Hi. I am a teenager in need of desperate help. I have a huge fear of dying. Now I know this is a common fear but this is literally taking over my life I'm beginning to question my sanity. I always have this feeling that I have a terminal disease and although my doctor proves the contrary I still think I'm going to die tomorrow. I think its called hypochondria? Yeah and my family tells me to get over it and I have had various panic attacks I really can't enjoy life anymore... its always in the back of my mind. ALWAYS. Oh and they won't let me on antidepressants... and I'm 14... I'm scared I'll be like this forever :(

No, its called thanatophobia, fear of dying. Hypochondria is someone who is always sick.

I don't know how we can help you other then to say, get over it. Gosh you are only 14 and haven't you got other things to occupy your mind like school work, your friends, hobbies, your family who love you.

Focus on what you want to do with the rest of your life, continuing education. Do you want to go to university, have you chosen a field, an result in the adult world ?

At fourteen you don't enjoy life anymore. You have no idea at l4 what life is all about yet.

I've Been there. I remember the fear as if it were yesterday. I was about 15 at the time. Guess what. I'm 50 now and still kicking. I've even conquered cancer. Yeah, I beat it's a$$.

I understand and what my fear was, what is yours? Is it the pain? The finality?

One thing I ng I have learned over the years is that as soon as we are conceived in our mother's womb, the process of dying has begun. There is nothing we can do to prevent it. All you can do is live each day as your last. Enjoy every moment. When you wake up tomorrow be tankful you have been given another day.

Rest assured that this fear is only temporary. There will be many issues that become important enough in your life that you will soon forget you are afraid of dying.

For some it's a set of emotional situations such as seeing a dramatic death, in person or on TV, or hearing about it. For others it might actually be the wildly fluctuating hormones of puberty. Too much adrenaline or a combination of hormones, surging at times during the day. Or both hormones and emotions. When did you start menstruating? Do you have any moments in your life that strike you as very important on the subject of death? Can your parents' insurance afford to have your hormones tested? As others have said, you will grow out of it, however.

I didn't go through this, but I can remember spending a lot of time when much younger than you thinking about death. There were 3 times when I thought I was either dead or about to die. The one when I was about your age was when I slipped on ice, fell on my back, and had the wind knocked out of me. You can't breathe in, only out, and I looked up at the sky and thought "OK, this is it. In a minute I will be dead." Turns out it's a spasm of the diaphragm that goes away before you run out of the need for air.

So talk to us here! What are your thoughts? No one knows you here, and if family and doctors are tired of this, we will listen, even if some here might just say oh get over it. You will get over it when you get over it, but I don't think you can force it. You CAN try to keep busy with school and friends. You can do what I do whenever something overwhelms me, and that is study it. Talk here about what YOU think might be the basis for your fears, and start googling the subject.

What is your life, like, do you have social activities, how is your school.

Is tere times you do not think about it?

I think that any acute fear, whether it be death, storms, spiders, clowns, etc. that causes significant changes in one's life, is something to be taken seriously.

Fears affect people in different ways. Some can work through them, and for some, time eases the fear, but it still remains. Much like a pimple you figure you finally got rid of, and it keeps popping up now and then. Even though the pimple is smaller, it is still there.

But, like a pimple if left untreated, one pimple can get to the point where you are embarrassed to go out in public, or carry on with normal day to day activities without it feeling much bigger and uglier than it actually is.

It takes on a life of it's own, and it controls you.

Fear for one, and the worries and concerns and affects, affect no two people in the same way.

There has to be a reason for this fear you have, and you may need professional help in not only uncovering what has caused this, but how to cope and think and understand what you need to do, in order for this fear not to rule your life.

Please consider getting help to not only learn how to understand this fear, but how to control the overwhelming depressive thoughts that are controlling you.

@Jake. Do you mean 'chronic' which is a condition that never goes away, or 'acute', a condition that appears and then goes away.

Just wondering because it changes the context.