Do you think most people have hard times?

[dingdongmerrilyyourhigh]

I know this is morbid but do you think most people go through difficult times? We have taken a battering this last 4 years any time there is a lovely flicker of hope, something then happens to ruin it all. Our two best friends seem to sail through life without a graze (I'm happy for them btw) both really high earners, massive house, beautiful children, lots of money in the bank to just do nice things when they want. Other friends are all similar. We just can't catch a break at all at the minute. While I know we are blessed in so many ways I just wish the things that are happening atm just would just disappear. It's just constant
Strain and worry

I think some people have easier times, if that answers your question differently.

I have friends married to high-earning good men, who have nice big houses, great holidays etc. Work part time, don't need to worry about money.

They have also had sad things in life eg bereavements, miscarriages etc

But having money makes life so much easier & gives you better choices.

It's sad, yes, but it's not hardship!

That's not what was said.

Of course it's sad, I was devastated to lose my cat last year. But it is normal. It's not an unusual level of hardship.

If you've managed to get to adulthood and still have grandparents that's something that should be celebrated, though of course it's sad when they pass.

It is exhausting though when bad things keep happening to you, you have to keep on picking yourself up, while getting stupid, insensitive comments from people who haven't got a clue.

💐

💯 this.

I think much depends on a persons attitude
For sure we have less disposable income
We are colder at home than we would have been last year
My parents used to go to bed in a coat as it was so cold
We still have enough to pay bills food etc so we are positive about life and think we are lucky
We look at previous generations and some of our own family who have been though world wars - food and petrol rationing - far fewer drugs for medical use etc and think how lucky we are
I have had appendicitis - not so many years ago I would be dead

I didn’t choose my husband dying very quickly and traumatically from colon cancer, I got married in hospital and had to choose which one of my four dc was to attend because it was a hospital wedding. The whole day, week, was very traumatic.

oerhaos it was my fault then that my 11 year old dd developed ptsd or that my mum and my aunt then developed cancer as well.

perhaps it was my bad attitude that led to me developing a heart condition which will lead to me having a pace maker. It’s congenital apparantly but made much much worse by all the events over the past 18 months.

I am normally a get up and carry on sort of person, keep myself busy, forge a way ahead, ti get me through the bad times but this past year and a half I’m beaten

I’m so sorry.

I am beaten too. I’m far past my limit of what I can take. I totally understand.

I think much depends on a persons attitude

I don't agree. When truly bad stuff happens, your attitude won't make much difference. Of course, to survive, you need to do as much as you can & be proactive but your attitude to what's happening won't mitigate how bad it is.

I think people with good support networks can manage adversity better. It's all the harder when you are dealing with it on your own.

In the past week I've told each of my siblings directly that I've had a very tough few months & things are hard for me right now. Not one of them asked me anything further. We all get on well but fundamentally, they put themselves first. It's very isolating & makes it even less likely I'll open up again.

Of course financial well-being varies hugely and job security and of course if you have development or health concerns for DC. But we can't know what goes on in private in relationships and mental health behind closed doors.

It's not all down to resilience - it's also hugely about luck and genuinely tough life events.

But it does also vary by life stage. I would judge myself and many of my friends to be very resilient but as we are now in our late 50s and we are facing horrible life events that would knock anyone's emotional resilience. A snapshot of recent events for my closest friends (inc me):
Person A: caring for extremely frail parent and massive work pressure
B: husband diagnosed with blood cancer; highly vulnerable frail parent including dementia
C: wife died of breast cancer
D: husband fell on ice and fractured knee and ankle
E: frail parent, student child with acute medical condition, extremely frail elderly parents
F: both professional adult kids made redundant

Wow some of the posts on this thread 😲

Many others, like me, have had years of shit to deal with, in my case massive acute mental illness in family, crises, suicides, ptsd of family, multiple bereavement, dc SEN, dc neuro condition the list goes on.

It's f**k all to do with attitude and what people deserve. Some people have extremely hard times for a very long time.

💐💐💐💐💐💐💐 to you all.

Blackheart unfortunately has had a tonne of shit, loss, lots of medical. None of which her fault.

I'm another young widow, I was widowed suddenly when DD was a toddler. This stuff about creating your own luck and having the right attitude is BS. The most devastating things that can happen - becoming a young widow, losing a child, being diagnosed with a serious health condition for example - are outside of your control and mark you out as unlucky. Don't kid yourself otherwise.

Everybody has tough times but for me it very much depends on the individuals outlook add to how they deal with it.

If I list the bucket points off my life story then 95% of petite would be aghast. My life has been a non stop carousel from hell. But my friends say I'm one of the happiest and most go lucky people that they know. Maybe it's because I've been through awful things, nothing seems as bad? I know I'm incredibly resilient. I always, ALWAYS try to look for the silver lining.

Please ignore those ridiculous comments about it being "all about attitude". Those posters are just proving the point of how naive and judgemental others can be when they have no experience of this kind of situation.

How can anyone suffer what you've been through and not feel hugely traumatised? Of course you're going to feel like life just keeps shitting all over you, that is exactly the normal reaction to have and anyone who can't grasp that is an idiot.

I'm so sorry for what you've had to deal with, you too @santasbushybeard

Also, I think the people that we think as "lucky" are not lucky. I saw a study that said that those perceived as lucky were simply more likely to take risks that then paid off . They had the sense to ignore the occasional failure and just bounce back. That's just resilience. If you never enter the tombola, you can't complain if you never win. If you enter five times and win once, that's still four losses. If you enter 100 times and win 7 then it's easy for the first person to think that they are unlucky.... and it absurdly IS that comparison is the thief of joy.

Agreed.

So can you see how it's insensitive to make comments about a person's attitude, bad choices, etc, being a reason for bad luck?

Sure, some people make choices that don't help their situation (but often they know no different, and are repeating behaviours modelled to them in childhood).

For many of us, truly awful things have happened that have nothing to do with choices or attitude.

Yes I believe everyone suffers in some way, but some more than others. I’m blessed in many ways, but have have had devastating experiences. Some were out of my control, others down to poor judgement and being too trusting.

This isn't about occasional failure. 🤦

It's about whether truly awful things happen to you in life, like being brought up in an abusive home, losing a child to cancer, being raped, to give some examples.

So many clueless replies on here.

Also to add - there is a sliding scale of hard times. It's hard to lose a grandparent. It's hard to lose a parent in one's 40s or 50s. It's hard to lose a job or to become poor when you were once comfortable. But it's nonsense to claim these things compare to losing a child, or being widowed at 35, or being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at 45. The people that these things happen to have been given a shit hand by life, there's no two ways about it.

"Occasional failure"??!
Seriously tone deaf. Do you really think the hardships being discussed fall into that category?

In the past week I've told each of my siblings directly that I've had a very tough few months & things are hard for me right now. Not one of them asked me anything further. We all get on well but fundamentally, they put themselves first. It's very isolating & makes it even less likely I'll open up again.

That is rough @EarringsandLipstick

People can be very self absorbed.

Have you ever done, or thought about, counselling? It might be helpful. Or any friends who you can talk to?

I think plenty of people don’t have hard times, if I am honest. I know people in their 50s who will openly state nothing bad has ever happened to them.
Then there are others who have temporary minor hiccups that the may call ‘hard times’. But which I would call ‘normal life stuff’

Then you get people who suffer genuine trauma, but it’s temporary and recoverable from.

Then you get people whose lives are just shit, or whose lives turn shit and it’s never recovered from.

As pp, good and bad stuff is not distributed evenly.

I’m so sorry.

I’ve had a really hard time for the last 18 months yet people have said they envy me and I seem to have it all. I’ve got very good at masking so I seem to have it all together from the outside.

Yes, of course they do. It's just not always outwardly visible or something someone wants to talk about with someone else. We probably look a lot like your friends: massive house, lovely healthy kids, happy marriage, very good careers, successful business, we aren't mega millionaires by any stretch, but I don't ever have to think if we'll be able to afford a necessity or what if the boiler breaks, etc.

On the inside though, these past few years have truly been hell. Dh's family is quite tricky and MIL is in an abusive relationship and there's been all sorts of fallout from that which has caused stress (we are NC with her husband, who isn't dh's dad). I have also had to go NC with my entire family as my mum went off and married a paedophile who she knows sexually abused his own children and has continued to abuse children in the time they have been in a relationship. Almost no one except my very close inner circle of friends knows about this. Some know I am NC, but no one really asks and frankly, it's not the sort of thing you just blurt out at Sunday lunch (especially with dc around). I've also developed a long-term health condition that means I'll be on treatment for the rest of my life (about 20 tablets a day). It's likely been caused by the stress of everything above. No one except dh and my line manager know this, as again, it's not something you'd just come out with unless someone saw me taking my meds and asked what they were.

If you look at my social media especially, it's all beach days and riding the ponies and look at this lovely flower arrangement on my nice big table in my nice big kitchen. People usually don't go out of their way to flaunt how rubbish their lives are. Even so, one person's hard times are not another persons. It's nice to have stuff and be comfortable, but I'd rather have a family and my health, if I could choose.