My Will To Live

Imagine a disease that destroys your will to live. You could say there are many diseases that can do that, especially chronic disease and during the late stages of a disease such as cancer, aids, lugarettes disease, etc. Many at this late stage of their disease have no quality of life, constant pain and torment, agony and no possibility of ever recovering; do get to the point of just wanting to die.

But I want to talk about something a little different, a disease which once you get it, you start loosing your will to live. In fact one of the symptoms of the disease is , loosing your will to live. As devastating as all other diseases are, neither have loosing your will to live, has a symptom. But the disease I am referring to is clinical depression; the inability to want to live or the will to live is one of the main symptoms of this disease.

Clinical depression is the more- severe form of depression, also known as major depression or major depressive disorder. It isn’t the same as depression caused by a loss, such as the death of a loved one, or a medical condition, such as a thyroid disorder. It’s a change that takes place within the brain, having to do with certain mood- regulating chemicals called neurotransmitters that do not work properly. Environmental factors may trigger clinical depression but are not the cause.

Loosing the will to live is not a normal human reaction; we were born to live, it’s our natural instinct to survive. But to loose that will has to be an illness, a sickness, an abnormal reaction to a brain that is broken. And I know this because I live this! There are days when my will to live is questionable. That doesn’t mean I’m suicidal but my illness is so overwhelming at times that my will to live is diminishing. I am so tired and frustrated that I sometimes loose that will to live.

You may say, ‘ but you have so much to live for and you could list them off. But I don’t hear you and my illness as somewhat distorted my thinking and my mind as already decided what I believe. But  I cannot give up there, if I did I would die. I have to realize that this is my illness talking; not me. I know I have so much to live for and eventually this torment will pass. I just have to hang in there and fight for my will to live.

This was one blog I did not want to publish. It is a topic that is so private and personal but by not sharing it would serve no purpose. But if I did tell it like it is, then I would help someone who as lost their will to live and maybe show them that we can regain that will to live with time and endurance. Never give up. God loves you and so do I. This illness may have stolen so much from us and at times made our lives unbearable, we will survive! I have to believe that by faith because in my human strength I see no way. And some days, that’s what I’m doing; surviving! But I want to do so much more then survive, I want to LIVE!