Although I certainly understand why many quit, I suggest never ever quitting. No, not talking about banging our heads against brick walls just so we are not quitters. Instead, I am talking about an overall general attitude of never quitting. Things do change, no matter how bad they seem at the moment.
I have had the moments of giving up, more so in the past. I know what it feels like to have had such a hard life that giving up seems like the only way out of the misery and suffering.
Life has only gotten harder and the more I have struggled, the more I have decided never ever will I quit. There is too much value in living to quit, even if I don’t see it at the moment.
Today, I can safely say that I do see it. I see the value of myself, I see the value of life, I see the value of mankind. Through all the yuck and the muck, there is still tremendous value.
Chronic illness is a time for many to question the value of their lives. We can be reduced to what feels like a blob of nothingness. Our bodies only function enough to keep us alive in the misery. Our minds are shot from brain fog and depression. Our spirits can no longer be lifted. Or so it seems.
I have been there in the depths of chronic illness so deep that I was given up for dead. I am here today, alive and well, to say that until you are no longer breathing, there is hope.
It does not have to be the hope that is obvious. It can be a vague sightless hope. Your body mind and soul can be revived.
Many have watched me struggle and given me up for dead. I never gave up, well, not completely. Had a lot of bad dark scary thoughts during it and questioned death several times during life-threatening crashes. But the will to live kept prevailing.
You will see me struggle, but you will never see me quit.
Chronic illness itself can be traumatizing. Between our bodies getting beat up by disease and our minds diminished with despair, and what people can do to us (or not do) that attack and degrade us, we are left traumatized.
I know how awful it can be. Add a lifetime of other traumas on top of illness and it can be the end of hope. Or, we can choose to see above all the circumstances and never quit.
Think about Winston Churchill during WWII. It had to have looked hopeless to him and his countrymen. No matter how bad it got, Churchill was able to stay focused above the circumstances and see hope.
Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
~ Winston Churchill
The force of chronic illness may feel bigger than we can handle. I am here to tell you it is not. There are many others who have overcome the depths of illness and disease.
Yes, it is a struggle beyond reason but you don’t have to quit trying to move through it instead of getting stuck in it.
Maribeth Baxter
