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Decreasing the Fear
You’re Going to Die But Not Me follows a psychologist as she draws on research, faith, philosophy, grief, and dark humor to transform her lifelong terror of nonexistence into an honest relationship with mortality. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Writing the book became a way for me to deal with my rumination. Seriously, I found myself thinking (read: dreading) about my mortality every day, several times every day.
How did your experience as a psychologist shape the way you investigated your own mortality anxiety?
I can say a couple of things about this. First of all, feelings want/need to be expressed. If we don’t find some way of expression, they rattle around in the container of our head, bouncing around with nowhere to go. There are several ways of expressing, and writing sure is one. Also, a general psychological concept is that when we avoid what we fear, the fear grows. The antidote to that is approach. So the decision to dive in with both feet was my way of not avoiding. Also, writing the book became what I see as a course of “exposure therapy” for me: safely, gently, and kindly exposing myself to the fearful stimuli (DEATH) with the hope and intent of decreasing the fear.
Which philosophy, religious tradition, or scientific theory most challenged your existing beliefs?
I would say I was more fascinated than challenged. For sure, my examination of the way various religions dealt with death and the afterlife was, well, too far-fetched and also sometimes too icky and scary. I did find that after researching the literature on near-death experiences, my skepticism ticked down a notch or two.
How did you decide when humor would illuminate the subject of death rather than diminish its seriousness?
I really don’t think there was much of a conscious decision involved in when to use humor. I do believe in the whole “spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down” theory in general. And humor just seems to spring out of me, often at inopportune times. So, it just seemed to happen organically.
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What makes the journey unforgettable is her own presence at its center: a candid, self-aware narrator wrestling with her fear of annihilation, punctuating deep research with stories that are as tender as they are illuminating. This is not just a meditation on mortality, it’s an enthralling quest for meaning, brimming with emotional honesty and intellectual daring. Scott’s voice is the rare guide who can make you laugh while asking you to face the abyss, and leave you strangely grateful for the view.
