To ask the hardest thing you have ever been through

[Youngishh]

Currently going through a divorce and it’s got me thinking about things that people go through in life. Although I am struggling with it, the hardest things I have ever been through was an abortion. I have still never got over it tbh.

One of my best friends is currently dying. It’s so hard. Only diagnosed new year’s day. Today we spoke about her ashes will be scattered on the coast and she will always be there. Three of us crying outside the hospital. Three newborns passed us, on their way home. The cycle of life and death, she only has weeks at best. Everything has been turned upside down. Practically too as I have her dog.

I spent years taking medication for a serious health condition that meant I couldn’t get pregnant. Got better and came off the medication just in time to find out that I was now infertile.

Oh my goodness. I read the first post and started mentally composing my reply but mine pales into insignificance against what I've just read. I'm so sorry for all your hard times

My beautiful, gentle, kind, clever teenage son developed severe anxiety, agoraphobia, paranoia, mania and eventually psychosis, and was sectioned for 3 months aged 17. He was diagnosed with bipolar 1 and then schizoaffective disorder.

A year after he was discharged, and his mental health had started to improve a bit, he was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia, following a routine blood test which he had because of being on anti-psychotics.

My son's life is very, very hard. My life is hard because his life is hard. I can only work part time. I can't switch off the part of my brain that is constantly worrying about his cancer or him going into mania again. Or both.

I’m sorry you’re feeling like this, it must be tough for you.

Divorce is the second most stressful thing you can go through, with the loss of a loved one being top. It wasn’t until my mid 20’s that I experienced the loss of a close family member, which was my grandmother. After that, we had several losses in the family and not through old age.

My dad died by drowning and my brother and nephew both died fighting in a war (14yrs apart). I don’t think you ever get over the loss of a loved one, but when they go so violently like that, it certainly leaves a mark. Grief from death seems to radiate outwards - it causes depression, family fall outs and other issues. And those that don’t experience loss like that can’t really understand.

Watching my mother descend into multi organ failure for the third time and ultimately a painful death after a 30 year alcohol habit - a habit that destroyed my teenage years and made me a distrusting person who doesn’t feel I deserve anything. My father who I had hoped we could find some peace together after her death had actually been having an affair and he moved his mistress into the family home after 8 weeks. She was an utter bitch who made it clear my family and my brother were not welcome in their lives and my father, being used to being told what to do all his life by my mother just sat back and allowed her to drive a wedge. Ive also lost my father, not spoken to him for almost 10 years.

It was life shattering at the time, I’m fine now but it genuinely took years to get over.

Craftymadre you are so right.

My father died by suicide when I was 17. I'm 47 now - the age he was - and it's never left me, it's never not affected everything. And never will stop affecting everything. For me, my siblings and my mother.

Losing multiple friends in the same car accident as a teen. The trauma isn't something I can comprehend years and years later, it is shut off.

Chasing a conviction against the man who abused me as a child. The court system is not there to protect the victim, it dragged on and on and on, and ruined my life for a time. Thankfully life is much nicer now.

I'm sorry to hear of everyone's pain 💔

I just want to give everyone a virtual hug. I'm so sorry 😞 xx

My daughter’s death. Learning how quickly and unexpectedly life can turn upside down. It shook me to my core and has made me so fearful for my other children. It doesn’t take much before I am imagining the worst.

I watched my darling mum suffer horribly for almost 8 years after a stroke. She lost everything that made her life worth living. It is pure hell seeing a loved one suffer.

Rather not think about it.

1. Missed miscarriage with 1st pregnancy (triplets) at 12wk scan the day before our wedding (passed 2 of the embryos on the morning of the wedding 😔) so sadly was a bittersweet day.

2. My dad dying after a year of very poor physical and mental health (which i'm certain was altzeimers) 😢

3. My best friend of 10yrs suddenly ghosting me without any obvious explanation (although I regret not making more effort to take responsibility to make amends)

4. My 2nd miscarriage, which happened before 2nd child MMC at 9wks, but much less traumatic than the first, mainly as it had happened earlier on.

My dad having a cardiac arrest at 62, due to being in unknown stage 4 heart failure, being defibrillated and brought back but in a vegetative state. All scans showed his brain wasn't damaged but clinically he wasn't responding. Waited for 2 weeks and he didn't show any progress (sadly even if he did his heart was so sick he wouldn't have lasted a year). Being his only daughter and watching him take his last breaths all on my own at 35 is something I will never get over. Leaving his body in the hospital knowing I'd never touch his skin or hold his hand again haunts me.

So many sad stories on here.

For me, it's living with my dad who was an alcoholic.

The death of my sister when we were both teenagers and watching my parents fall apart. Grief is a bitch.

My daughter's heart condition diagnosis and the first few months of her life. Incredibly challenging.

Losing my mum 16 years ago. Just as painful today as it was back then.

Goodness this heartbreak is unimaginable....so so sorry

Holding my son while he died at 6 months old. And the entire 6 months of his life; seeing him on ECMO with an open chest after open heart surgery, watching him fight every day. Watching him crash and end up on a vent.

Having to TFMR my little girl who was incompatible with life. Tried to fall pregnant for two years before I got pregnant with her. Genuinely nearly killed me.
Now 30 weeks pregnant with my little boy and finding joy in life again 🤍🤍

Supporting DD1 through a life threatening diagnosis of anorexia when she was 16. At her worst she went 5 days without eating, collapsed, was hospitalised, sectioned and tube fed. The night before she was sectioned I was sitting by her hospital bed holding her hand (because of her abrupt physical decline she was on a paediatric ward in our local hospital and I was allowed to stay with her), her heart monitor kept going off and I could see no hope at all. Part of me wished for neither of us to wake up. Though in reality even that thought gave me no peace as I had 2 younger DC at home who also needed me.

She is 23 now, in established recovery and doing a PGCE. We are so thankful, but those times will forever haunt me.

That sounds so so tough :(

To all of you who have has such loss, particularly the loss of your precious children and babies, my heart so goes out to you.

A close friend dying of cancer aged only 25, it was brutal.