Has anything happened to you that you thought was the end of the world/the worst things ever at the time, but actually wasn’t?

[Breahtig]

I think the worst of everything. I worry far too much. Any situation that someone would consider difficult, I will automatically think is the end of the world.

I had a turning point recently (well, a sort of turning point) where I realised that actually life usually turns out ok even if it seems disastrous at the time. A long time ago I had to move jobs and was devastated, felt like life was never going to be the same, but it was, and better. Obviously that’s a relatively tame problem but I wondered how others feel about these things? How you deal with ‘the worst?’

Yep, when I found out my now ex-husband had been cheating on me on my wedding day... 4 hours after marrying the bastard. Whilst pregnant (7 weeks) with our second child (my third). On my 30th birthday.
I thought my entire world had come crashing down. It was so much to take in at once. I thought I was going to lose my career because I'm a midwife working shifts and unsocial hours on no set rota (so no childcare options). Which in turn would mean losing my house as how could I afford to pay my mortgage and bills anymore? I couldn't contemplate going through pregnancy and birth alone, raising a newborn alone. I'd struggled with the older two with a partner. How would I do it 24/7 with no help (no family help either).
7 years later, my life is a million times better. My DP of 5 years is the absolute best thing to have happened to me beyond my children. He is so kind, so gentle, intelligent without being conceited, a wonderful father to his child and an exceptional stepfather to mine. He is absolutely refreshing... he is all the things I didn't think a man could be to be honest.
My 3rd child was an absolute dream baby and remains so to this day. I don't regret his existence for a single moment. He made single parenthood look easy quite frankly.
I'm thankful every day now for that lying cheating scumbag. He doesn't see the children, hasn't since he left. But I have only grown stronger and more determined as a result of what he did. I have built a new, improved, more fulfilling life. What was the worst moment of my life turned out to be my sliding door moment.

I wish we could watch ourselves from the outside in or from the future. This is going to sound odd but I watch a tv show now and also old episodes and can see the characters getting into obstacles but I know that in the future they’re happy and the choices they’re making is right. I wish we could do that for ourselves! I always remember one really
low point in my previous work and I thought there was no way out but there was and here I am ten years later. It’s just hard but I think about my future self watching me back and telling me it’s ok

when I found out my now ex-husband had been cheating on me on my wedding day... 4 hours after marrying the bastard. Whilst pregnant (7 weeks) with our second child (my third). On my 30th birthday.

That must have been such a terrible shock. He didn't get the hat trick by sleeping with your friend, did he? How did you find out? He really showed his character there, particularly as he no longer sees his children. He should be in the dictionary as a definition of "Bastard".

Could have written this myself. Literally everything feels like the end of the world, most of the time. It’s exhausting. My DD climbed onto the kitchen counter this morning while I was upstairs. Neighbour saw her and spoke to her. I’ve totally overreacted and made a thread on here to ask, yep you’ve guessed it, “if I’m overreacting”. I know that I need help with my anxiety but I really don’t want to have to take medication.

Almost. She was his best friends girlfriend. He had her coming to my (and it was mine, bought long before I knew him) house whilst I was on night shifts and my 11 and 1 year olds were sleeping upstairs.
She messaged me. Unfortunately we decided to get married and keep it quiet. So she didn't know before hand.
Yep, total bastard! He has gone on to get married and have a baby last year with another mug. I drive past his house almost every day. See him driving around etc. He lives a stones throw away. He simply doesn't want any reminder of his past life. Ignoring they exist means no complications (for him). Arsehole 😡.

When the council told me we had been overpaid housing benefit to the tune of £6k and were giving me a CCJ because I didn't pay it back when they asked (they'd been sending the letters to our old address) - I was devastated at the time, but they've since done the same thing with child tax credits (although minus the CCJ) and I'm paying that back now as well....

The CCJ was on my credit file but was marked as satisfied when I paid the money and has now gone altogether

It was a very stressful time though as paying it all back made us skint for a good few years and things still aren't great money-wise

But we all survived, just about

When I broke up with my other half a number of years ago and then found out he had started going out with his best female friend after we broke up. I think that counts as one of the worst moments of my life.

Not passing probation in my new, v high-earning job after always being someone competent, able, quick to learn etc. I’m so happy I didn’t; I’d have never been able to leave and would still be there now, working 100 hour weeks to keep up with my colleagues and clients.

I didn’t get my dream job. I’d spent years, and a lot of money, training to prepare myself. I failed my first application and they gave me feedback, telling me I was very close, and specified exactly what I needed to improve on (maths test) and to apply again the following year in the next recruitment round. So I did more training, corrected what needed to be corrected, and reapplied.

Rejected again. I had a feedback session with HR again and they told me it was difficult to give me feedback because I’d actually technically passed, but a senior interviewer had vetoed my application. His reason was ‘too many small niggles’ which he didn’t elaborate on. HR woman told me off the record it was because he was notorious for his belief that women shouldn’t do the job. She was visibly angry about it.

I was devastated. I couldn’t apply again because you could only apply up to a certain age, and the following year I would be too old. It was before the days of discrimination laws, so there was nothing I could do about the overt sexism. Couldn’t happen today, thankfully.

I cried a lot, then picked myself up, did something else, and looking back it wasn’t the end of the world that it seemed at the time. It taught me that there are always other options in life, which can work out just as well if not better, and made me a more resilient person.

DH and I both lost our "jobs for life" in the same week, just before Christmas. He'd been there 15 years and I'd done 23.

Christmas was one of the best we ever had. Very simple, about home cooked food and spending time with the right people, getting outdoors. It was lovely and a really good "reset" from out usual approach to life. We both eventually ended up in jobs we were much happier in and earning more money too.

Not being able to have children.

OP you could do a kind of self meditation where you sit and do a mental walk through of every possible worst case scenario and how you'd react. I did that to get over a fear of public speaking. I dreaded it more than life itself but when I was doing mental walk throughs it ended a bit anti climactic, as all I could dream up was forgetting my words and people staring at me and thinking, oo that wasn't very good, feeling a bit of a twat, and me being offered public speaking training. Which obviously isn't particularly worrying when you think about it in the scheme of things.

@ThisMustBeMyDream I think I remember your story. Did you have a long-running thread about it at the time on here? I'm so glad to read how everything turned out for you.

I've had a few moments like this in my life when relationships ended. Particularly one. I also ended up as a single parent in a foreign country (here) with no family at all as support and no career or home. A good few years on, I have the house, the career and the right partner plus some great friendships. Yet, I still feel overly anxious when things go wrong now. Need to trust the process.

A few:
Having a child as a young teen.
Relationship break up.
Getting a life long neurology disorder.
Friend dying at a young age.

@VenusClapTrap what role was that?

I've had a number of such moments...being made redundant in the last big financial crash, but then getting a much much better job on loads more money which sent me on a great career path.

My first husband cheating on me 6 months after getting married. Devastated at the time, but managed to make some decent money out of selling our house to set up by myself. Met a lovely man and been married 15 years. Thank god i didn't have kids with the first!

I'm a big believer that clouds can have silver linings.

Didn't get into the university of my choice aged 17! Felt like the end of the world, as it meant I had to move away from all my friends and my (first) boyfriend to live with strangers. I cried for weeks!

By the time I actually left, said boyfriend had dumped me for my best friend! Moving away was the best thing I could have done, and I ended up having a great time, and being glad my original plan went wrong!

Being made redundant was actually one of the best things to happen to me.

@KyaClark me too. Forced me to go for something I wanted rather than sticking with the safe status quo

Various different situations at work where litigation hasn't always gone as planned. However it's always righted itself, even if we've had to discontinue the claim. It's never resulted in any adverse consequences for me, but I definitely catastrophise in my head.

When I was made redundant. I didn't see it coming AT ALL - which looking back was incredibly thick because all the signs were there.

It was at the height of a recession, and all my experience was in an industry that was being decimated. I was convinced I'd lose my flat (my redundancy pay covered less than a single months mortgage payment).

In fact - I secured a new role after only about 2 months (which I was fortunate to do, as there really weren't many jobs I was qualified for out there at the time), and it was the making of me. I was offered a career change working with the same new employer which I took, and I prefer 100% to the job I had before. I loved that new job, and the company I joined. I learned so much, met some truly inspirational people and I have never looked back.

I didn't actually realise how much I hated working for the previous company until a couple of years later. It definitely worked out for the best.

Oh god so many break ups in my late teenage years/early twenties. The amount of time I wasted crying over useless men who weren’t even worth one tear 😂

Yes, and it was a disaster and it wasn't fair and it took quite a long time to work through and the whole experience knocked corners off me and helped me to have a more rounded view of life and I might not have earned as much money as I otherwise would have done but I had some interesting fun instead and guess what - I survived it all so far.

Being diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer when my youngest child was still in nappies, my 3rd child was at pre-school and my older 2 were aged 7 and 8 - had no family help other than my husband but somehow we got through with some good friends who stepped up and I'm now 16 years on and my youngest is now at university - all is well

Being told my DD has Down Syndrome. I was devastated and thought it was the end of the world. It really really wasn’t. Yes things are very different with a disabled child and there are hard bits that parents of typical children don’t have but on a day to day basis it really is fine. She is so funny and spirited, I would never change her.

Very bad accident at 19, months of hospitalisation resulting in loss of limb at 21 (and more months of hospitalisation). You get through it minute by minute day by day because there is no other choice.