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?

So many things, that you never fully accept but you have to get on with life and move forward, without good health and the people you love no longer here.

From time to time I have thought about counselling but there are just so many issues, that I don’t want to unpick and visiting those place would be painful. So I try not to dwell, trying to keeping busy helps.

@WildOnce big hugs and 💐 x

Don't fear it.face it.let it in.let it hurt.you need to go through this.both body and soul need to process it.plus anything you try to avoid,run from or ignore to do with mental anguish only makes it bigger,increases the anguish and sends your thoughts spiralling.
Try not to ruminate.dont let thoughts become facts surrounding it or you.so don't get sucked into your thoughts going from a to be when the problem is a.no what ifs or should,coulda,musts.
And whilst you have to face it don't think this just means being in pain.because you need techniques,time and support to do this.
So some proper self care.
Gratitude journaling.morning and night wrote down how your feeling and then 3 things your grateful for.even if it's you saw a dog today that was cute af!
do you have support?that is key and letting people in.
make sure you are keeping nourished.even if for now it needs to be mechanical.otherwisd that can become a vicious circle and or a way to cope.it can help to make food fun.pretend your on telly creating masterpieces.
Do NOT use behaviours as a way to cope. NOT one as that will set you on a road to hell.
Use us.no seriously talk all you need to here.we are always here for you.
What s next.after you've grieved try to plan little things.then bigger things and get your journey going again.
So it could be a shop.then a drive.then coffee or meal out etc.
Remember your not alone.so many people have either beenthroygh similar and or their own humongous pain.
One day at a time.and on the really bad days one moment.
And on the too tough to breathe days set a timer for 10 minutes and promise yourself you'll get through.then 30 and so on.buuuyt big caveat don't get addicted to time.it can become a bitch in grief.

Find box sets.findlittle things.books.walks.cycke.sit having a picnic on your lounge floor.bring joy back into your life.
Do not despair.your here your worth it.onwards.

I am sorry @Hopeandlove I too have patents that don't love me, my mother walked out when I was 2, my Dad only cares about himself. I know how it feels to spend your whole life wishing it was different, but the only way I can make peace with it is to recognise, it's their failing, not yours. As children we're not powerful enough to influence the dysfuntional actions of grown adults.

I'm sorry for them that they've missed out on you and beautiful grandchildren.

So many sad stories here, but somehow yours really touched me. Both in the sadness of you and your gram's shared hopes for your DS and in your great lie of kindness to give her peace at the end. I don't know how you think about the afterlife (I'm agnostic, so I don't have answers myself), but maybe there's a plane where your lie isn't a lie, maybe there's someplace in some time where your son will be able to be a chatterbox to your Gram, telling her all kinds of marvelous things. 🌸

No one escapes life unscathed.

There are many things which leave scars on our souls but as with physical scars, over time, they just become another part of who you are and some days you don't even notice them.

@Saurus72 @RockPaperScience
what you both say really resonates with me. I’ve had 5 rounds of failed IVF and DH a failed vasectomy reversal. Coming to terms with the fact I’ll never be a mother has proved very difficult, I’m not sure I will ever come to terms with it.

@tootiredtoocare
My saddest thing is my DC's disabilities (very high needs autism and learning disabilities) and I find it doubly hard because as parents a lot of the time we're told that we're not allowed to view it as a tragedy. I have PTSD from some of the stuff that's gone on over the years.

Having a baby by myself. Rushed into it and only now (4 years later) understanding what a shitty life I've set up for us.

Saddest is people you live being in pain or suffering or dying whilst you helplessly and uselessly stand by

My sister in law is in the terminal stage of cancer, it's overwhelmingly awful and I seem to be already grieving for her but also my brother, my nieces and her parents.

My mum died a year ago, and this sadness is also still within me

The way I cope with sadness is to take a break when it threatens to overwhelm me a bit, allowing myself to feel all the feelings and cry, and then to deep-breath and continue as normal.

I guess it's just life. The more people you love, the more you have to lose, the more you can hurt. But isn't it wonderful to love people, and isn't it better to have loved and lost and to never have loved... all those cliches.... but it helps.

To me, mourning is the flip side of caring about someone. And it's a fact if life, we will all lose people we love.

Just be kind to yourself OP and count your blessings, the good things that were and are

All your stories touch my heart so much. I really hope everyone is able to find peace and thank you so much for sharing. Sending you all love.

My most profound period of sadness was when I had PND after my first baby. I’ve never felt so scared, isolated and misunderstood. I often read my diary from this time in my life to remind myself how far I’ve come.
“ I have been hijacked. I have been crushed. Even when I sleep I don’t rest. Something has a stranglehold on me. I can’t put my finger on it and confront it, but it’s always there. A constant threat, a constant dread. It never leaves me but I can’t catch it. I see glimmers of my old self, like a constantly quivering reflection on water. She’s there but I can’t touch her. I can’t reach her. She can’t hear me”

Another thing that makes me sad to think about it when I was held at knifepoint during an armed robbery of the shop I was a Saturday girl at. I was 15. At the time I wasn’t sad, but from that day on I knew the world was not a safe place for me anymore. It truly shaped my life and at the time I just shook it off as a bolshy teenager. I wonder who I may have been without this long anxious shadow cast over me at a young age?

Saddest things are my relationship with my Dad who basically gaslighted me my entire childhood and secondary infertility. I am incredibly grateful to have one child but I desperately wanted another.

And how I got over it…incredibly lucky to meet DH. He’s the most decent man I’ve ever known and I love him completely.

With the infertility I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it. I was an only child, my Dad made our lives miserable and my mum was depressed much of my childhood. I felt incredibly alone. I know it’s not the same at all because with DH we have a happy home for our child , but I remember desperately wanted someone to talk to on my level…I just hope that it being a happy home means we’ve done enough so DD doesn’t feel alone. I hope she doesn’t still crave a brother or sister the way I did.

The thing that has made me saddest is the knowledge that I will probably never be able to afford to retire. Work is a scam, we're exploited every day of our lives to create profit for others. My real terms pay drops every year, I'm always poorer, yet my work responsibilities and the demands they make always seem to increase.

This isn't just with one shit employer, this is a universal truth. No matter how bad it is today, it'll be worse tomorrow. Drudging away in a shit job for shit pay. Struggle to survive, get screwed over. That's life, it's shit.

I think rumination is bad when it's continual and intrusive, but for me, coming to terms with stuff did require a fair amount of dwelling on it and trying to make sense of it.

My big sads are that my mother abused me, and I never had children. In the first one, thinking about it, journalling, therapy etc has helped me see that that's her shame, not mine, and it is objectively shit that I never got looked after or loved by a mother (minimising your trauma is not 'getting over' it), and that does lasting damage no matter how mindful you are - but it's part of my past and really only has the power I give to it.

On the latter point I did some unpicking and realised a lot of my sadness about childlessness was failure to conform to the standard woman life plan, and anxiety about having no next generation to help and pass on learnings - effectively having lived for nothing. But there are other ways around that than procreating (can write, teach, be fun aunty/mum's friend), and it's probably better I don't with all my health oddities. Also not having kids guarantees the cycle of familial abuse ends with me.

I think OP is right when she frames it as get over it OR learn to live with it - for me it's the latter, you don't really 'get over' stuff but you can learn to reframe it in a more helpful way, and even value the lessons it taught you.

The realisation that I will likely never experience a normal, functioning and loving relationship, even though I crave being loved.

But I know that a childhood of being unloved by parents and bullied by peers, together with traumatic experiences in every relationship I've ever been in, mean that even if Mr or Miss Perfect were to knock on my door right this moment, I could not trust that it would ever be different and end up destroying the love they could bring.

How do I get over it? I am grateful for the children I have, how much I have achieved and have resigned to becoming a crazy bird lady in later life. I throw my love out there, to children and animals and even the very occasional adult friend, and I build a wall against any potential love interest to avoid either of us getting hurt.

I get satisfaction from the many projects I do, at work and at home, and I exhaust myself mentally and emotionally to the point I don't have the energy to dwell on negative thoughts at the end of a long day.

Sometimes I have bad days and I acknowledge them, have a cry and then move on doing exactly what I did. And while a child's love or a bird's love are not the same as the care a human adult could give, they are at least something.

My husband died suddenly just before our 7th anniversary and our kids were 4 and 6.
Time, and the need to get up every day to take care of my kids, kept me going.

Not being able to have kids. What helped me get over it was time, reading around childlessness and child freedom, living in the now, realising the extent to which we are conditioned by society to want children and to fear regretting not having them, realising I didn’t need to have children to be happy, making the most of the opportunities not having children put my way, such as being able to retire early and travel. Oh and having an amazing husband. I do get the odd wistful moment but they are just that - momentary.

Not having a mum and dad like everyone else did. Parents who did things with them and for them. It's made me very detached and able to just shut the door on people and events. Not having lots of people round my table for Christmas dinner. It's what I want more than anything - that bustle and joy and laughter and obvious love. I don't know any of either parent's extended family - I have aunties and cousins and uncles but couldn't pick them out of a line up. That makes me cry sometimes.

But I have a wonderful husband. A warm and happy home. You never get over the 'trauma' and belief you are somehow deficient though and it has caused issues throughout my life. Even after being married for so long, I still have the belief I am unlovable and difficult.

@BellaLab
Why should @LoisLane66 "give herself a shake"?
What a mean, nasty comment.
I hate cliched phrases, but "Empty Nest Syndrome" is a well known feeling.
Who are you to "gaslight" her feelings and make out she's not entitled to have them?

I imagine what @BellaLab means is that on a thread where people are discussing heartbreak, tragedy, loss and grief, saying that the saddest thing that has ever happened to her is that her healthy, happy, adult child is living an independent life is incredibly tone deaf and self indulgent. Which I agree with. It's the epitome of "my diamond shoes are too tight".

It doesn’t matter what @BellaLab might or might not have meant - attempting to diminish something that has caused another poster grief and upset in that way is just dickish. It’s not a competition.

I hate cliched phrases, but "Empty Nest Syndrome" is a well known feeling.

I know it is a well known feeling but that doesn’t mean it’s not self indulgent or should be pandered to. It’s like “mourning the end of your childbearing years” when you’ve had children.

2017 when I had two missed miscarriages. The first one totally blindsided me, I just had a bit of brown discharge when I wiped at 11 weeks and I phoned the midwife in a panic but she was totally calm reassuring me that brown is normal and not concerning. I went for a scan a few days later and the heartbeat had stopped a few weeks before, I’d just had no symptoms of anything being amiss before the brown ‘totally normal’ discharge.

I then almost died during the medical management process in hospital, I needed emergency surgery because I haemorrhaged badly and went into shock. The experience in hospital left me with PTSD, I couldn’t sleep for months afterwards and kept having horrible flashbacks. The nurses and doctors were sure the blood loss was normal even though the whole room looked like I’d been massacred, they didn’t take it seriously until I was unconscious. Sometimes I’d just sit wailing on my own in bed, it was a real deep sense of sorrow.

I had a second MMC a few months later at 12 weeks and that time I was already fucked up emotionally from the first one so I just had the surgery and went back to work the next day. I tried to bury it and pretend it hadn’t happened. It was excruciating seeing pregnant women or newborn babies, even on the front cover of a magazine in a shop. Sometimes I’d just burst into tears walking down the street, I probably looked like a lunatic but I was absolutely broken.

I’ve had two healthy babies since but also a third miscarriage between them both at 5 weeks. Time did heal the pain, that old cliche. I still think about it from time to time but it hasn’t as gut wrenching as it was back then. I can handle it a lot better now and I haven’t cried about it for a long time.

Oh, I'm so sorry 💐