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.

This is mine. I feel incomplete. I will always grieve this. I always used to say that being a mother would be my greatest accomplishment and now I'll never know.

Infertility, but I came to terms with it when we adopted and it's no longer something that bothers me. Wrecked much of my 30s though.

Losing my two youngest children. They haven’t died, they just don’t want to see me as their Father made them choose between us. I try to be grateful that they’re healthy and hope they’re happy but most days I feel like I’m walking around with a giant gaping hole that I’ll never be able to fill.

I feel for the ones that couldn't have children thinking that they are somehow ' incomplete '
:( it must be awful to feel this way.

Realizing how severely disabled my son is at 2 years old and then realizing one day I won't be here to protect him. I've never had such bad health anxiety because the need to live as long and as healthy as possible is overwhelming.

I get you. It's a horrible thing to live with. Sending you the biggest hug 🌺🌺

I worked in a crèche part time while at uni, one day a little girl told a story about home that didn’t add up and showed us some marks. My manager reported it that day, spoke to police and wrote a statement for SS, a few weeks later her and her siblings never came back to the crèche as the parents sent them all back to their home country. I think about her very often and it still keeps me up at night. She was so small.

Illness
Loss of job, Loss of earnings

I lost my mum when I was 14, then my sister died aged 32 from the same disease. The grief has impacted everything, and the fear of becoming ill myself has hung over me all my adult life.

My 23yr marriage was not awful, but it wasn't good either and I regret the wasted time and opportunities, and not providing my children with a happier home.

Might sound melodramatic but some news stories have really affected me and taught me a lot about how senseless and terribly unfair life can be - the Kings Cross fire, Hillsborough, Sept 11th, Boxing Day tsunami, the Manchester arena bomb, Grenfell. I feel real grief for the people caught up in these awful events.

So many

My children not having any grandparents. My mum died due to addiction and father now in a home heading the same way. My husbands parents are wonderful grandparents to his siblings children but mine barely know them.
I have the best memories growing up with grandparents and so sad mine will never have that.

Losing parents, grandparents, cousins, aunties and uncles and one sibling so far due to addiction.

Having my rainbow baby almost 3 years ago after losing 2, 4 weeks after I witnessed my sister die in front of me tragically. She was my person and I'll never get over my youngest child never knowing her and her him. To me his whole life represents the length of time she's been gone and it is always with me. He was born into the saddest time of my life and it should have been so different.

3 of my children having autism is a constant worry too.

The nursing home my mum was in physically and psychologically abused her in the lead up to her death. Has all been proven and I'm still waiting on the courage to bring them to justice. But I will and it will be massive and not anonymous.

I'm not a people person anymore. Love my own company.

Well one would be the devastation of and after October 7. Our lives are upside down.

Part of that is the wilful idiocy of so may here in the UK, the absolutely wild distortion of BBC news. All those here "well you shouldn't support a genocide" - where are the numbers from, how many terrorists does it include, why are there terrorists in civilian areas, why did the tunnel in which Hersh and others were found start in a child's bedroom? Use your noggins, you are part of our problem, and also part of the problem for Palestinians!

We don't want to be in the UK anymore, we don't want to go to Israel. We feel like fugitives in the world.

N.B. Not going to respond to any idiotic comments, we know more about these things than you, don't have the emotional bandwidth to discuss with someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, save your breath.

Not wanting my child when I was carrying them and not bonding upon their birth. 18 now and utterly adored. I look back and could cry 😢

An unwanted abortion when I was 17. 30 years later and I still think about it most days.

I’m so sorry to hear so many of your devastating stories. So many people carry so much pain.

My primary emotional scar is a bereavement, but I also feel haunted by ten years of boarding school and the sense of having been cheated of a childhood and a day-to-day relationship with my parents. Nothing “happened to me” and I had good friends, but my sense of stability snapped when I was eight years old and that colours everything.

Never discuss politics snd religion with friends. Keep it light.

Things might change and maybe one day it will backfire on him, honestly shat kind of a parent puts that pressure on a child.
Disgusting.

@Hoppinggreen , I've just posted in similar terms. I looked after her - bathed, fed and clothed her but I was on autopilot. I'm actually now addicted to Facebook reels about babies.

@purplechrayne "My dearest friend turning against me after October 7th because she perceives my support of Israel to be so distasteful to her as to negate decades of friendship."

I am so sorry. I also lost someone I thought was my closest friend. Every time there is a conflict in Israel I have had venom directed my way and lost friends but this one really stung. I had PTSD from Oct 7th but her political views precluded her from ever once being able to say "I am so sorry this happened" or "I am so sorry you are going through this". She would change the subject or say 'Yes, but....'

Loss of pregnancy and my mam I'm sure both class as bereavements.

Other than that 10 years of infertility nearly killed me, drove me too the brink of madness and then when the pregnancy loss hit after 6 years of it. Looking back I may have had a break down because I quit everything (my career, hobbies, friend groups etc...) and totally withdrew from society.

I was ok for the first 3 years or so but by the 6 years point I think I was barely holding on before the loss so I might have gone crazy without it too. It was all I could think of all day long. First thing in the morning, last thing at night etc... every late period, every sore breast, every time you get sick and so on. I lost my whole youth to it.

So yeah infertility is the hardest 'non death' thing I have been through. it is grieving the loss of your children except they don't exist in anyone else's world and your just going crazy and no one else gets it.

The constant reminder of your own pending mortality.

That's really sad
Are they still.together?

Thank you @CopKiller and @PassingStranger I try not to let it keep me down, mostly for my eldest as their Father had abandoned them because they wouldn’t choose. The sense of injustice is almost as overwhelming as the grief but I hold onto the hope that one day they will see the truth.

I agree that some of the stories in this thread are horrific and sending love to all of you who are carrying this kind of grief around and yet still able to put one foot in front of the other.

While I was only deeply alcoholic for a relatively short period of time, my greatest sorrow would be how much I relied on alcohol all my life up until I got sober.

It would have been a much brighter, better life had I just stopped when I was young and clearly didn't have a good grip on it.

Apart from the suicide of my beloved sister, it will be the cancer than destroyed my body at the age of 36 when I should have been enjoying newborn DD and her brothers. However, I am still here which I am so grateful for.
The other thing would have been DS1's genetic, learning and mental health issues. He's doing really well, working and at college, but I wish he could be a happy teenager.