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?

When my parents died. Plus my wonderful bitch.. Not all at the same time! i don;t think I shall ever get over their deaths but when \I think of them now it is often with a smile.

Oh for goodness sake give yourself a shake 🙄

Same.

My daughter never being invite to parties or play dates. Daughter is 8 years old and recently diagnosed with ADHD. She had a rocky start at school as we waited for a diagnosis. Now she is on medications and we have strategies in place the teachers say she has now settled in well but all the other girls and (mostly ) school mums have decided she’s naughty and different so she’s excluded

My dad ending his life when I was 17, on the cusp of flying the nest and being an adult. I feel like I’ve never become that adult - dealing with what he did has left the longest of shadows, over every relationship, every challenge I’ve since faced. The boyfriend I had then, took advantage and sexually abused me (raped me) repeatedly in the midst of my grief and confusion. I was kicked out by my by then alcoholic mother, moved in with new druggie boyfriend who to his credit helped me apply for uni, which was torturous but my salvation looking back. Have turned life around and look all middle class and pampered nowadays, but it was like coming of age in a horror film. Drink too much and question everything nowadays, push everyone away.

No solutions from me I’m afraid. Seems the human condition is to be annihaliated by the whims of others, no matter how hard you try to live a good life. Especially as a woman.

Very thankful for my kids though. They are always a blessing.

@Favouritefruits
You can enjoy time with your children as it can only happen once.
I studied for a degree through the OU when I was a SAHM and my ex worked offshore. Plenty of time when they were at school or asleep and it gave me personal goals to aim for. I wish you all the best in finding something to make your days more fulfilling.

@blackpearwhitelilies Your poor son. My daughter is going through the same and it is breaking my heart. I look at her beautiful face and wonder how on earth she keeps going.

My sister’s DH left her for a younger woman but then kept texting her and generally messing with her head. My DS went down from eleven to five stone. Her DH then died from a massive heart attack. Seeing how broken my DS was at his funeral is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. My DS died shortly after. 😥😢

Many things have made me forever saddened including my mum’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis (she gets worse every day, we loss a peice of her every day) and the recent loss of my beloved dog (I adored him and will be sad forever, I just know that) but losing our 4 year old niece to a brain tumour 11 years ago, will forever scar my heart.

Various tragedies including one this week. We are only starting another tortuous grieving process.

@LoisLane66 is that a joke? Way to read the room.

There are so many tragic stories here. Sending love to those who have lost children, family members and are living with life changing conditions.

My sadness can be summed up as loneliness. I’ve always struggled to make friends, always been the black sheep of my family. Then I lost a parent young to suicide who was the glue of the family and everything broke down. I have a DH who is a workaholic and I’m on my own all the time and have to do everything alone, then infertility too. It makes me so sad to the point I don’t know how I can keep carrying it all.

I'm crying reading this thread (as I'm sure most of us are) and my heart goes out to everyone, the terrible pain they have and do still endure.

I've have pain and grief and difficulties in my life, time does help in my case, the pain doesn't go, but it moves from being at the forefront of everything, until the next thing sent to wound you comes along.

My enormous grief doesn't come from the things I've been through, it comes from the fact I feel utterly alone and I don't have love in my life.

I am single, no children, I've had relationships - but nothing that's lasted or been significant. My family is small and we seem to be getting further and further apart and our contact is in frequent and superficial. I have no parents left. My few friends are lovely, but they have lots of friends and happy families and wonderful children, so I feel very different to them, our lives are poles apart.
I'm doing ok on the outside, I am relatively happy day-to-day when I don't have time to stop and remember that somehow on this planet of over 7 billion people I live alone and spend the vast majority of my time alone.
The ironic thing is I'm a very affectionate and loving person and would do anything to feel and give love to another. I'm NT, so it's not that. I'm bright, funny, and attractive too, which some how causes me more shame being long term lonely - like it must be a moral failing I have which causes me to be alone.

I am very fortunate I have good health so far and am able to provide for myself by working, and I have a sweet dog, but it's like my world is in black and white.

I fake my way through life, putting in a smile and a brave face, but actually it's heart breaking to have nothing to look forward to because everything I do is alone. I don't travel anymore because I don't enjoy that alone etc. Every 'celebration' occasion is stressful, like my birthday or Christmas because I feel I have to really hustle to find people to be with (I actually usually spend Christmas alone now because I'm tired of imposing myself on people).

It makes all the other bumps in the road that life throws at me really hard, if I have a bad day, or a good day I have no one who actually cares.

Oh @Babdoc this made me sob. Sending love and light to you and your dc. I can’t imagine your pain but I admire your mindset. X

My fiancé, who was my first love, left me because his mother forced him to choose between us. She was a controlling witch who couldn't let her children go. He had a complete nervous breakdown after we split.

I really thought I'd die of heartbreak and remained single for a decade. It was by far the worst emotional pain I've ever experienced. Worse than my parent's death, or my miscarriage. The things that he and his mother said to me totally broke me.

I moved on eventually - hobbies I loved, then husband then baby, and I'm very happy, but I do still wonder what might have been if MIL had left us alone. I guess first love is like no other.

It has been a pretty sad life, all in all. No major traumas, just a constant, underlying sadness due to mental illness/personality disorder. I try not to feel sorry for myself, however. There is a young boy buried next to my father who took his own life. One day, we saw the boy’s mother at the grave, told her we were sorry, and she replied “my other son is buried over there. My first son killed himself, and the second was so upset he did the same.” Compared to that poor lady, my problems are pretty mild.

Reading this thread is a healthy reminder that you have to cut people some slack. You just never know what kind of pain they are dealing with. I’ve always loved that quote, “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Never been sure who said it.

Well, like many, my miscarriages, of which there were several. I did go on to have DD after treatment and she is such a wonderful baby, but I will always be a bit sad for my babies that never were.

Just time really, I remember miscarrying in the first lockdown and having to work and no one to look after DD1 who was 2.5 at the time and it was just horrendous.

For me it’s the loss of one set of my grandparents. They were my best friends and my favourite people in the entire world.
I lost one in my late 20s and one in my early 30s. We knew the time was coming with both and I was able to respect their wishes and make sure they were at home, and that I was by each of their sides when the time came.

My heart truly broke holding each of them as they passed but being able to do that for the 2 strongest influences in my life will forever be my biggest honour.

I’m so truly sorry for what you all have gone through on here 💐

This short passage is still the best description of Grief that I’ve come across.

I’ve had a few really tragic things happen to me in life, an especially sad loss when I was a child but that’s a sort of grief I have just always carried with me rather than an event I remember happening so I’m not including it.

The saddest day of my life was my dog dying, completely unexpectedly. I thought he’d be with me for another 10 years easily and suddenly he was just taken away. It took such a long time to ‘get over’ (hate that phrase). I literally cried myself to sleep every night for the first 6 months. I can’t emphasise enough how much he was my life, my best friend and just left such a massive gaping hole in my life. The thing about losing a family member is if you don’t live with them you don’t have this hollow painful reminder day in day out that they are missing, with a dog you can’t escape it. I’d look out the window and see people out walking their dog and just felt such jealously that they were getting all this time with their dog when I hadn’t been lucky enough to do that. It was awful and just so unfair. I eventually started to turn a corner when I adopted a rescue dog who was painfully thin and had been treated terribly. It’s the classic cringey phrase of ‘we saved each other’ or whatever it is 🙈 but it was the first time I had been able to go to bed and not cry all night.

Two things stand out.

The first was when my first boyfriend dumped me at the age of 23 after 5 years together. I can't put in to words how devastated I was. I didn't eat anything for a week, barely slept for a long time. He was the first thing I thought of in the morning and the last thing at night. When I woke in the morning I'd have a split second of peace until suddenly I'd remember the awful reality. After the first couple of weeks I probably looked to the outside world like I was doing ok, but I was hugely traumatised for a very long time (years). I think at some level going through that experience changed me forever.

The second was when my sibling became estranged from my parents. I was caught in the middle and the situation was horrific at times (don't want to go in to detail here). In theory it's all ok now but whereas my parents and sibling seem to have put it all behind them, I'm still not over everything that was said and done during that time. It was hugely traumatic and I still hate it when my phone rings unexpectedly now (start to panic) as I associate it with calls of more bad news.

Losing my first Dd at 2 weeks old. At the time the hospital gave us a little card that said something about hardships being like a tree having a limb cutoff. It heals but is forever scarred. It’s like that. And after awhile I was ok, but I realise I’m very bitter and hardened by it. I have to keep going for my other DC tbh. And feel on the verge of a breakdown every day.

the other saying man plans, god laughs comes to mind to. That’s been my life for the last decade and no way of changing it in sight. Feeling very stuck and resigned that this is the rest of my life. Even the D.C. have become resigned to our life now. Awful feeling when you feel like you can’t direct your life in the way you want and the dreams you had of the future have not come to pass and are unlikely to. Powerless and hopeless.

I've never heard his voice yet 23 years on and I still long for a chat with him.

@Rosiethecat15

This line really affected me. Sending you ❤️

Having fallen in love with a polyamorous man, with whom I am currently in a monogamous relationship where he is not interested in looking for anyone else. Knowing however that there will likely come a time when he does meet someone else, and we have to talk about breaking up because I couldn't cope with being in a poly relationship.

We played a dangerous game with our hearts when we met. He told me he was poly on our first date. I told him I couldn't be in a poly relationship. We agreed to just see where things went, and neither of us predicted we would fall in love. He can't do anything to reassure me, I know he loves me, and will tell me if that time comes, he can't say or so anything now to stop me thinking we are on borrowed time. I wish he hadn't been so open when we met, then ignorance would be bliss. He's not a liar though, he's honest even when it isn't what you want to hear.

I don't know how I can move on without being able to silence the intrusive thoughts. The situation makes me really sad because we have so much in common and we've had such a lovely time together, I just don't know when it will end.

Every post here has been moving & saddening. Some people have experienced loss on a scale I can't imagine, and so many different accounts of that loss.

Sending you all warm wishes tonight.

My great sadness is when my DH died, out of the blue, six years ago. I'm not cripplingly sad in a day to day way, but quite often unhappy because I miss him.

I don't think anyone "gets over" these things, they are/are not able to make a decent, useful life. I should say I would include new romantic relationships here. It so misses the point say that one is over the dead. You love both is my understanding from those who've done this. BTW, I haven't.

Somebody somewhere said grief is a sign of how much we love someone/the price of love and I suppose that's about it.

Writing this has made me cry.