I always had a great fear of death without understanding why. Yet I feel uncomfortable addressing it. Thanks for your OP. Perhaps the WT upbringing has something to do with it. My gm focused on the worms in your body in the grave. And the bugs. My mom, however, also a born-in, had no great fear of death. The family business was a series of funeral homes. She played in the equipment, including open caskets. The very idea repulses me.
As I get older and my mom was in a nursing home before death, I fear the pain of before death. This makes sense combined with my years in agonizing facial pain.
The idea of not being conscious bothers me. This may be one reason why I chose not to kill myself during the pain which was not rational. There was no hope. I was merely stubborn. Sometimes suicide is rational. I also fear loneliness when dead.
I discussed this with friends and family. Not once did I think of the Witnesses. I must confess I never once, not even for a second, believed I would survive the big A. My identiifcation was with the panic stircken faces in the WT illustration who face thunderbolts, earthquakes, floods, the total wrath of Jehovah all at one time. Even as a child, I could feel myself falling into the earthquake crevices. The illustrations in the orange Paradise Lost book were most vivid. Heck, if I were born in a different time period, I would be presented to the cow or ox god/goddess as an offering. My infant self burned to death.
Christ's love was not present. I wonder if former Witnesses do have more problems dealing with the inevitably of death. One good thing appears. Now I believe that the big A is symbolic and not likely to arrive (I wrote yesterday of Pagels new book and the fact that John's prophecy about Rome completely failed) my death will likely be less dramatic and violent. We value life because it is fleeting. Eternal life on earth under the WT theocracy means eternal bondage and boredom.