Is this year the worst year of your life?

[AbsentmindedWoman]

It's a shit year, I think virtually everyone would agree. But is it the worst you have lived through?

I'm bored, frustrated, and because I am chronically ill and depend heavily on access to specialist doctors for time-sensitive treatments, have a constant level of background anxiety in case SHTF and my doctors are forced to cancel. However, for me it's not the worst period of my life to date.

What about you? I'm interested in different perspectives on this, as we all are coming to the situation from very different places.

@greenbks I am so sorry for your loss . That really puts things into perspective.

2020 is nowhere near my worst year. In 2016 my dad died. In 2017 my marriage exploded due to my husband's alcoholism, ending in his removal from our house by the police. In 2018 he died and my mother started an alcoholic spiral of her own and she died in 2019.

So 2020 isn't great, but it isn't on the list of really bad years.

No. If I had to do a chart of Shittest Years Ever, this would be Number 4. The top 3 are:

1. 1993, when my dad died and my mum had a mental breakdown which basically lasted for several months, we went on holiday to Menorca the following year and she spent most of it in bed
2. 2005, when my maternal gran died, I was self-harming almost every day, had a mental breakdown and temporarily dropped out of uni after a suicide attempt
3. 2016, when my brother had cancer and split up with his girlfriend, I had serious problems with intrusive thoughts and was self-harming a lot and took an overdose, and my mum was admitted to hospital after a drinking binge

It's not been a great year, but I've had far worse tbh.

No, finding my dad dead at home at Christmas was easily the worst, followed by losing my young adult cousin to leukaemia just two weeks later.that was 2016, and although technically over two calendar years, I felt numb like I was swimming through mud for a good 12 months

No. If I had to do a chart of Shittest Years Ever, this would be Number 4. The top 3 are:

1. 1993, when my dad died and my mum had a mental breakdown which basically lasted for several months, we went on holiday to Menorca the following year and she spent most of it in bed
2. 2005, when my maternal gran died, I was self-harming almost every day, had a mental breakdown and temporarily dropped out of uni after a suicide attempt
3. 2016, when my brother had cancer and split up with his girlfriend, I had serious problems with intrusive thoughts and was self-harming a lot and took an overdose, and my mum was admitted to hospital after a drinking binge

It's not been a great year, but I've had far worse tbh.

No, last year was the worst year of my life. In March 2019 I made the heart breaking decision to terminate my much wanted second baby (a girl) after a very late diagnosis of severe CMV which I caught very early on in the pregnancy. We found out that the baby was severely affected and had amnio and an MRI scan. I was 28 weeks and once all the results came back and me and DH made our decision I had the procedure and then gave birth at 31 weeks. It was horrific and I will always live with it, questioning our decision but the drs were very clear on the diagnosis and wouldn't have supported our decision if they weren't 100% sure of the severity of her condition. I think of her every single day, but I know she wouldn't have had a good quality of life - she was severely under developed and brain damaged (the scans initially just showed she was measuring small) so I know we made the right decision but god it hurt and still does. However in April of this year - smack bang in the middle of lockdown I gave birth to my beautiful and healthy baby boy! He is absolutely amazing and my oldest DS adores him and he is our sunshine so although 2020 has been absolutely shit it's not a patch on 2019 and has given me a great gift 💙

No, definitely not the worst.
In fact it’s been absolutely fine in the grand scheme of other things happening in the world / that happen in life. Staying at home is no hardship.

I appreciate that it’s been very different for other people though.

Absolutely no where near.

Two major life events (both utterly shit) occurring on the same weekend a few years ago, and being completely alone to deal with the fall out... while having to be the strong one for the whole family (practically and emotionally) as well as continue working.

The feeling of absolute isolation (not in the Covid sense) is one I will remember until the day I die. It was terrifying.

This is a complete walk in the park in comparison.

Not for me. The worst was the year when I was made redundant, moved to a job which was like being a dead person walking and lasted 18 weeks (miracle that long) and then spent four months looking for another job.

Some things have worked out better I’m enjoying WFH and being here with OH and DD.

But the rest of it can bolt. I haven’t hugged my mum or sister since February. I’m constantly on edge about going out anywhere. DD hasn’t had the best time of it either. I’ve had some bad shit happen in the past but this has been the worst.

Erm it’s a weird one for me - it is not the worse years I’ve had but speaking to others this year I realised the reason it isn’t for me is cause my actual life pre covid was crap anyway. It took covid to make me really realise how crap.

@Greenbks I'm so, so sorry

Yes. I now have PTSD as a result of seeing horrific events on a covid ward. I'm a junior doctor, and have seen plenty of deaths, but nothing like this. It was traumatising, statistics show that a significant portion of healthcare practitioners now have PTSD, depression or anxiety, or a combination of the above.

I genuinely felt like we were cannon fodder, both in terms of our physical and mental health.

Erm it’s a weird one for me - it is not the worse years I’ve had but speaking to others this year I realised the reason it isn’t for me is cause my actual life pre covid was crap anyway. It took covid to make me really realise how crap.

@Roseinbloom20 Big hugs for you. We went through exactly the same with our baby boy who was diagnosed with Patau syndrome in 2017. Absolutely hideous experience that I wouldn’t want anyone to go through.
I gave birth to DS who is now 18 months last year and it’s been a great year watching him develop and grow!

Nope. Nowhere near.

Not even close to the worst year. Tbh it’s probably only just makes it into the bottom five.

No not the worst year. this situation is frustrating as we don’t know the timeline and therefore making plans to see family (quite far away but in the same country) difficult. It’s boring because there isn’t much to do.

On the other hand I like wfh because of the general less rushing around associated with commuting. I’m also extremely aware that we are lucky and not had job losses/financial difficulty to deal with.

2014/15 were my worst years, life just being rubbish to me.

Not even close to losing my mother as a teenager.

Test

No it isn't . It's a challenging year in general but nothing bad has happened for me pesonally. Most years have been mixed for me but I can think of about 3 different years that have been much worse for me personally.

No, it’s been boring, I’ve missed out on a hell of a lot, but not the worst year.

No. The worst year of my life was when I was 14. This year has been hard as dh was very poorly then I got covid but after all that it has been fine. Don't mind staying in. Son fine at uni, younger kids settled back into school, not seeing friends or going out much. All fine.