Four years ago I lost the will to live. 

Same story told a thousand different ways at this point. Small town gifted kid, only real option is military after high school. Military life ends up being great in a lot of ways. I was so much happier. Time passes, axe drops, deployment to desert and spouse is unfaithful,... like I said same story. 

I lost everything. Each time I got knocked down I got back up and something outside of my control knocked me back down again. 

One day I wake up. This day is special. On this day, the fear of consequences of going AWOL is now outweighed by the desire to give up. So I stayed right in my bed. Got paperwork for that, but managed to stay out of major trouble until my contract was up. Then I just completely abandoned long-term concerns and lived only to distract myself with media. That was four years ago. I've been on autopilot since. Retreating as far away from the world as I can, because I finally gave into that desire to give up and it snowballed. And this was all before Covid. I've only managed to survive because I'm lucky enough to have a couple of caring family members.

I've been stuck. 

But the last year has been different, I've started to want to be happy again, thanks to an old friend. But I can't get myself to do the most basic steps for getting myself to the VA hospital to get counseling or medical help. (Family has a history of bi-polar depression, ad-hd, etc..) I can't even take care of myself, neglecting hygiene for weeks at a time, my room piles up with trash and dirty laundry. My daily life is endlessly searching for something else that will distract me enough to forget for a while. I'm 30!

It feels like I finally want to try again but I can't convince myself it's worth it. I've seen all the platitudes, all the support and motivation. Sunlight and a nice glass of tea aren't going to cure a lack of will to live. My daily 12 o'clock reminder to get 15 minutes of direct sunlight is proof enough of that. But I \*am\* setting a timer, and trying to get sun. I \*want\* to to be able to try again. I know there's a real chance I could take the risk again and it could work out.

But for every reason someone can conjure for me to try again I can come up with 10 reasons why I shouldn't. And every single person I talk to ends up at the same final attempt. "Well at some point you just have to decide to push through it or don't."

It is so very difficult to explain to some people that you already chose "don't". 

I need someone who's lost their will before to tell me how they convinced themselves.

I can't keep going on like this. Every day feels like an extended epilogue on my already finished story. I do what is expected, what will keep people from asking questions, what will keep them from worrying. 

I'm so tired of just surviving. I'm ready to be better. I'm ready to feel better.   
But if you offer me a choice between going out into the real world again or wasting away in my computer chair, I'm going to be in that chair.