To ask you for your positive stories

[Whatwhatt]

The time you got that job you'd dreamed of but never thought you'd have.

Meeting your OH when you didn't think possible.

Overcoming that crappy situation when you'd lost all hope.

I am in a rut and I can't see past it. I've lost hope and just feel desperately sad when I think about the future.

I would love to hear your stories when you'd been feeling similar but surprised yourself. Absolutely anything big or small.

I was made redundant just as I should have returned after maternity leave. I had no confidence and had to launch I to the whole interview process. After several horrible attempts, I got some interview coaching and got offered both jobs I applied for afterwards. It was an amazing confidence boost & the job I took was beyond my hopes salary and benefits wise.

Once I sought some help, it all came together & the key was believing in myself.

Sorry you're having a tough time.

I was subjected to some seriously awful behaviour in my last job, all driven by my line manager. Had job interviews and left.
If you mention toxic work environment and wanting to leave asap for the sake of your mental health (only do this when you have next job lined up!) they might let you go without forcing you to endure your full notice period. Worked for me. (Did a week and a half of the typical 3 months which would have been unendurable) So happy I left, totally worth the pay cut. Felt better the second I was walking out of the door.

Met DH age 28 after being single for 4 and a bit years. Married 3 years later. Got pregnant 4 and a half months after the wedding, but lost the baby at 12 weeks (MMC). I felt heartbroken at the time. Got pregnant again, and beautiful 17 week old DD is currently having her nap!

So glad you both came through those situations!

Sassypants82 I imagine that was an incredibly anxious and stressful time, not what you need after being on maternity I would guess.

Bluetrews25 I'm glad you're feeling a lot better now! That sounds just unbearable, considering you spend 90% of your life in work you need to be happy.

My situation is physical. I'm not able to do something I desperately want to do. Well I can...but it's a lot harder than normal so if I want to achieve it I will have to endure a lot of heartache first which is just a very scary thought.

I wasted a decade of my life allowing bullies to take my freedom and joy from me.

Over time I realised I was allowing myself to be a loser in life which brought on depression. I then decided I don't want to be a loser anymore and for the bullies to be winners. Slowly I am surrounding myself with people who don't want to be losers and me be a loser. I am not telling people my plan, I am carrying them out , action over talk. I am feeling happier.

I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for seven years. Wasted most of my twenties on him. No kids, thank god, but it decimated my self esteem to the point where I missed out on career progression.

Finally got out of the relationship and spent a few months travelling. The week I got back from South America, I went up to Newcastle to visit my uni friend and... BAM. Met my now DH. Just like that.

After DH and I got married I got pregnant and had a miscarriage. That same year I got made redundant and a really good friend of mine died in very sudden and sad circumstances. I was grief stricken from all sides and jobless to boot, when we really couldn’t afford for me to be. I remember going to one job interview the day before my friend’s funeral and just massively fucking it up to the point where I wanted the earth to swallow me up. I was so embarrassed.

But, a couple of months later I got a good job offer. And a few months after that I found out I was pregnant again and this time it was successful.

Thanks to that job I made lots of good contacts and six years later, one of them started up their own business and got in touch to see if I wanted to join their team. Now I have children, a DH and a job I love. But it was a hard slog getting here.

There was no one watershed moment where suddenly everything went from shit to great. It was a gradual evolution. I think when you’re going through a shit time all you can do is just grind it out and keep looking for the opportunities to inch things forward in the right direction. It might take a couple of years but eventually something will click and then things will start to fall into place.

Over time I realised I was allowing myself to be a loser in life which brought on depression

This is very insightful.

I too had sort of assumed the role of victim. Of my circle of friends I was always the one having a crisis. Always the one needing support. I was the ‘unlucky’ one that bad things happened to.

Then I realised that I was responding to everything as a victim. As if I had no agency in events. I had simply had enough of being ‘poor old Turmeric’. I couldn’t bear the pity any more. Even...especially my own self pity.

So I flipped things in my head and became ‘fighter’ instead of ‘victim’. Bad things happened to me but I didn’t let them define me. I developed strategies to overcome things, rather than surrender to the shitness. Changing my mindset in that way really helped.

When I was 17 I was in a horrible place. I was being abused at home, had an eating disorder and things were just horrible in general. I didn't know how bad things were, I just assumed everything I went through was normal and I was just being dramatic and deserved to called horrible things and feel bad, because I was inherently bad myself.

Then at college I met my now DH. It was genuinely love at first sight. I knew the second I saw him we would get married. Suddenly I didn't feel quite so bad about myself. Slowly but surely as we fell in love he helped me out of that dark place. His mum found out about my home life and gave me a room at their house and fed me. She not only took me on, she offered me friendship, taught me to cook, offered me advice and gave me the mother figure I needed.

11 years later we're married with 3 kids and thanks to his and mils efforts, I'm a confident, happy woman. You'd never know what I went through. I genuinely didn't believe I deserved happiness, but here I am with great self esteem, with loads of friends and family I love and who love me back. I could have never pictured me living such a wonder life all those years ago!

I’ve got a few of these!

First of all - I went for something when I was younger that everyone really thought I would get. I’d been assured consistently for 3 years by teachers, family members, friends etc that I would easily get it. I felt reasonably confident, I went for it....and failed. I was devastated, embarrassed and lost all hope. Completely shocked that I had failed. Took a bit of time to reassess, did something else for a bit as a distraction, then went for it again, all guns blazing - second time round I succeeded!

Secondly, a few years down the line, I was stuck in a rut at work and realised I had chosen the wrong job. Took me a while to work out what I wanted to do and then found out it was a very competitive career as there are so few roles available. A rare position came up at my level and I put SO much preparation into the interviews and application. I made it to the final round but was rejected. I cried when I got the call but didn’t consider giving up. Kept on working towards it, doing volunteer work in that area, lots of extra reading etc. 6 months later it turned out the person they gave the job to had already decided to move on so they called me and asked me to come back for another interview. As I’d kept up with my preparations etc I was able to go in the following week and impress them enough - they gave me the job!

Lastly (and I've told this one a few times now on here) was finding DP. I dated and had short term relationships for 12 years but never found “the one” and became more and more disheartened with every rubbish date or failed relationship. In the end I had a sort of mini break down about it when I realised that all my close friends were married or living with long term partners but I was still single despite trying my hardest to meet someone. I realised that dating was making me more unhappy so I decided to just accept that it wasn’t going to happen for me and focus on having children instead (via solo adoption). Literally 2 weeks after I started putting this plan in motion, I met my DP (sort of out of the blue) and the rest is history!

Thank you all for sharing these, it's so helpful to hear about others making it through when they had given up hope as I have right now!

I know I can do this thing I want to do, but I also know that pursuing it will bring me a lot of heartache and will likely be the most mentally (and physically) challenging thing I will do in my life.

It sounds awful but right now I'm in the 'I just can't be bothered anymore' kind of mode.