To ask the hardest thing you have ever been through

Xx

Someone thinks thinks my one is funny 🫤 okaaay

I'm so sorry.
My dearest friend in all the world died in May of a glioblastoma at 34. I was there when she died and had watched her slip away for 6 weeks, having fought for 4 years.

Brain tumours csn get fucked.

Living alone with agoraphobia depression and no family or friends

A very difficult emotional situation in 2004

Losing my dad to cancer when I was 23. He told me stuff about how much pain he was in that will stay with me forever. Then his death at home was traumatic. It was a huge responsibility that I was totally unprepared for. He died before the carers were due to start so we got no help.

To top off the worst week of our lives my parents house got raided the day before dad died because the police thought someone who rented an outhouse on their property was handling stolen goods. I never found out if it was true or not but I barely spoke to my brother for years afterwards (it was his friend) as he probably knew all about what was going on. He's been to prison and brought the police up countless times but my parents kept forgiving him and letting him still work there. He has MH issues and my dad thought he'd relapse and go off the rails completely if he didn't help him out. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect of making him think he could do whatever he wanted.

He turned up about 10 mins after the raid was over and just laughed when I told him the police had been there looking through all our stuff for 3 hours. Thankfully my dad was too out of it to know what was going on as he'd have been devastated.

Dd being a newborn. She was born during Covid and it took 32 hours. I then almost died and had to be resuscitated and then DH was sent home 20 mins later because of Covid restrictions. So I'd been awake for 3 days in 10/10 pain, not eaten or slept, been ripped apart and then almost died and brought back and was then left alone for 12 hours with a newborn. I wasn't given any food. A nurse had a go at me when I was too weak to change her nappy. I didn't sleep again. Started hallucinating. Husband came back in and my drip had filled with blood, catheter had gone green and gungy and I was seeing things from sleep deprivation and hunger. Baby was okay though. He was allowed to stay for two hours while I slept and then sent home again. I was kept in hospital for 3 days, barely seen by any staff. Picked up a load of hospital- acquired infections then sent home (had to fight for the discharge though). I was not the same person when I returned home (and I don't mean in a cutesy "I'm a mum now" was). I was like returning from war.

Oh goodness. Sending love to you. It is a cruel and awful disease. Your children must be grown up now... I hope you are all doing 'ok'. As you say, those memories are difficult to bear.

Watching my DF die on end of life care for almost 2 weeks. He essentially starved to death. He had an inoperable bowel obstruction so was just kept as comfortable and sedated as possible. I’ll never be over it.

I'm sorry for your family's loss.

I'm sorry for your family's loss.

Probably my dad dying of early onset Alzheimer’s during my 20s/early 30s. MS diagnosis was and has been a walk in the park in comparison. So sorry for all those who have experienced loss, I cannot imagine losing a child in particular, there can be no greater pain x

Having my baby removed at birth due to concerns about past MH difficulties (I'd been well for some time, managed full time employment and had a mortgage). It took everything in my power to resist the instinct to grab my precious baby and run! On an intellectual level I knew this was the worst thing I could do and it would just prove them right so instead I held it together and signed my baby away in the hope that I would get her back if I complied. Definitely the hardest thing I've ever done.

Luckily it worked out ok and she was only gone for a couple of weeks pending a parenting assessment but I've never recovered emotionally from the ordeal. The feeling of powerlessness was traumatising. It continues to be a very lonely experience even a decade later.

How awful. My sympathy.

The worst thing that ever happened to me didn't even happen to me as that seems self indulgent. But 20 years ago, my best friend called me to talk about breast feeding and I was busy with my own kids and palmed her off a little and she killed herself 2 hours later. I have honestly never got over it.

Fuck off. It's a very hard decision for anyone to make. And yes I've had to do it.

Losing my mum to cancer when I was 26, and 3 back to back miscarriages.

An unholy combination of HG and pre-natal depression and anxiety when I was pregnant with DS. I remember lying on the bathroom floor thinking "there's no way I can survive this".

I also developed Tokophobia and became so convinced my body would be ruined by childbirth that I had panic attacks and made a plan to kill myself when DS was born.

I did survive and even had another baby. 2 ELCS so I never had to go through vaginal birth. The HG wrecked my teeth though and I've had a lot of painful and expensive dental work.

Breast cancer, but because of the potential consequences for my DH & DS. Then 2 months after I finished treatment DH had a stroke. Just as I was getting used to out new normal my DSis died of pancreatic cancer. She was diagnosed late summer last year and died 8 weeks later. We’ve had a lot to cope with over the last 3 yrs. I couldn’t really tell you which event was the worst because all have left me reeling.
I’m early 60s so after a couple of months getting my head around the latest tragedy I’m getting on with life because it’s too damn short.

That is absolutely awful - I'm so very sorry.

My twin babies died last Christmas. One little boy was born sleeping and my other angel died in the NICU 4 days later. We had to remove his life support and he passed away in our arms. I walked into the hospital that night as a mom of two twin boys and left 5 days later with a coffin. I'll never get over it or the day we buried them but we managed to get through the year and are expecting a little girl in the Spring.

Thank you. I'm sorry to hear about your baby, I hate that things like this happen at all of course but especially to little ones, it just isn't fair.

Similar to some other posters, trying to understand/accept/verbalise/process years of childhood rape and sexual abuse as an adult. I don't know how to do it, and am beginning to get lost in the weight of the fury, guilt, disgust and shame. It feels so much harder than the experience of the actual assaults.

I count myself lucky though, I am in so much awe of so many posters here who have coped with unbelievable loss.