To ask the hardest thing you have ever been through

Being treated badly as a child and abandoned by parents left scars that I think have always held me back.

As an adult though I've had a pretty easy ride of it - I didn't have kids so I think I avoided potential hard times there.

My mum flying into a fit of rage and trying to strangle me when i was younger. The person i was back then just submitted without a fight, as she made me feel the most worthless piece of crap ever. That was just one of her many crimes against me, including regularly threatening to amputate my limbs with a meat cleaver.
She's never apologised, or acknowleged any wrong doing.
Deeply traumatised me - causing all manner of neuroses as i entered into adulthood. Also caused me lifelong sleep issues.

I think training to be an actor has been so wonderfully cathartic in enabling me to exorcise the demons.

Watching my dad die over a period of hours, after finding out the day before that he had cancer. He went to a&e on Wednesday and was dead 3 days later.

I've been through a lot, but the worst thing was my mum dying quite suddenly. I had a bit of a breakdown, and it took me years to get back to some level of normality.

I've also been through a divorce, and my dad recently died after a 5 year battle with cancer, with me as his sole carer. That's been extremely difficult. But I've felt more of a sense of relief because he suffered for such a long time.

The loss of a loved one is so painful and can take years to recover from but I don't think I would ever get over the loss of a child. I'm so sorry 💞

@Staggeredatthisadmission and yep one day you will realise you haven't thought about it that day - and the recovery starts

@Staggeredatthisadmission on a personal level we were very lucky as a similar but bigger business wanted us as part of their team immediately and offered us a very good deal - however the unravelling took several years and had a few repercussions as H refused for us personally to go bankrupt etc, and hence crashed our credit rating for quite a few years meaning by the time it was all sorted and we were doing well we couldn't get a mortgage over a reasonable period anywhere he wanted to live as we were 'too old' - hence why we rent - very lovely homes admittedly in a nice area.

In our case we actually had a decent business when it happened but a distributor went down owing us an awful lot- and we didn't have the money to take action as it was overseas.

It is unbelievably stressful and very upsetting too - but I learnt a lot about how not to do things and you do get past it - to be honest as we had something good to move onto it was actually a relief at the point I had to admit defeat.

Years of fighting council for support with disabled ds.
And the general isolation I felt being his parent all those years.

Sticking to the DNR when he was horribly ill.

To the parents posting about their teenagers with mental health issues - this resonates with me so I just wanted to post something in support. I was one of those teenagers at age 15/16. Suicidal, self harming, told my parents I wanted to die. I was being bullied horrendously at school among other things. But life did get better. My mum still remembers the first day she saw me come out of a new sixth form with a smile on my face. I'm 38 now and have a decent job, my own house and 2 lovely kids. My mum and I are closer than ever. I may always be prone to depression (I still take anti depressants now) but like I said things did improve, albeit slowly.

I'm just posting this because I know it was my mum's worst time of her life. I hope this gives some of you some hope.

Pancreatic cancer when I was 27 - two babies, one aged 1 and one 3 months. Horrendous.

I did it though 🙌

Dad killed himself when I was a teen. That wasn't the worst though although hard. The worst is what I'm going through now. Seriously unwell having fought for years with multiple severe illnesses. Months in hospital dealing with so much illness and physical torture.
Now had to give up care of child to their father ( so grateful for him ) because I'm so unwell. Child has various additional needs.
Don't leave the house or get dressed for weeks on end as the pain gets worse and I become more incapacitated. Cry endlessly all day begging for respite.

Being raped by exh & him trying to set the house on fire with me & ds in it. Watching my late dp drink himself to death & knowing it took him 6 hours to die drowning in his own blood as his lungs haemorrhaged.a

My Life

Losing my identical twin aged 4. Watching her cancer kill her slowly.

Watching what that did to my mum in particular, through a child's eyes.

Being bullied through school coz I was treated differently by all the adults, and because I was "different".

8 hours of labour with a spastic uterous that was missed.

Raising a disabled child...and always fighting for support.

Watching my dad slowly be robbed of his joy by cancer and age.

But...I have two great kids, a good job that I enjoy, a wonderful partner and some great friends. No matter how tough it seems, as Alanis Morrisette said...the only way out is through. To all those struggling...keep at it, it may not feel like it, but it will get better.

My mum died when I was ten
I’m 53 and still struggle but in 1982 there was no help. My dad was and still in selfish and abusive at 84 who married an equally abusive woman who has always cast me out but not my brother. I’ve never been allowed to mix with her family for instance and she tells a lot of lies about me.

my son was a code red crash c section, he was technically dead for 31 minutes.
He was eventually resuscitated and had brain cooling but suffered brain damage. It was hospital negligence and we went through a seven year legal case in the high court. We won though but his dad couldn’t cope and walked out and never looked back and I then got involved with a very a upside narcissistic arse which ended with beatings and his arrest, court case harassment and issues!!

last year I was misdiagnosed with a necrotising lung condition I was left two days in hospital thinking I was dying from this and in hell till the respiratory specialist saw me and said no it’s not that but it is an auto immune issue that I’m still fighting resulting in chronic pneumonia if I come off steroids all whilst trying to care for a now nearly -5 year old with brain damage.

How long did it take you to recover @Crikeyalmighty? I think I have PTSD as a result.

However, I am still so lucky compared to most on here.

Oh my god. I am so so sorry. Mam to mam, my heart breaks for you bless you

I’m so sorry to hear this…. I have a similar experience with my daughter, she is 21 now. It started five years ago. She has been diagnosed with BPD . It’s been absolutely awful for all of us. She was on CALMS list and never seen. We managed to pay a private practice, it almost bankrupt us. They were not much help. She got on the NHS because of sucide attempts.
Long and short is she’s much better at the moment. That’s all you can hope for.
Look for a book my Valarie Porr. Look to the states for help. They are way ahead of us.
good luck.

My eldest DC having anorexia then a drug addiction.
My youngest DC having what turned out to be autistic burn out and school refusing, withdrawn depressed self harming.
As the saying goes you are only as happy as your least happiest child but I thank god all my children are alive.

Reading these responses and the OP brought a tear to my eye. I don't think we ever give ourselves credit for how resilient and strong we are when we need to be. Life is hard. Being human is extraordinarily painful at times. I think you're all amazing and I'm sending each and every one of you a massive hug 🫂

Holding my 10 day old son while they switched off his life support machine and then burying him a week later. I still wish it was me and not him.

@Staggeredatthisadmission I went through this in 2007 and we rented- it's truly awful - I didn't sleep more than an hour or two a night for weeks - but as you say you read these and it outs it totally into perspective-

I've had hard times in my life -

Both of my children being diagnosed with lifelong illnesses 6 months apart.

Dealing with an alcoholic mother who left me alone at 17 to move to another country. It took me a long time financially to recover from having to live alone at 17 in college, it changed the course of my whole life.

dealing with the father of my children cheating when we had a newborn and leaving us for the OW and hideous abusive behaviour towards me from them both, I struggled even more so because I was post partum.

My grandad dying really affected me, he was like a father to me.

The hardest thing I have gone through though is my son going to live with his dad, I then found out I was pregnant and lost the baby (I think through stress) it was a truely awful time, I hated myself and it's taken me a good 18 months to start pulling myself out of that slump. In that time mine and my partners siblings have also had babies and i became an aunty for the first time which I really struggled with at first as I felt I had lost that chance for myself.

In the grand scheme of things reading some of these posts I know I am lucky.

Ovarian cancer is terrible. I so wish that there was something that could diagnose it early enough to treat it.

My heart breaks for you, I am so so sorry ❤️losing a child changes us, you never recover but learn to live with the hole inside.

I am so, so sorry for everyone who has posted on this thread. Truly terrible things have happened to you all.
For me, learning that my mum, who had been told for months that she only had bad constipation, had terminal ovarian cancer, numbed me. Supporting my devastated father and helping to care for her was awful..... I knew what was coming, but had to be strong for them both.
Having to try to do mouth to mouth resuscitation on my dead mother in law until the ambulance arrived, left me with what I now know was PTSD. I'd be doing something normal and everything would disappear and I'd see her open mouth as I leant onto her. Lasted months after she'd died.