What does having a will to live even mean? I understand will to survive. I have felt that before. Is a will to live something you are born with? Acquire? Can you lose it? To me, I guess it means the things that keep you from taking a flying leap off of an office building. I have a few things that have kept me alive the past 17 years:
1. My selfishness
2. My selflessness
3. My ridiculously large ego
4. Food…
5. My fear
6. My humor
7. My patheticness
8. And food
9. The powers that be
10. My yearning for success
You are probably wondering a few things like “are half of these even words” or “food?”. Maybe even “umm…what about family and friends?!” Well let me explain my dear confused readers. First a flash to the past: I have tried to commit suicide in the past, thrice. That is where the powers that be came in, it didn’t happen. Maybe I didn’t want it enough, but I certainly tried hard enough. It was after the whole abuse situation. If you want to investigate that situation go to my post Abuse: Behind the Scenes.
Anyways, so that explains the powers that be. Now for the selfishness, everytime I am struggling and feeling the need to “drift off”, I think about my future. I want to go to college. I want to follow my dreams and own businesses and be rich. What if I was supposed to become a millionaire?! What if I won the lottery but the day before I had a really tough time and decided to end it. I think that the fact that I am semi-optimistic, an opportunist, and selfish kept me alive today.
The second part is my selflessness. I know that I’m not supposed to be selfless and selfish, but I make the rules here so… Anyways, when I think about not being alive anymore, I think of my family. I always wonder what they would do without me, for example I’m afraid my sister would blame herself and I don’t want to do that to her. Would she move on? Would she hate herself? I remember once we had gotten in a fight, I went upstairs and laid on the floor by the door and eventually fell asleep. She went to open the door and hit me with it. She closed the door and went downstairs and when I got up and followed after a few minutes she was really shaken up. I can’t remember exactly, but she said she thought I was dead, or hurt myself. So I imagine if that was what had really happened, she would be distraught. Another thing, I know a lot of people who commit suicide do it because they believe they are a burden and that if they died, the people would be better off. Well I can’t think that. I sometimes think I am a burden and she would be better off, but that isn’t my decision to make for her. Also, when someone dies, their problems don’t just dissipate. All of that person’s issues and heartache distribute to their loved ones. That is the most selfish thing a person can do, I believe. I am not one to dump my problems on others and I am not willing to make other people’s decisions. I suppose my stubborness has also kept me alive!
One of my other things that has kept me going is my HUGE ego. A lot of people are thinking “Oh whatever…can’t be that big.” No. Its huge. Once when I was in a very depressive state, someone had asked me if I was going to attempt suicide. I turned around and replied “I wouldn’t want to rob the world of me!” Yeah…suicide would be non-existent if everybody just adopted my ego…there is a lot to go around. My humor is also something that has kept my head above water. I laugh at myself, irony, and the wrath of the gods and terrible luck that always finds me. My sister and I will have a great day, then something terrible happens, like we get into a car accident. Yes, it seems bad. As long as we find out that everyone is fine and a little while after the situation, we sit there and joke about how we can’t ever just enjoy the good things because something terrible will come and smack us in the head.
Food. I love food too much to go without it.
Fear- I have an irrational fear of the unknown. I am not afraid of death itself at all. Death is natural, just like birth. I am terrified of after though. I am not afraid of nothingness. I don’t want to go to a heaven or hell. I don’t want to be reborn and go through the struggles of living in another form. I just want to be gone. Thats it.
My patheticness is less of what keeps me alive, and more what prevents me from dying. I am too sentimental. I am too rational. Everytime suicide pops into my head, all of these reasons flood in and I just can’t do it. I am glad I can’t do it.
Everyone has something that keeps them going. They have their wills to live. Sometimes we lose whatever we were living for, kids, siblings, parents, friends. But that’s when we just have to find something new. Everyone has a will to live even if they don’t think about it. The first step to surviving and making the first thing that you live for, yourself. You can never lose yourself. Times get tough. Some just want to fade away into nothingness and think everyone would be better for it. Maybe your daughter died and your world is dark. Yes, it would be easier to slip into the shadows and end the pain. You know whats harder? Getting up and going out there and living for you and the peoples lives who you will touch. Your daughter died? Well the same thing happened to someone else that you will cross paths with, share your story and ignite her will to live. You will change her life forever. You can’t do that if your dead. Sometimes its bigger than us. We just have to figure that out.
Teen Resilience 