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.

I had an horrendous couple of years, firstly I was subjected to the most horrific workplace bullying by a senior leader. I had to leave. Then my Husband cheated. It very nearly broke me at the time. He was cruel, mean and aggressive, I also lost my home as his Parents owned it. I wrote to his Mum at the time of his vile behaviour but she turned on me. I felt so alone and traumatised, I actually took and overdose.
A few months later my Mum died suddenly and tragically.
Looking back I don’t know how I got through it.

I’ve been through the usual shit (chronic illness, childhood abuse, family estrangement) but some of these posts are absolutely horrific. Sending you all love and light. Life can be incredibly hard.

I grew up in a household where my dad was very violent to my mum. It was awful.
I entered into an abusive 7 year relationship myself at the age of 17. That was crap but not as bad as my childhood.
I lost a baby at 17 weeks pregnant that I really struggled with too.

Kind of similar. Alcoholic dad, depressed mum, domestic violence. He was emotionally abusive to us all. It’s a difficult way to grow up. It makes me sad for me and my siblings as youngsters. I sometimes think about my younger self and my total insecurity and try to forgive my adult self for the mistakes I have made in life.

Thanks for your reply. I’m trying to do that too but it does feel really hard to manage the ingrained feelings of low self worth.

One year in the 90s. I was in my 20s. My dad died suddenly and not in a nice, peaceful way. At the same time I was working in a job I hated. I also had some good things….i got married and we moved from our council flat in a tower block in a horrendous area to our own much better place in a better area. But even that was stressful. I ended up on antidepressants and went through a period of sleepwalking. I was doing daft things…woke up on the sofa smoking a cigarette and would attempt to go out in my nighty. My husband worked shifts including nights so we had to double lock the front door and hide the keys, and hide cigarettes and lighters.

the next bad time was mid 2020 to end of 2021. I had been getting increasingly bad stomach pain which were eventually diagnosed in early 21 as gallstones (diagnosis was delayed because of COVID). To give the NHS their due, I was fast tracked once the waiting list reopened as my gallbladder was totally fucked.

in early 2021 my eyesight started getting really bad and i ended up having to go off sick because I couldn’t even see the computer and this was causing issues with my posture so i got back, neck and headaches. About 2 years earlier i had been told by the optician I had early signs of cataracts but not to worry for about 20 years, but they got worse rapidly. Again the NHS did me well and I got my first one treated really quick, which on its own was enough to return to work but the second one was delayed as it clashed with the gallbladder op. The second was rebooked but then I came off my bike and fractured my right (dominant) shoulder requiring surgery. That was so, so painful and I lost my independence for a while (couldn’t even wipe my own arse.) I ended up back on antidepressants and my second cataract surgery was postponed again until I was fit as you have to lie very still and I couldn’t due to my shoulder. I didn’t get the second cataract until about March 22.

it was a horrible year or so, I seemed to be forever having hospital visits and/or off sick.

thankfully it all came out in the wash!

Loosing my boyfriend and first love to suicide. He was everything to me and it almost broke me. I still struggle with it years later and miss him terribly. It's the moment that will define me until the day I die.