What was the lowest point in your life, and how did you bounce back?

[NoSleepOnceAgain]

I have a very sick parent, whose cancer just keeps coming. I am hollowed out and numb and terrified.

I have already lived a variation of this in my twenties, with the other parent, and been almost destroyed by the grief.

I have a lot of health problems and ADHD and have fucked up my professional life - no career. Also trying to accept that I can't have a child due to my health.

Feeling quite low. Really would love to hear from anyone who has at some point wondered how they could every carve out meaning from life, but is now ok.

What do I do. I feel I'm going mad that so many things are not options to me. I'm so tired and resentful, why is life so fucking shite and hard?

I was violently raped and choked over a number of hours. My mother told me it was obviously my fault and she was ashamed of me (whilst I was in hospital) and even though at the time I'd prayed/begged for another minute/hour of life, I hit rock bottom.

When the drink, drugs and suicide attempts failed to kill me, I finished my degree and became a civil servant. Am I happy? Sometimes, pre covid I'd finally found the woman I was before but then covid (masks/too much time to think/no escape from my family) caused a relapse in my ptsd symptoms and I'm back battling demons.

Also I'm currently a "parasite" too. I also have an inner voice who likes telling me I should have died with my rapist's hands around my throat because I'm worthless (it's my mum essentially), it might be worth figuring out whose yours is so you can banish them.

I feel for you OP. I had such a happy childhood (not exactly healthy, but happy). Then when I hit 30 life imploded. And it’s been peaks and valleys ever since, with more peaks than valleys.

Its so hard to relinquish the life you thought you were going to have. I had to grieve for that (as well as actual grief). I had to let it go. At my worst… I wake up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other until I can crawl back into bed at night.

Things that help me…

the knowledge that nothing lasts. The good moments, the bad, all are fleeting. The bad moments will go and come as will the good. I find that thought oddly comforting.

Sertraline. It’s not for everyone. And I hope to be able to a live life without it someday. But it helps me.

refocusing my life. To me that meant going back to a childhood hobby. It has given me ‘me time’, a focus, a renewed sense of purpose etc

exercise. I don’t care about how I look (I’ve let myself go - prob the depression). I exercise for my mind. I can’t always bring myself to do it, but the days I can, I feel so much better.

diet. As above! I find if I eat crap too much, my mood plummets. I take vits, drink water, eat well (ish) for my mood. Oddly I find honey v beneficial.

listen to music and make myself dance. If I dance around the kitchen for ten minutes, I feel a mood lift.

basically I think I suffered ptsd, which brought on depression. The trauma is gone, and the pieces of my life are so much better (myself and oh are in work again, not in horrible bedsit with mould all over etc). But the chemicals in my brain haven’t aligned. It’s a bit of a struggle…. But I can say that these days I have more good days (days I don’t jst want to stay under the covers) than bad.

💐
thanks for sharing everyone

@NoSleepOnceAgain

“Sure, right now I'm enjoying a perfect cup of tea listening to birdsong outside my flat window, and am content. But that isn't really enough for a whole life - not when you wanted to have children and had dreams for modest success at some job.

I dunno. A good cup of tea, a lovely scoop of ice cream or a really dry glass of wine are all great things, but they aren't enough to make up for not having basically any other outlet for joy.”

I understand completely what you mean about the life you wanted (children). It is so so so hard to let go of that. I had something I had to let go of too (not on same level, but a vision of a life I wanted)…

in a way though, I feel if you can enjoy the things above, then you are not broken or hollow at all. That feels to me like the very beginning of healing. Tea and birdsong is beautiful!

also I wouldn’t necessarily give up on the career. I don’t know your circumstances but you come across as clever and articulate. If you want something, I think you should think about how to make that happen. I know I thought I had completely f’ed up my career at various points, was in and out of work. My cv looked like a disaster film. But I recently fell into a wonderful job. I ve heard of similar stories before.

Wish I could give you a hug, OP.

The trouble is that when we’re low, all the other rubbish in the present and from the past just piles on top. It’s overwhelming.

I don’t think that not having a career or a job is a failure at all. I don’t think it matters if you have a happy life and understanding with your DP. It honestly sounds at the moment like you have a lot on your plate, anyway. Just focus on caring for your parent and yourself right now. The rest can wait.

As for children, I have a very good friend who longed for a child for years, multiple failed IVF and adoption applications. She never gave up hope, despite being told over more than a decade that her and her husband weren’t suitable for adoption. Then one day, she received a call. And got her longed for child.

I have learned in life that sometimes , you don’t just have a bad year. You can have bad decades. Longer, even. You just have to keep getting up and breathing during those times because as much as it feels like it for you right now, life doesn’t remain the same throughout its entirety and there will be better times ahead, happy times even.

But for now, just keeping getting up and keep breathing.

I know it sounds like a simple thing but I found great therapy in needlework. It absorbs and calms me. It’s the best therapy I’ve found and I’ve tried antidepressants, exercise and counselling.

Hang in there. x

In the words of Winston Churchill, "If you're going through hell, keep going". You will get out the other side eventually.
I felt this way when my EX left for another woman, leaving me with 5yr old DC & no family in the country. Soon after, I became unwell, drs found an elevated tumour marker & were searching for a cancer. Soon after that I realised exh was hiding his finances, suddenly earning 5% of his previous salary. Whilst photos of him & OW flying first class & holidaying in villas around the world, I was looking for the cheapest toilet roll, trying to stay alive, working and looking after DD single-handedly. It didn't last forever. Life is shit sometimes, but this too shall pass. And you'll have a new appreciation for the "normal" times.

The Worst thing to happen to me was my mum dying when I was 12. It has had a massive impact on my adult life which I’m only now really acknowledging but not really facing. I look back on my childhood and it all seems to have been in black and white. I don’t remember much happiness so it seems like I had a very long period of sadness and misery.

As an adult, I have had periods when I have been very down and contemplated suicide but the one thing which kept me going were my pet dogs. I do now have a daughter and she is my reason to live but for many years my dogs were everything.

In a nutshell, I think having something/someone to love that in turn needs me is what kept, and still keeps, me going.

Maybe it’s worth making a list of people who love and need you, Op? Think about those whose lives you enhance just by being you. You matter, OP and you’re loved and needed.

@NoSleepOnceAgain I know how you feel - that there must be something else in life, something to look forward to, something to aim for, something to strive for , something else worthwhile........ but I've learned along the way that the greatest contentment is found in just "living in the moment" and living just the small pleasures rather than the "great life plans" (if that makes sense).

Small things like a freshly made bed, a cup of tea, a song on the radio, birdsong and the time to enjoy it ......... it sounds like a boring life, but it's what makes life worthwhile. The things you enjoy are what gives life meaning, not the things you think you should be doing,

You are NOT a parasite and you have not failed at being a "valid human being" (whatever that is)

I think our dreams of 'what if' and 'I wish' are what make us unhappy and if we could actually recognise that we can be happy and fulfilled within what we feel rather than what we 'should do ' or what other people think we should be doing, then life would be so much simpler x