To ask what in life has made you saddest and how you ever got over it?

[Danceswithduck]

Something in life hasn’t worked out I hoped / expected it would. It feels a bit like heartbreak - that’s all I can liken it to.
Im so sad and could cry all the time. I cannot say what it is as it is so identifying to me.

What made you the saddest you’ve ever been and how did you get over it? Or learn to live with it?

DB took his life some years ago. That was definitely the saddest I’ve ever been. I’ve learned to live with it rather than “getting over it”. How? There was no choice. I had to get on with trying to live the best life I can for both of us as he’s no longer here to.
Definitely not easy though. It would have been easier to go the opposite way which is what most people expected.

I know it’s an old cliche but time really is the best healer. You can’t stop the sadness or the heartbreak but after time things become more manageable and you learn to live with the heartbreak and it doesn’t hurt forever.

my DH cheated on me whilst I was pregnant and seven weeks before our, wedding I was devastated, there was nobody to talk to, I couldn’t cancel as my parents had spent thousands as other people had coming from our wedding abroad I’ve never got over the pain but learned to live with it without telling a living soul in RL.

im also heartbroken now as my DH works away so much, I’m at home all day and really want a job but I can’t have one as it doesn’t work with my children. I feel like I’m wasting my life just aimless everyday. I’m never going to have a career and be successful it hurts like hell knowing I’m nothing.

Being diagnosed as an adult with a lifelong condition that limits what I can do. It's meant we can't have the number of children we wanted, and I can't be as active with the children we have because I either don't have the energy or my body won't work. If I had known about it earlier we'd have started having children younger, which might have made the difference.

I have come to terms with it through therapy (I developed ante- and post-natal depression with my youngest so needed counselling then) and trying to focus on what I am able to do. But it still hits me sometimes that I can no longer spend a day walking everywhere, etc.

It is a form of grief. Please be gentle with yourself.

When my mother died. I have never got over it and never will.

I have parents that aren’t interested and don’t love me and want any contact. I have an abusive ex husband. Both children are autistic. My life is not what I thought it would be like

Miscarriages made me saddest, successfully carrying healthy babies to term healed the pain.

My best friend died when we were in our twenties.

I later got counselling as felt the way you did when I felt I should be 'over it' about 4 years later.

The therapist determined that my endless sadness was less about the loss of my friend and more rooted in my being abandoned and ignored by my dad as an 11 year old.

Maybe therapy is an option for you?

My wonderful Dad getting dementia. He became a shell of himself, scared, defeated and it was heartbreaking to see.

My mum dying 10 years ago - I miss her every single day. Time has helped with the intense grief, but there’s always a sadness there.

When I was 13 my dad decided he wouldn't be in my life anymore. I don't think I ever really recovered, you grow around those type of traumas but the grief is always there.

I'm sorry you are going through a significant sadness too. 💕

Various bereavements, including a young man of 24 who took his own life.

You don't "get over it" you learn to live with it.
It is a cliche but time can be a great healer. That still doesn't mean you forget or you get over it, it means you learn to manage the grief.
Yes, it still sneaks up on you at various times, but the frequency changes over time and the balance of times when you laugh and smile at things increases.

Going through life on my own. I would love to have found my soul mate.

A man I thought was my boyfriend forced me into prostitution, for nearly ten years. The aftermath was homelessness and addiction. I'm back in the "normal" world now, so to speak, and I cope alright, but I won't ever be what I was before. It makes me very sad to think of what my life might have been. Ten years is a lot to lose.
But, on the other hand, I'm alive and fairly healthy and in general I'm perfectly happy. You just have to make the best you can with what you've got I think. And time makes it easier.

I worked for over six years towards a particular, life-changing job opportunity. It had taken up every single day, weekends and evenings - it was my top priority. I had a major breakthrough and then just before the final hurdle, I fell pregnant with DS (I had a coil fitted but it failed) and I got HG and was seriously ill and hospitalised. It completely destroyed my career. I was so frustrated, it sucked. It felt so unfair that everything I had worked so hard for was taken away because of HG.

Three years later, I’d been working away to try and get back to where I was (including working full-time (remotely) and doing a full-time masters when DS was six weeks old). DH and I decided it was pretty much now or never to TTC another baby with an age gap we wanted. So, I committed to stepping back the work effort and we had unprotected sex once and then I somewhat changed my mind. Less than a month later, I secured a major opportunity to finally make it, two days later we found out we were pregnant with DD. I had awful HG again but, by some miracle, I managed to make it work and I got the final job offer at the end.

I made it, I’m three years behind where I could be but I made it. So, not sad anymore (I’m ecstatic), but I was so conflicted for years before that.

Saw my medical records and the notes mentioning neglect, I had a shitty childhood and my father was responsible for the death of my mother but I thought no one knew how bad it was. Now I get so angry that someone knew but nothing was done, it could have saved years of abuse, abusive relationships because I had no self worth and thousands of pounds spent on therapists!

My difficult teen walking away from my home and my family and cutting contact. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling sad. His behaviour was appalling at times, he was under the care of CAHMS and has an ASD diagnosis, so a lot going on for him.

I can’t see it ever being repaired, people say he’ll come back one day but I doubt it.

I’ve learned to live with it. At the beginning I just made myself really busy, gym, friends, hobbies, work. It became easier about six months on. I try not to think about him, that’s the only way I’ve managed to cope.

💐 for everyone.
It seems it’s mainly a case of time and learning to live alongside it?
I am already in therapy. I feel better whilst I’m there but the same afterwards.
I am in the can’t eat / can’t sleep stage.

My two major life sadnesses were discovering the man I was going to marry was cheating on me (turns out he 'forgot' to mention he was bi and quite liked men too) and then losing my mum very suddenly to a heart attack.

Both were life altering/life shattering events but somehow, I'm still here and still breathing. As others have said, it sounds cliched but the process of time is life's greatest healer.

When I discovered the infidelity, I remember feeling like a piece of my heart was physically broken, like I'd never recover. These days I rarely think of him and I am SO thankful for my fortunate escape.

As for my mum, that's a different situation entirely but my feelings over her loss have gradually shifted from abject horror/devastation to being able to painfully process it all.

In the beginning, I could hardly bear the pain...now I carry it in a side pocket (if that makes sense).

To me, it's 100% like a wound on your physical body. At first it hurts unbelievably and you need loads of painkillers but then little by little, you see your skin start to stitch together and it hurts a little less. Then you get a scab and eventually the scab falls off and leaves a scar. The scar will probably always hurt but not as much as the wound did at the beginning.

Everyone's journey is unique to them but time will help.

@TheGlitterFairy my story is the same as yours big hugs 🤗

yes learning to live alongside it is a good way to describe it. My husband died coming up for 11 years ago and while I am ok, I am not "over" it and don't think i ever will be.

I'm not sure you ever really "get over" things, just get used to living with the sadness, busying the mind to keep the tears and sadness at bay, not thinking too much - that's how I "cope" anyway.

My baby being very poorly at birth (unexpectedly), she needed many operations and nearly died a few times. I’ll never get over it, she is 17 now! As another post said time is the best healer and although it’s still there, it’s not as painful. This year was the first time I didn’t cry on her birthday - so progress, albeit lengthy. Even though she is healthy and winning at life, the painful memories/trauma of her first year will always be a part of me. I was only 25 at the time and I did not know what had hit me.

I’ll never get over the end of my marriage of many decades. But that’s not to say I’m not happy and that I don’t enjoy life. I am happy and I have a great life but I go through life as if there’s a stone in my shoe that constantly reminds me it’s there and nothing I do helps me to find the stone and get rid of it.

A devastating, life altering and unbelievable tragic suicide of a 26 year old family member.

It was the most influential incident of my entire life. It changed everything. I was 15 at the time.
I have never felt pain like it. It has never ever gone away nearly 40 years on.

There have been other deaths in the family over the years and I’ve suffered multiple miscarriages but the intense pain I felt over that one death doesn’t compare.

Never had counselling or anything, just got on with life I suppose.

@Madamecastafiore