Apart from a bereavement- what has been the greatest sorrow of your life?

[Insywinsy2]

I know pretty morbid but I have been reflecting on life recently now that I’m getting closer to 40.
I have experienced loss with close family passing away but the greatest sorrow in my life is only having my children 50/50 since their dad left a few years ago. It still fills me with such grief knowing that, although I do agree it is best for them to spend time with us both.

I haven't suffered a really significant bereavement of a family member or friend yet (bracing myself for that). But the thing that haunts me the most, and may sound trivial to many people, is the death of my cat. He was very much my cat, we had a really close bond. He was unwell for a couple months before he passed but we thought it was something fixable and that it was in hand. He seemed overall quite well in the circumstances. That turned out not to be the case, he in fact had a massive tumour in his nose.

I went away for a week just before it was obvious there was something seriously wrong. I remember so clearly looking down and petting him goodbye (as in, see you in a week type of goodbye) and he sort of looked at me with pleading eyes as if to say somethings wrong, please don't leave. But I honestly thought he had something minor and I hate myself that I was actually being relieved to get a few days break from it all and for DH to take over.

Anyway, long story short, he went down hill very quickly and very badly and I cut my trip short. I went to the veterinary hospital and he was in the ICU with the most horrendous looking face where things had got so bad. We had to have him put to sleep there and then. He was responsive so he knew I was there and he was trying to sit with me but he was so heavily sedated. The whole thing was so horrific and traumatising, it was 3 years ago and I can barely let myself think about it. I'm crying just typing this. The guilt I feel at leaving him in his time of need is crushing.

Being let down so badly by my family, worse than the grief I felt losing my mum in my teens. I've felt so completely alone and unloved at times in my life

Finding out my DH was having an affair after 20 years together. The emotional pain was indescribable. Completely different from grief but I would say as painful.

Death of parents and 2 very beloved Aunties. Nothing worse than that. Sad about break down of my first marriage of 22 years. Sad about the loss of trust. Very sad I miscarried my baby with DH 2 at 15 weeks.

I know it's a bereavement, but bereavement by suicide. I will never be the same person. Just to stay sane I have had to walk away from almost the entirety of my old life, sell my house, left my job, moved to a different city.

Apart from that, marriage break up, parents horrific divorce when I was 10, long years of emotional abuse by parents.

Losing my dad 4 months after a major op which was meant to prolong his life.

He had fluid in his lungs and we finally got him a doctors appointment and he collapsed at the doctors surgery on the day of the appointment.

He was put on life support, died and cremated within 2 weeks. 10 years on I still can’t get over how quickly it happened, watching him take his last breath will stay with me forever.

Losing my brother in a car crash a few years ago because some idiot was busy snap chatting whilst driving.

People like that deserve life imprisonment but he walks away after just a few years.

Our lives will never be the same, I think of him every day, seeing him in his casket 3 weeks after him passing (due to red tape) is another image that will stay with me forever

Spend more than half my life away from my family. My DC don’t know them and have missed out on a lot. My aunts/uncles are in their late 70s to late 80s, I feel like I’ve missed a lifetime. It really depresses me, but H can’t see it, he doesn’t give a shit about anything except for his job and I resent him for it.

I couldn't have children, despite years of trying, fertility treatment, etc. Early menopause at 42, so that's that.
Mostly I keep busy, but my relationship also fell apart because of it. So, I see happy couples/families, and think of what I missed out on.
Luckily I've got some lovely friends - including a couple other single & childless, and we're planning a retirement home in the sun! 😎

Being diagnosed with cancer when I had three very small children.

Watching a beloved parent’s decline into frailty and dementia.

A parent and a child both attempted suicide.

We have a grandchild with a serious health condition who may not survive to adulthood.

Not knowing I genuinley had ADHD until I was 51 and wondering why I was intelligent and yet a compete useless failure for years. That and knowing the love of my life was shagging someone else while my mum died.

my mum abandoning me for a boyfriend suddenly and traumatically when i was 5-people don't realise the impact this can have. Then coming back into my life when she was dying and needed help just as i had learned to navigate it all.

You could always look the word up in a dictionary if you don’t know what it means. Or are you just trying to pick an argument?

So sorry you are having to cope with this.

Severe PND with my son was completely shattering. It took me a long time to look at pictures of him as a baby without crying. When I had his sister I was medicated and had a completely different experience which was totally the opposite - it was healing in someways but I also felt devastating guilt towards my son for not being able to love him in the same way when he was tiny. I still worry that his anxious tendencies are my fault for not being a good enough mother in his early days.

Apologies if I am coming across as lacking empathy, I can totally sympathise with losing a friendship suddenly and I can see the sorrow in that. While sad for the poster, mentioning the genocide in Gaza as part of the friendship story is obviously going to strike a chord with people given the obvious ongoing slaughter of men, women and children in palatine at the minute.
if she had said that her friend ended their friendship because she supported the holocaust everyone would be aghast. They’re wiping out an entire population and it’s being live streamed, I would also end that friendship

Losing my beloved granny when I was 15. She had my back and we loved each other dearly. My mother became even more abusive after she died. A light in me went out the day she died.
That and addiction in my family are the worst things. My abusive parents failed to protect me and my DD. I didn't expect them to help me tbh but I thought they might for their grandchild. Unfortunately it's ended in no contact and my parents spreading the narrative that I am using DD as a weapon.
I cry most days at how they and my brother have treated me and how they have treated each other. My parents don't deserve to be cleaning my brother's liquid poop off their carpets at 2am, equally they deserve everything they get because they have enabled him for so long.

Another one here who suffered severe PND/PNA. It took me years to recover fully. It’s also meant I wasn’t brave enough to try for a second baby which has left me with terrible guilt at not being good enough. I see other family members going on to have three or four children and am often crushed with guilt that I couldn’t give my daughter a sibling, or my husband another baby.

Honestly it won't haunt you forever. It will change you as a person but you will recover. I thought my life was over when my exh cheated before my eldest was 4 and the youngest 6 months, many affairs later i divorced him and refused point blank to let him impact the rest of my life. He will only haunt you for the rest of your life if you allow it. Don't let him win x

Once again you are making this about yourself and your opinions.@PurpleChrayn did not "mention the genocide in Gaza" (your words). She wrote of her former friend disagreeing with her support for Israel after the events of October 7th - remember them? The murders, the rapes, the abductions?

It is beyond disappointing that you are trying to turn this thread into a showcase for your own opinions on a contentious topic, implying that anyone disagreeing with you isn’t really worthy of friendship. Someone writes about their sorrow and you just want to virtue-signal.

my toddler DD's cancer diagnosis and treatment, just a desperate sadness, terror and darkness I could never have imagined.

Yes, the success of Hamas's DARVO tactics since 7 Oct is as shocking in its own way as the events of that horrible day. But let's not get sidetracked! Just... OP, please don't take the moral high ground over someone whose suffering doesn't count in your eyes.

The sorrow that my beautiful, clever ardent feminist daughter got caught up in the ideology of transgender.
I have spent 7 years trying to keep her away from surgeons, hormones and people who bully her on line.
She's had the scales fall from her eyes recently but I can't get all the thoughts away. The feeling she has of not belonging makes me so sad. She did try to end her life once after some little shit of a transwoman told her that it was the only way she would get my support. Id like to hunt him down. Had I not broken the door down she would have died. She's always had my support. I never sleep properly and I worry how she will lead a happy life. Once you save someone from suicide you never forget it. She's my lovely wonderful person and I mourn the years wasted on this utter gutter fantasy world.

I do remember and I also disagree with those murders, rapes and abductions that happened then but there’s a much longer history than just that day and i still disagree with her support for Israel following them those events

Just stop.

It’s perfectly possible to be appalled by the events of October 7th AND the ongoing slaughter.

Jesus Christ.

Of course I have many friendships with differing views on a lot of things. I made one point that I would also find it hard to maintain a friendship with someone im who supported what is happening now in Palestine. In response to her post that that is why her turned ended the friendship. She brought up Isreal and 7th october