AIBU to refuse to fight illness?

[GoodyGoodyGumdrops]

In my case: depression, various problems affecting my joints, and sugar addiction (maybe not a formal illness, but in terms of the effect it has on my body, my behaviour and my family life, I classify it as such).

I'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with the concept that I am 'fighting' to win the 'battle against', my illnesses. That I must 'beat' the illnesses.

More and more I think that what it's really about is coming to terms with the illnesses. Embracing them as part of me, in the way that I embrace my good skin and shiny hair.

Ultimately, these conditions are not like, say, an infection that can be cured by a course of antibiotics. They will be with me the rest of my life, whether flared up or quiescent, limiting me or not affecting me.

So why 'fight'?

Is acceptance equivalent to submission?

[pontefractals]

Having had both severe depression and aggressive (stage 3) breast cancer, I really take exception to people describing depression as "less serious". I worry more about a recurrence of my depression than about a recurrence of my cancer. Speaking personally, and other people may well feel differently, cancer attacked my body but depression attacked my self (and led to self-neglect that made me physically ill, too).