 8th 2014: We got hitched and went on honeymoon
April Fool's day: offical diagnosis of Stage 3B Hodgkin's lymphoma
First treatment hit sometime in the last week of that April after testing and getting a port installed. So roughly beginning of May is what I consider the anniversary.
Which Is Easier
Telling my ex girlfriend it was okay if we broke up and we could still be best friends even though I'm still just as in love with her as I always was and she's the one who says she just doesn't want to be in a relationship right now.
She said she didn't want anything to change between us and she still thinks of me as her soul mate, but it definitely doesn't feel the same. My heart breaks again every day and every conversation leaves me feeling depressed and lost.
Clean break ups where you end up hating the other person are so much easier.
Still Hard
GiphyThis probably isn't as "bad" as everybody elses:
I had to tell my step-father that he is a complete *sshole once.
It was like 15 years ago, we didn't get on back then. In short, I was a lazy teen and he was a guy who worked everyday of his life since he was like 12 years old. He would often come back from evenings out drinking, tanked up, and start waffling on about how he wasn't my real dad, and all that sh*t, when at the end of the day, I really did not care - I wasn't expecting him to be my father, I just wanted him to take care of my mother. That and I do see my real dad, who at the time, would say "ah don't listen to that asshole etc" so being a teen I essentially doubled down on being a bit of a dick in retaliation at times.
We had a huge blowout one night, and I lost my sh*t over another (read: 30th) night in being told something about him not being my real dad because he was drunk. We had some words, and I flat out told him I didn't like him on a personal level, and that he was a major *sshole. He didn't take it very well at the time, and it killed me because I knew that my mum had heard everything and was probably very upset about it.
In hindsight, it cleared the air and put all the cards on the table between us both. I later moved out got a full time job, and since then have married/have my own kid, so can see where he was coming from at times. (I mean he was an *sshole, even he admits that, but I openly hold my hands up for being a lazy grumpy teenager who gave him a hard time as well). He did some self reflecting as well; he quit smoking and drinking, and found religion (it's not for me, but it's done him wonders I think). He's like the nicest guy in the world and we've both spoken about the above and apologised to each other.
We now get on really really well, and while I do speak to my biological father, my step dad kept me on the straight/narrow the entire time since I met him, so despite him being a d!ck, it was all in a "tough love" sort of way, which I now appreciate.
We've both also spoken with my mother about it, and she's very happy now we get on so well also.
So it ends well, but it was a tough time at one point.
The Worst Kind Of News
I had to call my girlfriend's parents who were on a cross-country trip to tell them I was at the vet's putting their dog down.
We were not on good terms before then.
Then I had to lie to my girlfriend when she called to see how her childhood dog was doing. She's a nurse and had just started her new job working overnights.
That was a rough night.
We got married eventually though.
Once A Cheater
Had to tell my 16year old pregnant friend while we were in high school that the guy she was having a baby with, was trying to get me to come over in the middle of night and sleep with him.
Not as sad as some of these,but definitely tough. Would not have even been as bad if she wasnt pregnant.
But we were so young, she was pregnant, and it was my bestfriend so it just made me really sad for her.
That's the worst thing I can think of ATM.
Dunno What To Do With You
GiphyWas a McDonald's manager.
Had this 14 year old girl who was a hard worker and really enjoyed what she did.
But she was so bad at her job. She couldn't do anything right and the hours I spent training her didn't seem to help.
Giving her 6 month performance review that was all 1/5 (except effort) and giving her a $0.05/hr raise was the hardest thing I did in my 6 years there.
Grief: The Price We Pay For Love
For me probably telling my family that I didn't want to go see my grandma get taken off of life support. They asked me multiple times if I was sure, and out of the probably around 20 or so people there I was probably 1 out of 4 people that didn't go back. I hung out back in one of those side rooms where half the people had been staying. I just couldn't handle it. I had been in the hospital the entire previous day as soon as we could make it in, and we stayed as late as we could that night, and then came back the next day before she was eventually taken off of it. But I just couldn't be in there. It was quick at least. Less than a minute after they turned everything off she was gone. As much as I would have wanted to see her one last time, I just couldn't have that be my last memory.
Very close second: Telling my boyfriend one night just how much I f*cking miss my grandpa from my mom's side (passed away 5 years ago) and my grandma from my dad's side (passed away two years ago). I had always tried to be strong for everyone else cause we were just all in this fog after my grandpa, and right when we were coming out of it my grandma passed away. Finally just broke down sobbing after watching a movie together on my birthday, and I barely choked out that I missed them so much and I was tired of pretending like I was okay with it because I always have them in the back of my mind and I have a hard time moving on because small things remind me of them. Like knowing my grandpa carries her picture everywhere he goes and pulls it out for her to see what's going on and so he can give her a kiss. Or going to get ice cream reminds me of the morning when we found out my grandpa had finally passed away that night after months of battling cancer, and my brother drove my sister and I to get ice cream. And knowing that if my grandma was still alive for my past birthday, she would have dragged me to Las Vegas to go gambling cause that was her thing for each granddaughter's 21st birthday. And as much as I don't like gambling or drinking, I would have done it for her.
This Is Why We Need Better Immigration Policies
I had to tell my all-star totally rocking employee who we were grooming to enter management that he was fired effectively immediately, within a week of him having a new baby. I also had to simultaneously break the news to him that my company's lawyers had determined that he had no legal right to be in or work in this country, which he himself wasn't aware of, and which is why he was now fired.
To be fair, the guy had a complex immigration situation, and had tried to deal with all the paperwork himself rather than hire a lawyer, which led to him messing up spectacularly and not realizing it.
Happy Ending
I had to tell my conservative republican parents that I'm transgender. I wrote them both a letter. I was sweating bullets the entire time they were reading it.
Turns out it wasnt such a big deal. They were 100% accepting and supportive, but for a few minutes I was just imagining being completely abandoned and homeless because of it, based on the horror stories I read about from other "coming out" stories online.
These workers and the world already has enough trouble without my stupid.
"So... was she impressed?"
Idiot Reaction GIFGiphy"Kid driving his new truck down a residential street, wet from a recent rain, lost control and hit a parked car, overcorrected and rolled it once back onto its wheels up onto a lawn. He told the fire chief he had gunned it to impress his girlfriend and the chief just looked at him and asked 'So... was she impressed?'"
AntiMacro
Ricky
"I had a client once who was basically Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, loud, obnoxious, hilarious and every second word was some Maritime slang or a derivative of 'f**k.' He has been on daily eye drops for decades for dry eyes, sure ok cool. I hear screaming down the hall and run in and he's wedged against the wall and the bed just screaming 'I f**ked up boys, I dunno what the f**k is f**king happening but It's f**ked."
"Turns out he mistakenly put Jublia which is an antifungal ointment for toenails in his eye thinking it was his eye drops. The strangest part was the bottle has this miniature sponge at the end so you soak the sponge then paint it on like a gel...he painted this antifungal ointment onto his eye which immediately went red and angry then proceeded to do the other one."
"So he's at the eyewash station and I'm talking to poison control and they are pretty stunned because they have zero data on what happens to a human eyeball when it's painted in antifungal. I can hear the staff at the other end kind of snickering under her breath and she asks can you compare and contrast the eyes? Well... he put it in both eyes. The line goes silent because I can tell she is howling. Guy was totally fine but it was a standout for sure."
krzysztoflee
Will they show?
"Responded to a call of two minors being kidnapped and their parents being beaten in front of them and then taken someplace else. One was around three years and the other one was six. They were held captive in an apartment out of hundreds of residential apartments which not easy to locate, upon reaching there we found out that the boy six was just playin' with us to see if we would actually respond. Their parents were so embarrassed by all of that and vowed to not give them mobile until they are adults."
erectilereptilelol
Bowled Over
"When I was an EMT in NYC years ago we had a call for a man 'unresponsive.' We entered an upscale apartment that was a hoard: floor to ceiling newspapers and magazines, just a mess. The woman who called said her brother was in his bedroom sick."
"We entered his room and it was pretty obvious that he had already passed away. She had placed a bowl under his mouth because he had hemorrhaged which had coagulated the day before it was crazy. We asked her why she hadn’t called sooner and she said thought he’d get better?!"
"The joke around the house was 'if you have to put a bowl under a relative who is bleeding from the mouth, call 911. Don’t wait.' Never thought we’d have to advise anyone to do that. But there ya go. Also, it was Thanksgiving. Didn’t eat any cranberry sauce that year."
Sufficient-Swim-9843
God Only Knows
Married At First Sight Lol GIF by LifetimeGiphy"Had a guy call because he had the cure to Covid and needed a ride to the local education hospital so he could share it. Dude was so high on meth He ended up having 4 or 5 binders worth of scientific looking notes. God only knows what was actually in them."
Flame5135
Wow, people really need to get a grip. Of their minds.
"Sparky"
on fire GIFGiphy"One of my old bosses once built a new shed in his back yard, to replace his old, worn-out one. He moved everything from the old one to the new one, then decided that the best way to remove the old one was by burning it down. He ended up with no sheds and the nickname 'Sparky.'"
Wadsworth_McStumpy
Dead in the living room...
"Paramedic here. We responded to this 54 year old having chest pain. Man was having a heart attack. Dude didn't want to go to the hospital because it too early in the day. That's it. We tried to convince him to go. Got the ER doc to talk to him and he wouldn't budge. He signed a Refusal. Later that same night, his family found him. Dead in the living room. We got to him and started CPR, meds, everything. Dude didn't make it. When we advise you to go to the hospital, go."
Chaprito
Bad Ideas
"Got called to a shooting. A guy says he received a text message from an anonymous number saying his brother has been shot. He checks all the hospitals with no luck. He goes to his brother's apartment but gets no response at his door but sees his car and can hear the TV on. We get there, attempt to get an answer at the door."
"Eventually we kick the door in to make sure he wasn't dying in his apartment. We boot the door, announce police, and find him asleep in his bed. The guy tells us that he got a new phone number and decided to mess with his brother by texting him he had been shot. He then fell asleep and forgot about the text and was woken up by us. So many wasted resources on his idiotic prank."
TheDOC816
The Swimmer
"Got called to a priority job. The caller was kayaking in a lake and said that there was an unresponsive male in the water. So off we went, lights and sirens. We requested paramedics and fire to attend as well for the rescue operation. There were about 6 emergency vehicles attending including a rescue boat. We got there within minutes and met the caller who showed us where the guy was."
"He was just swimming, minding his own business. The caller said he was unresponsive, but really he was just ignoring her. Had a chat with the guy, he seemed alright, said he swims here every day and likes the quiet. No issues. Would have been nice if the caller told the operator that he was still conscious and swimming rather than 'unresponsive.'"
amazingbecauseitis
Chew Slowly
Snl GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy"Well, I was taking a lady home from dialysis and she decided to eat a snickers in the back of the ambulance, and she started choking. Had to do the heimlich, and tell her to finish her food at home."
HotSoupInYourA**
If it's not a true emergency dial 311. Please.
As if knowledge isn't scary enough, let's her more...
Hello Terry
paint surgery GIF by gifnewsGiphy"Some tumors have teeth, hair and even eyes."
Twat_Waffle_Stomp
"My sister had one minus the eyes! It was cantaloupe sized on one of her ovaries before it was found. She named it Terry the Teratoma."
Karina_is_my_cat
Hungry Bacteria
"Brain-eating amoebas."
dark_n_lovely_qu33n
"My best friend and bunk mate from summer camp died from one of those when I was in 7th grade. Happened so quickly, we were a week into camp and he got really sick. They gave us all heavy meningitis shots because they didn’t know what it was and within a few days he was dead. Turned out to be a brain eating amoeba."
"Edit: strangely enough on the same day he started getting sick one of the lifeguards that was sitting out in a boat waiting for the next group of kids for what we called Trojans Vs. Spartans day had a seizure, fell off the boat and drowned. Only deaths they’d ever had in the 50+ years the camp had been open."
Csharp27
Far Far Away
"The size of our galaxy, how many other galaxies there are and how far away they are. When you can actually see something that incomprehensible.."
Jfonzy
"The nearest star to us would take the Voyager 70,000 years to reach. The nearest galaxy to ours would take the Voyager 749,000,000 years. If we some how managed to take on the monstrous task of speed of light travel it would still take 25,000 years to reach the nearest galaxy. And it's even further apart after you read this. Wild stuff!"
ConqueredCorn
Head Changes
"How the brain is literally rewired and chemically altered by childhood neglect and abuse."
petalumaisreal
"It's genuinely kinda freaky, playing a puzzle game, and noticing how quickly you're getting better at it. The kind of puzzles that were a real blocker in the beginning become baby-easy after like an hour of playing puzzles like it."
LtLabcoat
"My sister faced horrible abuse at the hands of our father, and she has been working through it with multiple therapists over the last 10 years and she is only now starting to get her life back. I feel like she was robbed at a fair chance at life because of our a**hole father."
Pehdazur
Awake
Bill Murray Im Here GIF by Groundhog DayGiphy"Prions, horrific and totally unpredictable."
geordiesteve520
"Fatal familial insomnia is a prions disease where you can't sleep anymore, you just stay awake until your brain deteriorates and you die."
DrinknEspresso
Now I can never UNKNOW about prions. Perfect.
Days gone by...
Aging Matt Damon GIFGiphy"Ageing. I'm content with death but the idea of my body growing old, frail and eventually falling apart before the end game gives me goosebumps."
EvidenceOfInnocence
Bursts
"Gamma ray bursts. No warning, no escape, no defense, no survivors."
Swampwolf42
"If you're talking about supernovas if the star isn't too close the gamma burst would probably only destroy some part of our ozone layer. And gamma radiation is actually the least lethal out of all types of waves."
Broccoli_sauce24
Sizzle
"Entropy. Time shall consume all things. Inevitable heat death of the universe."
Revolutionary_Elk420
"I personally want the 'Big Crunch' to be true. That instead of fizzling out it all gets sucked back into an infinitely small/dense particle and then another Big Bang happens. It’s my explanation for the multiverse. It’s all one timeline. Just infinitely long."
ChoppyWAL99
They're Watching
"More like a theory, the 'orangutan paradox,' when we film a documentary on orangutans, they can’t realize that we are observing them, yet they are the most intelligent species of their category, so aliens might be watching us and we are as oblivious as an orangutan."
Time_Succotash
Fade 2 Silent
Listen Scooby Doo GIF by MashedGiphy"That hearing is the last sense to leave, when dying."
User Deleted
Well that is the antithesis of comfort. Life is so fun.
Redditor Ebo8000 wanted to know:
"What is your most controversial take on Star Wars?"
Doors
"LASERS LOCK DOORS. LASERS OPEN DOORS. LASERS KNOW WHAT YOU WANT THE DOOR TO DO."
- SlamVanDamn
"But if you get past the door and close it behind you and you don’t want anyone to follow you through it…"
"…you shoot the bloody door panel!"
- treeonwheels
"Also, f*cking hell, we're in the future (or in the past), whatever, and people have better technology."
"Why put the door control RIGHT NEXT to the door? Put the door control system in a breaker box."
"Build every door so in case of malfunction they all shut closed (after all, they're in space and you don't want to lose air in decompression, do you?)"
"Shoot the breaker box, now the whole floor is closed until someone can figure out what happened."
"Almost look like those doors just exist as dramatic elements..."
- smegma_yogurt
GiphyThe Past
"I’d like a film about when the Republic was at its height. 1,000 generations is 25,000 years and we’ve had 9 movies about the last 60."
- Musickat18
The Future
"Not sure if controversial but they need to take the franchise and yeet it 200 years in the future."
"I'm tired of the Empire era where they need to justify why more than 2 Jedi and 2 Sith exist at one moment alongside knowing everything is pointless until Luke leaves the farm."
- Alandrus_sun
Design Fail? No!
"The Death Stars weren't badly designed they were just badly managed."
"Yes, designing them assuming large scale assaults was stupid given the political state of the galaxy but the second Death Star wasn't even finished so that doesn't count, it's all Palpatine's fault. As for the first one that was finished, the Alliance made three runs on the exhaust port."
"The first was called off before they made it to the trench, the second failed and the third was carried out by space Jesus which isn't exactly fair."
"All in all it sounds like a fairly effective defence when you consider the design philosophy."
- Engeneus
GiphyCool Factor
"The entire universe has a cool factor that outweighs the atrocious storytelling."
- Ozty
"Bro imagine the following movies, but if they were in Star Wars universe."
"Magnificent 7 - A Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Ex-Imperial, Pilot, Wookie, a Droid, and Lawman team up to defend a town against pirates"
"Dredd - Two Jedi climb up an apartment block to confront a new dark side user who has mental control of the entire apartment block"
"Supernatural (T.V. Show) - A Jedi and their apprentice go around and solve and defeat Dark Side Force spots—where the Force consolidates from emotions and creates foul creatures to fight"
"Top Gun - But it's you know, Wedge or something"
"Ford versus Ferrari - But it's podracing or swoop racing"
- BoutsofInsanity
Ships
"Something about the ships in the original series always felt more like real ships than in any of the later movies, despite the objectively better effects of the later films."
"Some of this is probably the use of models (i.e. actual three dimensional objects), but I think there is some critical difference in the design that makes them feel more real (probably because they were designed to be things that would actually work as models)."
"Whatever it is, I LOVED the ships in the original series and never really liked any of the new ones."
- UnspecificGravity
"The original trilogy changed the world by showing a universe in space that was dirty and lived in. The special effects from the later movies did not recognize this."
GiphyBoba who?
"Boba Fett is an oddly overrated background character, and even after watching The Book of Boba Fett, I don’t really care about him."
- imidoesonlyfans
"He was never a character. He was a cool helmet."
- JimPlaysGames
"He was a cool jetpack too."
- RipperFromYT
GiphyTime for the weather...
"Han is actually older than Obi-Wan due to Time Dilation."
- Snowbofreak
"Time dilation in a universe where every planet and moon has the same gravity and atmosphere?"
- suman_issei
"And just 1 biome."
- DogShampoop
"That way they only need one Weather Channel per planet."
- The_Most_Superb
"And over to Klaatu for the Tatooine weather report. Klaatu?"
"It's still sunny."
- Budsygus
GiphyThese are the droids we're looking for.
"Star Wars is actually the life story of C-3PO—think about it."
- jonguy77
"I disagree. I think its R2-D2's story. He had a much greater presence in Episode 1, 2 and 3, and got the same amount of screen time as C-3PO in 4, 5 and 6."
‐ MacGregor_Rose
GiphyFan is short for fanatic.
"Fans ruined the whole franchise."
- SeaworthinessNo5209
Ouch...
So, did your controversial Star Wars opinion make the list?
Hollywood hasn't helped, as movies and TV have typically portrayed death as something sinister and violent.
How could anyone be convinced death is a peaceful transition, and that what awaits on the other side is actually an unimaginable utopia?
Curious to hear strangers' thoughts about death, Redditor GoodNess2020 invoked a quote by an iconic literary figure and asked:
"Mark Twain once said, 'I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.' Why do you agree/disagree with his statement?"
People clarified what actually terrified them most about death
The Process
"I don't fear being dead. I fear dying."
– magicbluemonkeydog
"Yeah, that's usually the issue. It's why that quote doesn't mean much, to a lot of people."
"It's not a fear of eventually dying and not existing anymore. It's the act of dying itself. He didn't constantly die for all of time. He just wasn't alive."
– appleparkfive
Concept Of Loss
"To have not existed for billions of years is to have spent billions of years never knowing loss. To die is to know loss."
"If you look into a new bank account and see zero dollars, it’s nothing. If you look into a bank account that once had a million dollars and see there’s nothing in there, you’ll know it’s absence."
– -CrestiaBell
People provided an analogy to articulate what ceasing to exist must feel like.
It's About Time
"Time is only relevant to you when you are alive. He is right. Have you ever been sedated for surgery? You go under, and then instantly wake up and procedure is done.... or you died so no worries."
– 20190419
Consciousness Is Life
"You won’t be feeling anything in death though is the thing. That infinite/instant sensation was a living feeling, you just weren’t conscious for it - your body experienced it anyways. No body, no experience."
– Parradog1
Like Being Under
"That is very true, but for me, that's the closest amalgamation of what it probably feels like."
"No one can tell you what actual death will be like. It's impossible for you to experience nothingness."
"Thinking about death can be paralysing sometimes, and when I remember that the closest thing i can link as an experience I had, being put under, was actually sort of pleasant. I then think maybe death will be like that, and honestly it doesn't seem that bad."
– IamEclipse
When In Deep Sleep
"Yeah in contrast to sleep where you can actually feel like time has passed when you wake up."
– GreyFoxMe
Think Line Between Death And Slumber
"As CGPGrey puts it, your bed might very well be a suicide machine."
"Given our lack of understanding for the fundamental processes of our sentience, it's entirely possible that when you fall asleep, your mind is functionally killed, disassembled, analyzed, sorted, tweaked, and adjusted by your biology, before being reassembled when you wake. Every night."
– Mazon_Del
People opened up about their insecurities around the concept of death.
Fear Of What Comes Next
"I’m just paranoid that something does happen after death and it’s just based on one thing that you didn’t know about."
– PsychoDog_Music
The Circle Of Death
"There’s nothing to fear in oblivion. Unless, of course, your consciousness survives death. If so, it would be reasonable to fear the sensation of consciousness without senses, suspended alone in the cosmos, with no one to hear you, and no way to make yourself known. No reference point for counting time – a count that does not matter anyway in a literal eternity."
"You might wish that you still had a corporeal form, only so that you could make your mouth move to express your terror, to make the universal form of a terrified scream – the form of a letter O."
"But you won’t be able to. You just won’t!"
"This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Brought to you by shame, loneliness, and the letter..."
"O....."
– CecilSpeaksInItalics
When Faith Fails You
"what do you mean I'm going to hell?! I was a good person and attended church regularly!"
"Ah yes, but you failed to put a blue feather in your hat and then turn in circles the times praising God Almighty on the fifth Sunday after your twelfth birthday. To the pit with you!!!"
– phormix
There is an poignant episode from the Twilight Zone that brought me a sense of peace surrounding the concept of death.
Death was embodied by a handsome police officer who had been shot–played by a young Robert Redford–and begs to be let into the home of an elderly woman who had been living in perpetual fear of meeting "Mr. Death."
As the episode continues, she discovers much to her dismay that she welcomed Death into her home, but he warmly reassures her there is nothing to fear.
The episode ends with her finally offering her hand to Death after much protest, and they peacefully walk out together, arm in arm, into the light.
It was sweet and beautifully done. The 1962 episode was titled, "Nothing in the Dark."
That's how I imagine it to be.
A dashing Prince of Darkness telling me it's time to join him in guiding me to the other side.