Anyone life utterly unbelievable?

I know exactly what you mean. Why do some people go from one crisis to another and others just sail through life.

Even if I became a complete recluse and lived up a mountain, am sure I would get struck by lighting or a mountain lion would eat me.

In my case it was leaving my abusive ex who was damaging our very young kids, and making the effort to meet someone online who turned out to be the love of my life and changed all our lives for the better in every way possible.

Of course there are issues like illness that can’t be changed but even then, it’s sometimes possible to change your mindset. I hope things improve for you op.

Is there anything you did to improve things? In particular?

Yes the last ten years have been a shit show every year I think this year will be the year my luck changes but it keeps getting worse.

I've had some pretty crazy/unbelievable stuff happen to me over the course of my life. I think if I sat a complete stranger down and went through it all in one go, they'd either think I was lying or wonder how I was still here.

But at the end of the day I'm doing really well for myself now. I'm financially secure, have a great job and the most wonderful, loving partner. I don't let the bad things that have happened in my life define me, but I do use them as fuel to ensure that I go out better than I came in.

That's how we win.

Haha I DID actually have a sad face book published about my shit life 🤣. And the only bad reviews were saying that it must all be made up because it all seemed so far fetched. Unfortunately for me it was all true.

The good news is things don’t stay that shit forever. Seems like a whole different lifetime now.

I'm not glad others are in the same situation but I'm glad others have commented that they feel the same.

I've been on MN for years and years. It's always been in the back of my head that I can't let too much slip under one username, or someone is going to think I'm telling tales.

People who’ve had lovely lives can’t possibly get their heads around it but when you’re living it you don’t know any different and just kind of get on with it the best way that you can. They think it sounds like a bad episode of eastenders on repeat, but crap does happen to people.

This…. I could have written this. I wonder how I manage to have a decent job, and manage day to day. Therapy has helped and CBT helped me learn new ways to cope and seemed to stop me lurching from one disaster to another. But the last month or two have been bad again. I’m coping alright but it’s wobbly and every time I think things are improving something else happens and it’s a bit of a shit show at the minute.

The disbelief must be a common experience. I don’t know why people assume it’s made up. I was finally believed when I went to therapy

Yes, mine too.
At the moment my life is fairly calm. But for the vast majority of my life it wasn't so.
Not only did I go through a lot of trauma, I also had quite unbelievable stuff happen that wouldn't be out of place in a film script. Absolutely nuts stuff. I was born into an eccentric family where life was just bizarre for one.
I often think people think I'm making things up.
It also drives me mad when people give me advice or expect that I did x, y or z. Sometimes life just isn't that easy.

Just nodding along sadly here. Mind you a "friend" told me the other day that my situation seems to be "self perpetuating". I do believe my friends think it's about time I stopped all this death and destruction and just had a normal life. If only I tried a bit harder eh ...

Ha. I met an old friend for a drink. She said "I'm so jealous, from what I've seen on Facebook your life looks perfect"

I said "well..."

By the time I'd finished my list of awful things that have happened she said "fuuuuuuuuck"

Some of these are utterly dreadful, I'm so sorry. I've had a few bad years in my life but nothing to compare with some of you.

Fully understand the feeling of a person, or a series of men people who don't know each other, all being so fucking sociopathic to you that you start to blame yourself and never mention what they're doing to anyone. I'm very lucky to now be married to my lovely DH but there is a great deal I've never told even him.

Yes, OP, same. Sometimes I try to tell people little bits here and there, and they’re like WTF. If I told them everything that’s actually happened to me I think their heads would explode 😂

I always say I have the reverse Midas touch, because everything I have a hand in turns to shit and goes so, so, so wrong.

I'm exceptionally grateful for two friends who have stuck with me through thick and thin, one I've known for knocking on 30 years, and we all have the same sort of "bad luck" in common so we can relate and pitch and whine in a safe space. We'd all crawl over broken glass for each other, or help bury a body if necessary.

Other friends who are more casual just don't know what to do with me, and I get it, it's fine, although there's a sort of Typhoid Mary vibe, or wariness as though I'm an unexploded bomb or something.

A few people have treated me like a specimen, and tried to analyse why I seem to attract this stuff. Aside from the occasional musing that I may have been a terrible person in a past life, or maybe it's cos I was born on a Wednesday I try to avoid such analysis - because shit just does happen sometimes and I don't need a diagnosed persecution complex on top of everything else.

Another downside is that it makes me seem a bit gullible or naive, because I empathise with other tales of woe. I'm getting better at being discerning as I've gotten older, but I have definitely been an easy mark for proven unscrupulous types in the past.

The only way is to think it's some kind of parallel universe. It was only the police and others believing it's f*cked that's validated me. I did have a normal childhood. It's my ex that did the rest! Reads like some kind of sensationalist sun newspaper headline. I'm alive and suspect our experiences are not as uncommon as we believe ..... behind every suburban front door things happen that are out of the realms of "ordinary".

Not at the moment but I’ve got two friends who are really going through the mill at the moment, and sometimes I think “wtf, as if they haven’t got enough to deal with”. Sorry to hear you’re struggling 💐

I’m so sorry about what you’re going through with your dd, and yes of course some things are forever. But even in the darkness, things change.. there are better and worse times.. times you feel more positive and appreciate even small wins.

One of the worst things about being on a continual roller coaster of shit, is how it makes me feel the need to apologise for things that have truly been out of my control and largely left field.

"I'm really sorry but my Dad has just died"

"I'm ever so sorry but my MIL is palliative with Alzheimers and could go at any time"

"I'm so sorry, but my mentally ill SM might show up at Dad's funeral and create a scene because she believes I'm in a cult and prostituting myself, so could we make it private please?"

And that's just the milder stuff in the present.

People wonder why I have such a dark sense of humour, and it's very much a defence mechanism, because if I didn't laugh in a hollow fashion, I'd start screaming and might never stop.....

I know a woman that if even half the shit she comes out with is true I do wonder how she holds down a stressful job (not that great at it but hey Ho)

Different person but if you’ve had ABC happen in your life you can bet £107,987.98p that she has been through ANC DEF GH and VCD on top but obviously her was so much worse

Trouble is some things are forever , not just a phase .
My daughter with physical and learning difficulties getting cancer isn’t just a phase.
Thats on top of a fair amount of more regular but still difficult crap I’ve had to deal with.

@MissAndrey I also shut down after that last thing on your list happened to me. I gave up on life. Hugs to you.

Yes! If I wrote a book it would be a grey cover with just the title in red and a very miserable child on the cover.
some things are just so crackers it’s almost ridiculous to the point of it being a farce