What has been the hardest time in your life?

[BeRightBack86]

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever been through and how did you cope?
Currently going through the absolute hardest year of my life with a health issue that has changed my whole life and struggling to cope and stay positive.
Just looking for stories and advice to help me feel less alone.

Looking after Dad dying of oesophageal cancer, then mum got devastating stroke, looking after both of them. Dad died, Mum got worse, went into hospital didn't come home. Two weeks after mum went to hospital, youngest sister diagnosed with ovarian cancer, died six months later.

I often wonder how we cope. But losing a child is the worst, deepest sympathy to all those who have lost a child, words aren't enough. And hugs to all who have/are going through very tough times.

There's a saying that we are given what we can bear. But I don't know....

My Mum being in a coma following a car accident for three years and then dying. She was 30 years older than me and this year it is 30 years since she died.

I am genuinely in awe at the ability of the human spirit to survive such awful things. Sending love to all of you.

For me , years of worrying myself sick about an adult child with severe depression. Worrying every day that this might be the day they killed themselves. Then after years and years of that, he decided to cut the whole family off and I haven't seen him for two years.

Watching my sister's mental and physical health rapidly deteriorate (anorexia plus an autoimmune disease) and feeling utterly helpless. Seeing my parents suffer was also awful. Now I have children of my own I know it would be worse as a parent and I pray that I never go through what my parents did.

Boyfriend run over (literally) by a skip lorry while he was riding his pushbike. I was 26. Twenty-six years later, the sudden unexpected death of my husband. I was 52.

Both bereavements left me in an extremely bad way.

My staring into the abyss years (don’t want to go into that if that is ok) I got through by doing a lot of thing on autopilot and keeping super busy. Worked hard and went to the gym every day, kept in touch with all my friends, listened to a LOT of heavy metal as found it soothing… (all that screaming about angst and despair to a hard drum beat and melodic uplifting guitars)

So I think what works is very personal. You have to try and find a few things that help you feel s as bit better in the moment then build routines around and including those things

the outcome for me after 3 years was that I am now a heavy metal fan with biceps… and some yet to process grief, but find those small things and run with them

Watching my late dp slowly kill himself with alcohol related end stage liver disease. Trying my best to get him to stop drinking, making sure he was eating, coping with him throwing up, having bleeds due to his liver packing up. Knowing for a week that the end was coming, then being given the hope that he may survive only for it to be snatched away & him drowning in his own blood due to his lungs filling with blood. Afterwards trying to cope for ds sake, getting home from taking him to school & sobbing my heart out.

Recovering after being raped by exh, keeping it to myself for a month until I cracked up & told my parents. Having to go through the police investigation, the horrific experience of going through the video interview, having a male DS scream in my face that he didn't believe me. The endless interviews, the feeling dirty, having to constantly relive that night, the 2 years of therapy, being told the CPS weren't taking the case to court.

The point of raising my disabled child when I’ve realised that this is it. There is no support, and it doesn’t get easier. This is it until one of us dies.

So many sad stories. Thank you all for sharing these painful moments. I’m sorry for those still ‘in the trenches’. 💐

I’ve been very lucky in life generally, but I had one very difficult year when I was 35 and my (relatively young and very healthy) parents were both diagnosed with terminal cancer, one in January and one in May. They died within ten weeks of each other at the end of that same year. The losses were devastating, but the illnesses themselves were awful, and the impact they had on my life was significant. I had to just leave my job because suddenly I was required to spend all of my time attending oncology appointments, visiting hospitals, sitting in a hospice, coordinating carers, doing their housework and admin …and just trying to do everything I could to make their last months as comfortable as possible.

When I was busy supporting Mum, I was worrying and feeling guilty about Dad and vice versa (they were never in the same hospital/hospice/home at the same time!) My children were really little at the time too, so DH had to take on all childcare and our own housework and admin, and I lost out on loads of time with them all over that year, which is something I can never get back. I can’t really remember DD at 7 and DS at 5 because I missed most of it.

But I look back on it and am heartened that I not only survived it, but made a good job of supporting my parents in their final months, weeks, days and hours. I really ‘showed up’ for them, which was the least I could do after all they had done for me.

I’m so sorry @BugJuice . Yours is a very difficult life indeed. 💐

Becoming estranged from my family when my DD was 9 months - they'd been bullying me before then anyway

I've been through so so many things, but them not loving me, shone a whole new light on the crap I went through as a child and teen, because of them

I loved my mum so much. Now I only remembered her 60th birthday at like 5.30pm on the day

🩷💐 To all here - you can get through these times and you will get stronger, as clichéd as it is, time is what's needed.

My friend’s baby dying at 3 weeks old - just heartbreakingly devastating. This was just after finding out my teenager had been self harming. Then found out husband watching webcam live women. All whilst trying to navigate an extension on our house and returning to work after mat leave myself.

I had severe postnatal depression and psychosis. I was hospitalised and very unwell. It was an utterly awful and dark time and I’m quite traumatised by it (so much so that I didn’t have any more children despite absolutely ADORING my only).

I can’t tell you how I got through it. Lots of support I guess. I am fully recovered now though. But it was hell.

The death of my 31 year old sister 10 days after a cancer diagnosis. She left a 6 and 4 year old.

Currently watching my 21 year old son retreat into himself and behave more and more like someone with a very serious mental health condition with what seems like no possible hope of any independent life and absolutely no self awareness about it..

It was early evening in June some years ago. My DCs were upstairs doing their homework while I cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. There was a knock on the door. It was a couple of police officers who had come to tell me that my ex had been found dead.

I then had to call my children downstairs to tell them that their mother had died. I cherish pretty much all the memories I have of my children but if I could possibly erase one memory of them then that conversation is the one I'd want to lose.

Im sorry you have had a difficult time with health issues,it's said you can have a thousand problems in life but when you have don't have health, you only have one.
My most difficult times were nursing my husband with terminal cancer until he dies aged 48 yrs, loss of a baby in utero ,and health issues.
On a positive note those cataclysmic events do show human strength and resilience and also what is really important .

My little brother taking his own life aged 25 😢

Yes lack of adult engagement here Lindor it has left me with no end of problems. Lots of grief wrapped up in it. I have issues with abandonment.

Being the primary carer for my mother in home hospice whilst she died a slow, agonising, horrific death of cancer over 5 months. My youngest was 5 weeks old when this started, so I did everything with him strapped to my chest in a carrier, whilst also recovering from a c section and looking after my 3 year old. Lots of family members dropped in to stay with us as she lived in a very remote location to which travel is difficult. They would arrive promising help, but then were invariably so overwhelmed and grief-stricken that they instead just became one more person to cook and clean after. I realised then that I was and am totally alone in life.

Right now. Death of a parent, dementia with the other parent, renovating a property, dc gone back to uni, working 60% of the week away from home, dealing with bipolar. That's the short version.

Thank you, i am also thinking of you at this hard time you are going through. Wish I could help more...please don't feel alone , life is difficult but hoping for better times ahead for you

Losing my daughter 7 years ago. She took her own life and I miss her every day but always put on a brave face for her lovely boys. I’m so sorry for everyone’s experiences. It can be hard out there x

Last year. Got a phone call to say my 15 year old had had a seizure at school. No history of that - completely out the blue. Just a normal, sporty lad who was finding his independence. No idea if he had epilepsy or not. Was on edge for 6 months after in a way that made me quite ill and exceeded my usual coping mechanisms.

18 months on and no repeat so fingers crossed. I’ve never really been the same since. I dunno…. it just shook me.

Sending love to all.

My first child dying during labour.

And being left labouring unassisted for a further 20+ hours, as I was just a waste of resources now that there wasn’t a life to save anymore.

And then, when it was clear the baby was not coming out on her own (wrapped 3 times tightly in the umbilical cord), being given a c section without anaesthetic, because nobody believed me when I told them my epidural hadn’t worked.

And then being told that my baby would be chucked in an incinerator with hospital waste, unless I fancied a group cremation once the hospital had enough other dead babies in the freezer to make it worth their while. And then being treated like a massive inconvenience for asking to see my daughter one last time in the mortuary. One of the midwives said ‘she won’t look very nice, you know.’

I was too traumatised to complain to PALS. I’ve never been made to feel so subhuman in my life, when I was already in such terrible grief and shock. My fear of being at the mercy of the NHS was a major factor in my moving abroad.

When I discovered my ex h’s first affair. I forgave him. We tried again.

Then we moved abroad. I didn’t know he’d started another affair. The screaming abuse was awful. I was stuck. The DCs and I. He was so vile. Then he suddenly calmed down. And was perfectly normal. Then he started screaming abuse again 2 years later. And got violent. Then claimed he’d tried to commit suicide. Then he left. Thank God.

I stayed in the foreign country with my DCs. Trying to hold us all together. They were all diagnosed with PTSD. Refused to see their father. I was accused of alienation.

i discovered he had racked up debts of circa €40k. Those were the ones I knew about. I’m sure he has more that I’m not privy to. I also discovered the extent of his adulterous cheating. It was pretty extensive.

I think I was in shock for three years. Only just starting to feel normal now. I hate his guts.