Discussion Has anyone lost the will to live and gotten it back?

[Done_With_It_All]

I have bi-polar major depression. I had an episode that led to me making 2 suicide attempts in 3 months. The 2nd one was because I lost purpose and meaning in life. Has anyone ever refound purpose in life again that is not religion?

 

[juna]

I had. I lost my desire to live some 8 years ago, then I decided to study abroad and that was my goal. So, I postponed dying for a few years. I had fun at least for 1.5 years after that. Now, I have completed my study and working, and I have lost my will to live again. You just need to find a goal and work towards that. For me, I don't think I have any goal I want to do, so I am doomed for now at least.

 

[carac]

I seem fluctuate up and down. From my perspective I believe the main purpose in life is to find a soulmate, somebody to love who loves you in return. I duno if this is just a natural instinct to procreate or something deeper. I have never found this for varying reasons so a lot of my life has just felt like a cope. Like I enjoy video games, they can give me a purpose but it's more like a distraction. I have family and friends, work, hobbies, pets they all give me some level of purpose but it still seems like I am missing something.

I think I have always felt like this ever since the age of 13 when I started doubting religion and discarded it.

 

[tbroken]

It happened to me also, but unfortunately I'm heavily traumatized and scared. I really fear ppl and situations, is not easy at all. It is not caused by bullies or similar, but to trauma and failure I had in the past. I faced strange situations and I don't want the same to happen again.
I need strong and open minded ppl around me, otherwise i close my self and I don't do nothing.
Society is a great pos and ppl are easily manipulated and they can wrong you.

 

[LittleCupcake]

I lost mine when I was a child, I only was living for the hopes I die in an accident or murdered by my brother. I really didnt have a will to live, it was the only thing I could do. Now thats changed and theres a way out and it's becoming possible to ctb so why not do it?

 

[Hollowman]

I've lost it and got it back many times. One of the quacks diagnosed me with bipolar but I'm still not sure. I don't have much advice other than try to wait it out.

 

[AbandonedApe]

I'm currently 31 and I have lost and once again found the will to live several times in my life now. I have one somewhat self preserving aspect to myself which is that I usually want to make the most of the time left when I feel suicidal. Typically this is self destructive, and has usually involved heavy drug use, but because every time I've wanted to die I wanted some last enjoyment out of life, I often went down this slow self destructive path, postponing my desire to attempt, during which time enough time elapsed that for one reason or another I found some hope again and improved.

On the flip side, I feel with each time I return to suicidal thoughts that they occupy more and more of my mind and I find myself planning and working out the potential details of my demise all the more. So I feel it's a tricky battle. On the one hand the fact that I have come out the other side of these feelings and been able to enjoy my life again before gives me hope I can do so again, but on the other hand I feel that the pull of the abyss is getting stronger and so it's harder each time. I want to get better, I desperately want that, but I am uncertain if I can keep fighting this.

 

[KafkaF]

I have bi-polar major depression. I had an episode that led to me making 2 suicide attempts in 3 months. The 2nd one was because I lost purpose and meaning in life. Has anyone ever refound purpose in life again that is not religion?

Back in 2010 is the first time I really wanted to die for a long period of time. But then I met my first girlfriend. She made me want to live again.

After we broke up I lost the will to live again. Then I started getting better in my social anxiety and failure anxiety, started being able to go to school again, found a new girlfriend, etc. and I regained my will to live in 2016.

Then I lost it again in 2020 when my third girlfriend broke up with me and I had to drop out of college due to my mental illness.

Then I found it again at the end of 2022 when I met my previous girlfriend.

Then lost it again at the end of 2023 when she broke up with me. And now I'm here.

So I've lost and regained my will to live a bunch of times. So it's certainly possible.