Can anyone tell me how they got the worst time in their life? I’m at my lowest ever and can only see darkness

[Treeeaj]

Just that really. Broken relationship. Blaming myself. Pregnant and feel exhausted and scared for the future. Anxiety is spiralling. I have had to cut hours at work. I am desperately alone.

Ive had bad times before but I am in darkness this time.

I kind of mentally shut down until I got through it (not exactly the same situation as you, but I was also pregnant and alone and it was overall not a good position to be in - I was very, very young).

I did get through it. But I’m not sure that mentally shutting down was great.

I’ve had a lot of therapy since!

In hindsight: therapy, meditation, change of diet, discovering new hobbies while I still could, that I could pick back up again later, would have helped me more as I would have strengthened my self esteem and made more friends and given myself a bit of purpose. Those have been the things to get me through some bad times since.

But I know how you feel to an extent. I had absolutely no self esteem and I had no idea how to fix my life.

I have a good life now.

You’ll get through this, OP

I started a thread under a different name about my breakdown 2 years ago. My thread was similar to this.

Looking back, I can't believe how dark and low I was. Anxiety was out of control and I hated waking up in the morning. The moment I realised I was still alive each day would lead me to being physically sick.

But, I landed a new job. Made new friends and moved house. My life was transformed. I always felt bleaker on hot sunny days. I healed faster in the cooler months (no idea why!)

I do have meds and they weren't working at the time. I found it easier finding a new distraction / obsession / anything to occupy my brain.

On hot days like today, I find myself feeling more tense, anxious and low. But I know it'll pass.

I wish I knew why the weather makes a difference to me.

Hope you're OK OP. You will get better, I promise x

I have found gardening really helps my mental health. Watching things grow and tending to them makes things seem less bleak.

I try to deal with problems practically and figure out what I need to do step by step and get something tangible from that list done most days. But also therapy: for many years I focused only on the practical and buried the rest. I am finally having trauma therapy and although hard it helps a lot.

Cooking is good too: actually creating something and it occupies your mind for a while.

Also listen to your body - particularly as you are pregnant - and make sure you let yourself rest when you need to.

Also wine but obviously that's not a healthy coping mechanism, and you are pregnant anyway so not helpful!

Exercise can help a lot. Pregnancy yoga is very calming and will also help you to meet other pregnant women which will be a valuable support.

I should add: I still suffer from anxiety, and exercise is absolutely essential for my mental health. If I don’t do it, I’m not well. I have also worked very hard on not ruminating so much (this has been really difficult and I don’t always succeed but I am much better at it).

Meditation really helped me, it's about creating a peaceful headspace you can retreat to when things get tough.

I like the Jeff Warren meditation course on Calm, if you would like to try for free I have a code I can send you if you like? Just pm me x

Remember it is but a phase and won't last for ever

I self-harmed and over ate to numb the pain. I can categorically tell you that neither are the solution. So don't do those things 😉

Sometimes listening to self-help audiobooks in headphones was great - just to hear a positive voice in my head.

Sometimes just putting my head down and pushing through the day.

Sometimes taking naps in the day - even putting phone timer on for 20 mins to make sure I fight sleep the whole afternoon.

What made a good difference was getting out of the house. But I can't begin to explain how hard that was. I've known people train for and participate in ultra marathons more easily. If it's really too hard then opening the windows to get fresh air running through was a bit helpful. Definitely didn't do any harm to breathe fresher air.

Also listening to upbeat music on headphones (so it's IN my head) could take the edge off for 10 minutes - which is 10 minutes better than none.

I'm so sorry you're in this position. What I did may be useless for you. But maybe they give you ideas? It's just sh*t though. Nothing is going to make it suddenly ok. That's not a signal to give up, more a sign that you may need to aim for little chunks of time rather than sweeping changes, or tit can lead to feeling like you're failing.

And you're very much not failing, my love, life is just crap right now.

On another note, you said you're on a waiting list. Have you spoken to your midwife about all of this? Some areas have perinatal mental healthcare, so perhaps there's away to get some help that way.

I am there right now after my second 20 week pregnancy loss in less than a year. I don't know how to function.

all the advice I get just seems like no one gets you.
I know that's not helpful, I guess just a hand hold to say you're not alone.

Thanks for message, I left a career in 2019 after 25 odd years, felt like a change and the world seem full of choices, I was at the time genuinely excited! Took the summer off, Covid hit and now I am back in the career which I left as everything seems small and I feel less able, I am menopausal, working not at management level, lost my 'standing' earning less than I was, all a big fuck up, I actually think I was probably menopausal when I left my career and sooooo regret t now! I have therapy starting in Sept to try and unpick it all, so I can try and make peace with where I am at. All the people on here struggling, let's try and remain positive, she says as she crying ;o/ ! for OP @Treeeaj I know you feel scared, crap and vulnerable now, but you are having a baby and that will be amazing, you will get through this and out the other side. xx

I lost my mum when I was young. She was my best friend and a joy to be around. Nothing has compared to that. Taught me to cherish life and try to find joy and laughter every day.

I realised that nothing is unbearable. I couldn’t kill myself because of dc, so I had no choice but to ride the waves. Drowning wasn’t an option so I had to ride the pain out. I came to realise that actually, I could feel the pain and continue… because there was no other way. So, I continued. And continuing became habit, until after a while I did more than just ride the waves: I swam. And over time I grew stronger than I ever imagined I could be.

Things that helped:

recognising I needed a break

recognising there were some things I couldn’t take a break from

Small, achievable goals

30 minutes walk outside a day

smiling at strangers (they smile back, you feel less alone)

treating myself everyday (no one else will. Even something small: a bath, reading my book in the park, a chocolate bar)

making an effort to conciously notice the little things (birdsong, a sunset, a child smiling at his mother, flowers blooming)

noticing my small achievements (showering, opening bills, cooking a meal, feeding the birds)

How are you doing @Treeeaj?

I just about got through a time recently when my husband was going a major operation (8 hours of surgery) and waiting for results from my operation to see if I had cancer whilst self isolating. We had to send our kids to stay with friends because they had covid (their friends had covid too) but it was heartbreaking as they had to deal with worry about their Dad away from home.

I think I kind of went into a sort of trance. I was in tears constantly and tried to zone out by fantasising about us moving abroad.

My husband was having cancer surgery

Things that helped were fantasising about holidays and moving!

Reading

Sitting in the garden

Speaking to a friend who'd had the same surgery
Speaking to my friend's GP husband

Some things sound overwhelming when you are reallt low. When I was at my lowest I started small. Gardening. Getting out for a walk / jog. Cooking. All the wholesome things that sound ridiculous but really do help a little bit. I also found some self help books great. The subtle art of not giving a f*ck helped me make a bigger leap to change my life.

I love this post. Nothing short of brilliant. Thank you for sharing.

So sorry you're feeling so bad OP. I was in a very very dark place at the beginning of the year following the end of a significant relationship.

What helped
Taking one hour at a time
Getting outside every day
Leaning on friends a Lot
Talking to GP
Mainlining trashy but pretty tv - Gilmore Girls etc
Posting on here a Lot

Take care 🌷🌱🌻

It was a long time ago and sounds a bit superficial, but I listened to a lot of really positive music.
I set my alarm to The Middle by Jimmy Eat World so every day I woke up to the lyrics ‘it just takes some time, little girl you’re in the middle of the ride, everything, everything will be just fine, everything, everything will be alright’ and that became my mantra really. I suppose it helped me remind myself that life WAS going to get better, that this wasn’t the end.

I got through by putting one foot in front of the other and keeping going. I read a lot of books about Buddhism which helped to give me practical strategies- ways of thinking about things. I had help and support from (unexpected) acquaintances. The days that I woke up crying gradually got less and less. I carried on going to work and the normality of that was helpful. Life is a million times better now than I ever imagined it could be during those months/years and I’m so glad and grateful that I didn’t kill myself at that time.

changed some things, but mostly kept putting one foot in front of the other with no expectations until one day I realised I was out of ‘the well’. I also had counselling but time was the biggest healer. At my worst I was enduring life minute by minute and suicidal. I literally cannot imagine how I felt that way now. Ten years on I have people and things in my life that I couldn’t even hope for then. Keep giving yourself the gift of time.

I thought my lowest point was heroin addiction. I beat it, it was hard, but I’ve never gone back to it.

then a few years later after getting engaged to someone I thought was the one for me, and happily getting pregnant and having a little girl, my world was turned upside down

my fiancé had developed a secret crack habit - we didn’t do drugs, I was past that - and he spent all our savings. And also DD was diagnosed with autism.

i tried to support him to get clean and it broke me. He eventually left us, I had a low paid part time job so that I could do school runs and be there for school holidays. He wanted to force me to sell the house we jointly owned.

i managed to get a full time well paid job to be able to pay the mortgage and then buy him out.

Mine and DD’s life now is wonderful. I’ve bought a house of our own - I never thought id ever be in a position to do that, but a lot can change in a few years.

every thing has changed in 6 years. I was at rock bottom. I’ll never forget having to leave shopping at the supermarket as my card was refused. I didn’t know how I’d be able able to provide for her.

but things can get better. I never thought so at the time, it was so so hard.

Put one foot in front of the other and take one hour at a time. And rest a lot. It's physically draining to go through emotional hardship.

The week of finding out my toddler had/has a brain tumour, surgery with a fair risk to life/my child as I knew her, and the week of waiting to find out if she would die. That's been the worst period of my life so far

Although the surgery and outcome is very positive, its all still pretty worrying, and that coupled with juggling my older childs needs and worries, being out of work for months to care for her etc, not earning, has been emotionally very hard.

I'm doing a mixture of just ploughing on, counselling, and have been offered antidepressants, but am hoping I'll manage without.

I'm not the same person I was 9 months ago, and I'm not sure I'll ever be back to that person, but I'm grateful that we'll hopefully make it through alive as not everyone in our position got so lucky.