To ask the hardest thing you have ever been through

Same.

The biggest thing for me is so insignificant compared to these. I fell very blessed all of a sudden.

My divorce.
Very nearly broke me to be honest. Looking back I don't know how I got through it. I lost my home due to his parents owning it.
Proud of the fact I gathered up some strength to sort my dogs and everything in the house that I had paid for and got packed up and moved whilst he was at work.
The awful days going through the most awful shitty behaviour from him.
I trusted him totally and never thought he would ever cheat on me. He became a person I didn't recognise. The trauma of it all still lives me now.

Holding my Mum's hand as she died of sepsis after a sudden hospital admission.

Kissing my Dad's cheek when I went to see him in the morgue.

The pain of infertility although I'm glad I never had kids with my ex.

My daughter being bullied at secondary school which lead to self harming. Sitting on her bed, whilst she's holding a blade out of a pencil sharpener, begging her not to cut herself and having her tell me that she didn't want to be here anymore. I felt so helpless,I didn't know what to do.

Don’t usually comment on here (more of a lurker) but some of these are so sad and I’m so sorry for you all.

For me it was being sexually abused as a child by my ‘father’. The trauma has meant I’ve struggled all my life with relationships and I hate myself for allowing him to ruin my life.

Reading some of these, my troubles don't seem so big but the hardest thing I've gone through so far is my DH having a mental breakdown shortly after we got married. I hadn't been expecting it and didn't know what to do. This was before we had DC and it's been easier at times but mostly quite hard. Poor mental health comes in waves and I've been left to pick up the pieces and keep things afloat. At one point I was working two jobs almost every day just to pay the bills and it was like DH didn't even notice it.

Terrible post natal depression in which I nearly killed myself and then thought about killing myself and my child. Then finally plucking up the courage for number 2, 3 years to conceive and then found out my baby was ectopic. I have had so much counselling and meds but truthfully I lost part of myself that day.

I've been through similar. I wish you strength and love. X

Having to tell my kids (aged 10 & 14) that their dad had died. We were separated but on good terms, he died by suicide. No-one could believe it as he showed no signs. Devastating for everyone, my son still struggles with him not being here.

Bless you and your beautiful preemie. She sounds amazing and strong, as do you. I was 3 months premature in 1981, and we DO amount to something. We're fighters 👏❤️

@Goodtogossip same situation here with my mum, admitted to hospital feeling a bit unwell and died 12 days later of liver cancer, no prior ill health, still not proceeded it 5 years on.

So, that and having to give birth to a baby I knew was dead, induced on a Friday and had him at 6.22pm on the Sunday, was horrific as I was in the labour ward with others who had live babies, I never forget the taxi man who picked us up asking if I'd had a boy or girl, it broke me for many years.

My Mum finding out she had terminal cancer & dying a week later. We had no time at all to process anything & then had her funeral to arrange.

wow that must have been so hard 🤯 I cannot even imagine! ❤️

So many things
my alcoholic/addict mum hating me from an early age and tearing the whole family apart and still trying to do so some 40 years on
my sister dying in her care from an overdose 💔
having a missed miscarriage at 22 weeks and giving birth
my own mental health - and how low I’ve been and very dark thoughts
watching my son struggle this past year with his own MH
all this has changed me especially my sister -
but I am still here, I smile and I am grateful every day that I am still here
the old saying life goes on is true - it may not go on the same but it does go on x

My husband having 2 strokes over 3 months which left him disabled and brain damaged and having to grieve, adapt to looking after him and learning to cope with everything on my own. People don’t understand that it’s like a death, as I lost him, but had to carry on with a very different version. He’s mentally & physically about 20% of the person he was. It’s still hard 3 years later but we’ve adapted. (Adapt or die!) Little or no help from his daughters either. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Miscarriage and now infertility diagnosis

This thread is making me count my blessings this morning. Hugs to all of you

We had a year of horror in 2022. A bad accident, our dd got badly attacked, an awful family court case with dh's ex wife, I got made redundant and half our new house burned down. All of that in the space of 9 months. It was pretty horrendous and tbh it's taken this long to start getting over it.

Earlier in my life my first husband had an affair with my best friend. That was also pretty horrendous and knocked me for six.

But what I've come to realise is that life is like a wheel of fortune. Sometimes you are at the top, sometimes at the bottom, but it always turns, however slowly. And you are more resilient than you think you are.

To the ladies here that have lost children, I'm so incredibly sorry. I don't think anything in the world could be worse than that, you deserve all the peace and happiness in the world 🥺

I had to make the decision to amputate my son's leg when he was just 1 years old. I was a 21 year old, single mother and it's single handedly the hardest thing I've ever gone through - it was a very lonely time. But he's 4 now, wears a prosthetic leg and does amazing. Just me left with the trauma 🫣

Too many bereavements very close. Mum (53) husband (37) in short space of time to agressive, fast cancers, then best friend (car crash) and another close friend heart attack. 20 years ago, a very dark time. Dad passed 10 years before mum (43).

I've been SA and I've got divorced, my brother has had cancer, and I've had a spell of depression, but I think the hardest thing was having a difficult birth.

Pre-eclampsia, and I was rushed into theatre for a C-section, and I was shaking so badly because it was very scary, but then I had to have a GA because of a drug the labour ward gave me (I can't say what it was), and I was put ti sleep and then I was told they couldn't rouse me after. DD was 2lbs 3 oz. I eventually came round and my wound really fucking hurt. But they later wheeled me to the incubator and I disassociated, because of the way she arrived.

Then the breastfeeding nurse kept harassing me for milk and despite my very best efforts I didn't have any, only a few drops, so I had to persuade her and the ward leader to put her on formula, and they made me feel like a failure for asking. I cried a lot.

Whilst I was doing all the practical things a mum should be doing I didn't feel much love towards her. It came much later when doctors effectively told me she wouldn't amount to much because she was 8 weeks early. At an assessment one doctor made negative noise because of what we both did for a living. There was supposed to be a follow up appointment but I refused to go because I wasn't going to go out if my way to be judged on my class or working life. My HV said I was making poor choices and said it might be in part because I'm a first time mum who had unrealistic expectations of the health service and of my daughter. I said pre-eclampsia happens to women of all social classes and to bog off.

Anyway, at about a year old she started at nursery and flourished. She had no noted SEN, just slightly delayed. By the time she started school she was doing very well, and in fact her teacher asked me if she had a tutor (at 5?). I said no. Academically she flew, and got 8 GCSEs. She coming to the end of her A' levels now and is predicted As and Bs. Socially she's got loads of friends and goes out every Friday with them. She speaks up for herself and her friends despite being shy. I'm very proud of her and feel like I was justified in my decision making. I still don't see myself as "mum" but a parent, like that makes a difference somehow. The way she came will always affect both of us but it's acknowledged, and I'm at peace with it.

Being made homeless through ex husband, getting a divorce, having to re-train for a new career at uni to get off benefits, whilst working and parenting full time. It was hard having to burn the candle at both ends just to make ends meet. I hardly ate, but made sure the children did, I was as thin as a rake. But you have to do what you have to do to improve your circumstances.

Then having parents that constantly criticized me for my circumstances, they wouldn't come to visit me because i was living in rented accommodation. I had a sister that was happy when I had nothing, as soon as I started to get back on my feet again, she was very critical too. I walked away and now don't have to worry about their comments any more.

❤️

Fleeing the ex 25 years ago and the aftermath of domestic abuse

Sexually abused at 6/7 years old, raped at 18 years old, daughter born Stillborn, I'm severely depressed, just been diagnosed with an incurable liver disease, dad died in lockdown, I held his hand and watched him take his last breath. I could list more, but it would be terribly outing if anyone who knew me read it. There are days I don't want to go on, but I have a gorgeous teenager, and that's my reason to carry on. Every time I go through a Trauma I think there must be something wrong with me, that it keeps happening. X