We're all going to die. There I said it. It's something I often try to avoid thinking about. I live with an unhealthy fear of death. I pray there is an afterlife because losing this life would be a bummer. But one day, with enough therapy, I'll hopefully get a grip and accept the inevitable.... for something faaaaaaaaaar in the distant future. And when death does come knocking I pray my exit is painless, quiet and quick.
Although after following the reddit chain below my nerves are shot. It seems we all might be a little obsessed with death. People have some very creative and miserable ways to perish. Why we do think this way?
Redditor u/gravy_fetish was wondering about the final moments we'll all be facing one day, who feels likes sharing their thoughts on a final exit? It was asked..... What is the absolute worst way to die?Cast Away
Drifting in the middle of the ocean with no chance of rescue.
José Salvador Alvarenga unfortunately had to endure this fate. Survived though surprisingly after 14 months.
Caved
Occasionally I see news stories about people (often cavers) crawling into very tight spaces and being unable to get out and dying. I have an absolute terror of very tight confinement and am extremely claustrophobic. I'm having to look away from my computer just writing this. If I even think about the possibility of dying that way I have to get up and pace around the room.
On the Wheel....
Being broken on the wheel. I think it might even be worse than burning at the stake because of how long it takes. Basically they tied you to a wagon wheel and then smashed all your limbs with sledgehammer and then threaded the mangled wreck through the spokes like some bloody, moaning octopus and hung the wheel up in the public square until you died, which apparently could take days.
Cartoon Death
Being chained down in a vat of acid that's only just barely strong enough to disintegrate you at an incredibly slow rate.
The Roman Way
Crucifixion. The Romans were masters of torture, so they devised the cross as the ultimate torture punishment. Crucified prisoners would have to hold up their body to avoid being suffocated. It's like being slowly suffocated, but drawn out so you can physically feel yourself dying sometimes over the course of days. Plus, everyone gets to see your junk and bloody body.
Depleted Air....
I think being buried alive, running out of air and trying to escape only to drown in dirt is the one that scares me the most.
Ryan Reynolds did a movie about that called Buried, it was really good and made it hard for me to breathe safely on my couch.
Thought that was it....
I had complications after having my gall bladder removed, which included a massive bile (alkaline) leak into my abdomen, its was incredibly painful. By the time they figured out what was going on, and were taking me back into theatre, I had to hold my stomach as it was so swollen and the bile sloshing around while being wheeled on the stretcher was agony.
Melted....
lava GIF
Giphy
Lava.
For one, you don't sink. Since it's molten rock, it's more dense than your body. You'd hit the lava, submerge for a second, then pop back up. Meanwhile, your skin would start boiling off, and since your body is 80% water, you'd skid across the top of the lava like a droplet of water, your skin still burning, until eventually you explode in a fantastical flash of guts and blood.
The Bull....
Probably something to be said for the Brazen Bull, a method of execution so terribly that according to legend the king that commissioned it thought it was so terrible that he had the engineer who came up with it killed via the mechanism he made, because surely he was awful for having come up with it.
Basically it's a big metal tube you put a person in and then put it over a fire, so they roast to death.
WTF?!
Strapped down, rat in a bucket on your stomach and then hot coals placed atop the bucket to ensure the rat borrows away from the heat. What a horrible way to die.
Keep Eating...
Starvation. It's actually relatively difficult to starve to death, and is in no way a quick end. When faced with starvation, the body will burn through its fat stores for energy. Once that runs out, it will go for the muscle but, eventually, it's going to run out of options. The extreme lack of vitamins and minerals will likely lead to a severely weakened immune system. It might be this, as opposed to exclusively starvation, that eventually finishes you off as you would have little defense against all kinds of diseases.
Agony....
Third degree burns, sometimes people take a week or longer to die, in total agony.
Radiation sickness is still far worse.
Source: have read all the IAEA incident reports several times.
Edit: https://www.iaea.org/publications/search/topics/accident-reports?keywords=
Hard on the family....
My dad recently passed from creutzfeld jakob.
I'd say in his case it wasn't so terrible for him, he simply wouldn't notice how he slowly just... went away. Also it isn't painful at all.
It's hard on the family though, imagine Alzheimers disease but the whole thing goes down in something like 3 months.
One day he seemed to be doing okay next day he didn't know who we were, couldn't form a coherent sentence and didn't know how to use a spoon.
Rabies seems painful and miserable, totally agree.
Ok Hannibal....
Being flayed sounds pretty dismal. They cut your skin away from the circumference of the hips, peel it up over your torso, and then tie the skin off over your head, so you end up suffocating in a bag of your own skin. But while you hang there suffocating they throw salt and acid at the now exposed raw flesh of your body the entire time.
Titanic 2
titanic leonardo dicaprio GIF
Giphy
Trapped in a sinking boat at night.
Jim_Dickskinhttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/
One of the best articles I've ever read about a passenger ship sinking in the black sea in the 90s that went down with many people. Legitimately first hand account of chaos and terror.
up the what?!
Being impaled slowly on a hot metal poker, starting up the rectum.
My dad knew a guy whose sister was sold some screwed up drugs and died from an OD. He tracked the dealer down and beat them to death with a baseball bat akin to Lucille in TWD. He's doing life in prison.
the blood....
I'd have to say bleeding out. You're just sitting there, in pain, hoping someone can help you, dreading the moment of your death, and then you realize death would at least end the pain you're in, or you just lay there and cry about how there was so much you wanted to do with your life, how you had dreams you wanted to make a reality. You either welcome your death, hope for help, or just wish that you got to live your life to the fullest and look back on every decision you wish you didn't make. It's a combination of both physical and mental pain.
Tubing....
I've this recurring fear since I was little. Imagine a long tube that's slightly inclined, and closed on one end. It's just wide enough for you to fit. You are put hear first into the tube, your head is slightly below your feet, you cannot move, and it's completely pitch black. The tube is slowly filling up with water.
The Nasty.....
There are lots of particularly nasty diseases out there, but one of the worst I have seen is ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). You are completely lucid, completely cognitively intact, but you slowly lose control of all of your muscles. You lose the ability to move your mouth for speech or swallowing. You cannot swallow your saliva, it either falls out of your mouth, or down your throat. The only part of your body that you can control is your eyes. If you're lucky, someone will bring you a large alphabet board and you can look at each letter, and spell out words.
Some people are lucky and get a fancy Eye gaze communication board, but they are somewhat difficult to program, and have a learning curve. Your helper has to know how to set it up so that your eyes can be tracked. Eventually, you die because you lose the ability to make your diaphragm work, so you just cannot breathe, but you are conscious the whole time.
Top 10
Things in my top 10:
Chopped up by woodchipper feet first.
Killed by Crocidile/Alligator.
Sucked out of an airplane, & fall to your death.
Mauled by lion/bear/tiger/any big predator who will surely kill you for predatorial purposes.
Swarmed by rats or ants, & eaten alive.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
***WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SENSITIVE MATERIAL. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!***
I can't think of anything hilarious at the moment. Make us LOL.
Lady
Shocked Oh No GIF by Yêu LuGiphy"I have this friend, love him to bits, but his wife has a tendency of just constantly showing everyone pictures of their son at every social event. At the start it was understandable, but now I'm just like 'Lady, it's been two years; they're not going to find him.'"
UnoriginalUse
at 9am...
"Not the most morbid but I love Anthony Jeselnik’s story about his neighbor who has Alzheimer’s. 'One of my next door neighbors is a 90 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s. And every single morning at 9am he knocks on my door and asks me if I have seen his wife.'"
"'Which means that every single morning at 9am I have to explain to a 90 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s that his wife has been dead for quite some time. Now I’ve thought about moving. I have thought about just not answering my door in the morning. But to be honest, it’s worth it… just to see the smile on his face.”
dreagan021
Comedy?
"Why can't orphans play baseball? They don't know where home is."
GW2RNGR
"Why can't orphans play tennis? They get confused when they hear love."
JayDub506
People who make comedy are evil. LOL.
The Darkness
That 70S Show Reaction GIF by LaffGiphy"Dark humor is like food; not everyone gets it."
storm_the_castle
God Laughs?
"A Holocaust survivor dies and goes to heaven, where she meets God. To break the tension she tells God a joke about the Holocaust, but God doesn’t laugh. The lady shrugs and says 'I guess you had to be there.'"
“'I guess you had to be there' is a common expression used when someone doesn’t laugh at a joke. It means that the comedy may not translate without the context of the situation."
"In this case the Holocaust survivor is saying it, meaning that during the Holocaust God was nowhere to be found. It’s not really a joke about the Holocaust, but the absurdity of belief in a benevolent God. Hilarious right?"
semimillennial
Oh Baby
"How many dead babies does it take to fix a light bulb? More than 3 cause my garage is still dark."
sirnibs3
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Because I don't know what it says about us as people if we laugh. Oye.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor Liam_Tang asked:
"People who've divorced, aside from adultery, what were the irreconcilable differences that ended the marriage?"
You think you know a person when you walk down the aisle.
These Redditors were in for a rude awakening.
Pet Neglect
"My wife divorced her ex for many reasons, but the final straw was when she went out of town for a few days, and when she got back he had not fed or given water to the dog. The dog lived a long and happy life after that."
– StrangeCrimes
Obsessed With A Crush
"Not me, but I had an old coworker that divorced his wife for spending their entire savings on candy crush and games of the same type."
– Hexis40
Compatibility Musts
"ITT: Intimacy (sex/romance), beliefs (religion/spirituality/politics), kids, and I haven’t seen it yet but it’s coming: finances."
"The big four. You REALLY need to discuss these things in detail BEFORE getting married."
– rabbiskittles
Physical violence is a legit reason for people to peace out of a relationship.
The Flattening
"She threatened to hit me with a hammer."
– michaelrohansmith
Hitting The Bottle
"She became an abusive alcoholic. It was sad but I had to get out."
– diegojones4
Emotional pain is too damaging to recover from.
Truth Hurts
"She told me as we stood in front of the judge ending our 7 year marriage, 'I never loved you, I just wanted kids.'"
– Pinch_Dogs
Can't Fix Angry
"She was beautiful/smart but an angry angry person. I thought I could be sweet to her and 'fix' that. Heh. She kicked the crap out of me emotionally. Wife II has been a walk in the roses for 32 years now :)"
– lowlandr
A change of heart is worthless if comes too late.
"We Could've Had A Nice Marriage
"He could not understand that my wants and needs were as important as his wants and needs. We tried to make it work for 7 years. During that time, for things that were really important to me, I tried explaining logically, asking nicely, begging, crying, yelling, passive aggressiveness... cycled back through all of these options multiple times."
"(If I knew something was important to him, I would do that. For example, he was really into sports, so I went to all his events, even though that is not at all my thing.) When I finally threw up my hands and told him it was time to get a divorce, he suddenly panicked and said 'What can I do? Do you want me to do half the chores? I'll do it! Do you want me to get a job? I'll do it! Do you want me to buy you presents for your birthday? I'll do it!'"
"So, in other words, he could have been doing that all along, but just couldn't be bothered. That made me so angry. We could have had a nice marriage that we both enjoyed, but no, by the time he saw the light, that ship had sailed."
"We are both happily remarried now (to different people) and I joke that his new wife owes me a thank you note. It was his experience with me that taught him to listen to her and take her needs seriously."
– Bluebird-True
"What Can I Do?"
"My ex was exactly like this. I didn't marry him but when I told him let's break up, he went all like, what can I do? Let's get engaged, let's look at houses, etc. Basically all the pre-marriage topics that we should be discussing about after being together for 7 years."
"I got so angry and straight up told him it's too late... I don't need you anymore."
– gudetarako
As much as a couple wants to stay together, unforeseen circumstances can eventually tear people apart.
Very few people can maintain healthy long-distance relationships.
When a new job opportunity takes a significant other away, would you begrudge them for wanting a better position to earn more money? Or is it better for them to reluctantly turn down the opportunity so they could stay with you? Do either scenarios breed resentment?
These were questions I've often asked myself with past relationships, and my answers varied depending on the person I was with.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.