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?’

I have never had anything particularly awful happen to me. Maybe if it did I would change my view that life reserves the real kicker until the very end. Which nobody can escape from.

After 3 miscarriages and a tfmr I was diagnosed with CHI. The 2 years going through this were so tough physically and mentally, the life me and DH had imagined wasn’t going to happen. Now we realise that being a family of 3 is enough and means we have more time and disposable income to enough adventures as a family.

Quite a few things.

A really painful, out of the blue breakup a week before I was due to marry the man I’d been with for 12 years. Then inevitably finding out there was another woman. Then finding out she was pregnant. I thought I’d literally die. I’d been through some really hard shit as a child, bereavement, being a young carer, growing up around alcoholism/ abuse, but that was the thing that was going to finally break me. Except it didn’t, months after I woke up and thought ‘well im still here’ and things started to get easier. I can’t say it didn’t massively affect me or wasn’t really really hard to get through, I can still remember that utterly sick, broken feeling but I actually had some of the best, most fun years of my life afterwards and eventually met my lovely DH. The story always goes ‘oh and then she met her perfect man and is so much happier’ like it’s that easy, and like the man was the point all along. It wasn’t that easy for me, but it was worth it to find someone who I trust with my life and would no sooner betray me than he’d poke out his own eyeballs. BUT what I also learned is that even if he did have a complete personality transplant overnight and the ‘worst’ happened again, I’d be ok in the long run because I know how to be ok on my own.

Even more horrendous (and making the breakup look insignificant by comparison) was loosing my mum. If it wasn’t for my dog at the time I’m not sure I’d have kept going quite honestly. And I also felt like I’d never ever feel happy again, that even if I did meet someone nice or go on to have children it would all be shit anyway because I wouldn’t have my mum around to share it. Like how could I get married without her there. And I’d just never feel happy again because I’d never get past the grief. And yeah, I still miss her and always will. And some days the pain is almost as raw as it was at the time. But it really really does get easier - it’s always there but you learn to carry it and I was very happy on my wedding day and when my dc was born, even though I was sad that mum wasn’t there too. And I’m happy now and really love my little family and I talk about my mum all the time and still feel like she’s part of us somehow.

There’s the big things - mum died in her 40’s, realising Dad needed a care home in his 60’s, health problems, etc.
Tgen there’s all the more minor disasters - redundancy, loosing out on dream house, getting dumped.

But they’ve all shown me that whilst my natural tendency is to catastrophise, I don’t actually have to. It’s possible to redirect thoughts, spend time with positive people, etc. It not easy but neither is living in terror of what could happen next.

A relationship break up a couple of years ago seemed like the end of the world at the time. For weeks I couldn't envisage how ibwas going to carry on. I applied for a masters in an area I had always wanted to study and work in and was accepted. I just completed it this week and have been offered my dream job. Had I stayed in the relationship i wouldn't have applied because she would have put me off. I also made the most amazing friend through a support group I joined at the time.

Years ago I was pregnant-and had my (now ex) and best mate that where my main support-I had very few other friends and my family are useless

had baby and when he was 5 months old they came into my house,smashed my house up,beat me up,told my other children I didn’t love them and tried to take my baby before sailing out of the front door,hand in hand

it turns out they’d been fucking since I found out I was pregnant,the day I gave birth they where shagging in the toilets and he’d been sneaking out to give her one while I was busy with the kids-he couldn’t possibly go a day for two without sex and I wasn’t up for it-I’d just had his baby so he had to look elsewhere

My best mate who knew all my secrets,my partner who I loved dearly and all my support-all gone

i got a job,went back to college and pulled myself up-I met my dp not long after

they on the other hand,lost their house 3 days before Christmas in a house fire-they had the clothes they stood up in,they ended up in a grotty area and they broke up 5/6 weeks after they walked out on me

now-he’s missing-his family seem to think he’s been murdered but can’t prove it
he left his mums house,walked down the street and just vanished

she has a long term boyfriend but she still shags about behind his back
its like she wants what she can’t have
oh and she dearly wants children but is on a real cocktail of mental health drugs/illegal drugs/booze and lives such a mad lifestyle,it’s best she can’t have them-the 3 times she’s been pregnant ss have been waiting for her to give birth so baby would be taken into care
sadly she lost all 3 to stillbirth-I wouldn’t wish that on anyone

The man I thought was 'the one' coming back into my life, briefly, on two separate occasions, giving me false hope then swanning off again. One day, I realised I could set my watch by his seven-year cycle of showing up and shitting all over my life, and also realised a couple of other things about him that finally made the scales fall from my eyes. On both occasions I was absolutely crushed afterwards and it's only in the past couple of years that I've been able to see him for what he really is; a flaky, jobless, ageing lothario feeding off unsuspecting women for his sustenance and a roof over his head.

Yes when I cancelled my wedding with four weeks to go, it was the right thing to do but I honestly thought it would finish me off. Reading some of these though it doesn’t seem so bad.

Going bankrupt, losing my business and my home.. turned out to be the best thing that's ever happened to me. There were times even shortly after it happened where I can honestly say that as hard up as we were that were the happiest times in my life, because all the worry and stress had gone. And 10 years down the line we are now in a great position.

The slow "death by a thousand cuts" to childlessness.
The fucked fallopian tubes, the finding the money for IVF.
The ectopic pregnancy, the miscarriage, the doing it over again to get only one embryo. The negative pregnancy test.

30 years later, I'm still married to the same man who didn't leave me for a more fertile woman.
I'm happy, life is good.
It's not what I planned but it's good

@thirstyformore Airline pilot

I'm going through this (sort of) at the moment. I've been in a job I was really good at for years but made a sideways move recently that I've realised was a huge mistake because the job role just isn't for me. I can't go back to my old job, so it's given me the push I needed to move out of the organisation entirely and I'm currently job hunting. I've felt very up and down in recent weeks and it's been awful, but I think I'm starting to see the silver lining of that.

My DH suddenly and unexpectedly lost his job in the private sector in 2016. He was a high earner and, by far, the main breadwinner. It was utterly devastating at the time, and neither of us could imagine how we would survive.
We licked our wounds for 6 weeks, then took the decision to sell up and move Up North.
By early 2017, we'd found an amazing home in Yorkshire, and DH had secured a job in the public sector - he took a significant cut in salary, but that was offset by us being mortgage free by the age of 46.
Our children got places in the local school easily, and are thriving.
DH has gone from working 7am till 8/9/10pm, being utterly consumed by work, to having a role where he leaves the house around 8.45am and gets home around 4.30ish.
Our quality of life now is unrecognisable to what it was in 2016. It's genuinely the best thing that could have happened to us.

Getting told I would die without emergency open heart surgery, which I might not survive, having never had any heart issues previously. It was in the first lockdown, and no one was allowed to visit me in hospital.

It wasn't actually as bad as I would have imagined. Yes it hurt like hell afterwards and I wouldn't be rushing to have another chest drain removed, but I quite liked the morphine they gave me.

It changed my perspective on life completely and despite two more short hospital stays and hundreds of monitoring blood tests, I rather enjoyed the six months off work, mostly curled up on the sofa with the dog.

Mine was probably when my first husband told me after 5 months of marriage that he wanted to be a woman. I was only 18 and I felt like my whole world had been shattered to pieces. Although now I am thankful because we have both changed so much and wouldn't get on at the ages we are now (I'm 39). I'm happily married so it all worked out ok.

Twice that I remember. Friends describe me as resilient bloody have to be

Once losing my job which I had been in for a decade. Cried for 2 days, updated my CV and took a care job temporarily. Now been in my FT job for over 4 years and prefer it to the job I lost

2013, blackmailed effectively into having a termination. I sat on ground in the hospital car park and cried and cried and remember clearly thinking "I don't think I can get up". As in physically and mentally. Then I thought well nobody else is going to do it for you, get the fuck up. I had a year of counselling, went NC, took medication and here I am. Not at peace with it but it happened and I dealt

Went through significant trauma as a child and teen, developed depression and PTSD in my early twenties that I never thought I’d climb out of but I did!

More recently, I worked really hard completing a masters (with a toddler, in the pandemic!) for a career I was really passionate about. Then close to the end I developed a chronic illness which meant that I wasn’t able to start the career I’d worked so hard for. Devestating! I finished my masters anyway, got a merit and a totally different job. I’m not quite as passionate about it but I do enjoy it and actually it’s a much better fit for family life

Applying for the civil service graduate scheme. I’d been stuck living at home doing a rubbish admin job for a year after graduating and was drifting a bit, and desperate to get out of my horrible hometown and back into a shared house.

The scheme involved doing an online literacy and numeracy test - I was fine with the practice ones, but I got stuck on one of the real ones and ran out of time. I was devastated, conceived that I’d missed my chance and that I was going to be stuck at home for another year. Honestly, I cried so much I looked like I’d been punched 😳

Anyway, I got an email a few days later inviting me to an assessment centre, and long story short I got in and was moving out of home for the last time a few months later 👍😳🙈 My family still tease me about it 20-odd years down the line!

I was second choice candidate for a job I desperately wanted and which felt like the answer to all my prayers and problems. I was gutted not to get it but if I now know that had I would have had no career progression, no support and the role was made redundant 2 years later. Meanwhile I was forced to look at a different career path which worked out brilliantly for me and I have been promoted multiple times. I earn three times as much as that role paid and I love what I do.