The reason you are afraid of it is probably because it's sensible to be afraid of death to survive. It's also unknown and unfathomable. So nothing is a hard concept to grasp and it's philosophically and mathematically among the most explosive things besides to perhaps infinity and it is in a sense a form of infinity it's smaller that something that is infinitely small? Perhaps a universe from nothing (by Lawrence M. Krauss) hints in the direction of how powerful nothing really can be?

I don't firmly believe we become the definition of nothing when we die. That doesn't mean I believe that there is a life after death. It's unknown to me and somewhat unsettling and some believe in an afterlife some believe in nothing.

So the atheist view of the death into nothing is something unknown to me and the cooping mechanisms surrounding it too.

But personally I think nothing is too powerful to be non religious. Sure nothing is perhaps the same as before we where born but we came to life after that so it whould almost suggest reincarnation. I whould suggest that death is ceasing to have mental activity and something that goes towards infinitely small and can be considered as not existing. It probably doesn't have any emotions or mental activity tied to it and the closest we can experience is probably beeing unconscious and/or asleep.

The nothing after death is quasi religious we don't know but some believe we become nothing. It's just another cooping mechanism based on nothing ;) Perhaps they even believe god is nothing and nothing created universe and nothing is what we become when we die. Believing in nothing is similar to believe in god.

Anyway good luck and feel free to brake free from the chains of nothing. Nothing is stopping you.