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

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

Thanks Cherry
I have a super counsellor thank goodness. I've been seeing her for years now, it took ages to work through the different layers from my abusive ex, to the shame I felt re 'failing' at marriage, and more recently, how I put everyone first ahead my own / DC needs, possibly in an attempt to be 'liked'. I've had to learn that often people don't care - not really. My family aren't awful; they've done kind things for me & my DC - but they don't care at a deeper level, enough to engage & ask what's happening. It's really hard for example to be going through a divorce alone, with none of them even knowing!

Regarding friends, I'm very fortunate to know lots of people eg school mums, work colleagues and people I exercise with. And I'm friendly with a lot of them. I don't really have friends I can open up to on a deeper level tho. I've sometimes in the past made the mistake of doing that (with people I thought were good friends) and have seen it's too much & they back away.

I'm very busy with work + kids, so essentially no social life. I meet people & make connections quite easily, and I hope in the future to have that deeper friendship. I do need to be careful of not being too needy about it as that's off putting!

I'm thinking of a friend of mine who has had a really tough time with loss. Professionally & personally she has done very well; but she lost so many of her immediate family at young ages, some very tragically. Last year her DS died in really awful circumstances. She talks very freely about her loss but at the sane time is quite guarded with emotions.

She has incredible fortitude, went back to work quite soon after DS death, has started a new high-level position, takes part in professional events and so on. She says herself she had to make an active choice to 'live'.

Underneath she is in absolute hell of course. I know she doesn't really want to discuss it, and I can't imagine it. I just listen to whatever she does want to talk about.

What's amazed me is the amount of people who think she is 'fine' based on her outward presentation. I wonder how some people don't have a bit more ability to imagine what it might be like.

@AreOttersJustWetCats I agree. So many people post on here about how traumatic their elderly grandparents dying is. I know people who have lost their parents when they were children, some in the most horrific circumstances like during child birth or long-term illnesses. I don't have any grandparents alive, they all died when I was younger but even then I accepted that dying from old age was part of life and took comfort from remembering the great memories I had with them. Losing a parent at a young age is absolutely horrific and traumatic for a child to endure and I know way too many who have had to go through it.

How much is bad luck, ie you had no control over it. And how much is controllable?

OK, I'll bite. You cannot control three of your grandparents dying before you are born, and the fourth by the time you are 8. You can't control the fact that you have no siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins. You can't control your father having a heart condition all your childhood and him dropping down dead a week before your 13th birthday. You can't control the fact that your mother then had a complete nervous breakdown and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for two months. You can't control there being no other relatives to take you in. You can't control being put into care by social services, and then being beaten up by three of the violent yobs they housed you with, and being scared to go to sleep at night because the girl you shared a bedroom with was there because she had been arrested after deliberately setting fire to her parents' house with them in it. Okay, so I've got to the age of 14 in this abridged autobiography, would you like me to continue?

And yes, I do have a series of little locked boxes at the back of my mind, none of which I dare open or I would fall apart completely.

All people face hard times. Some choose to share, some don't.

On the surface, I'm quite friendly, happy and confident. The reality is, I'm sleep deprived from menopause, don't have much money, live far away from my parents and have a few health issues.

I've not RTFT, but I think it sort of depends. Outwardly, to people that are acquaintances, we probably look to have a charmed life. But over the years we have had our fair share of really awful shit to deal with. And our close friends and family know about that. I think most people have times that are very difficult, and then hopefully some better times too.

I do think that trying to keep positive helps. Ultimately a lot of what life throws at you isn't in your gift to change, so I'm very much a 'make the best of a shit situation' type person. It's not always easy, but I try as much as I can to take that path.