Why is life so unfair

[MyFastZebra]

Does anyone think about this? I just think sometimes that I never had a chance.

I was born into a bad family. My father was cruel when I knew him, then he abandoned us and refused to pay maintenance. So I grew up in poverty. My mother brought us up but was abusive to me. My mother's parents were dead. My fathers parents had nothing to do with ne. My aunts and uncles were all horrible to me.

I had not one person. I remember crying and crying as a child. I'm quite spiritual and I used to meditate as a child. I remember during meditation hearing a voice saying "even if no one else loves you, if you love yourself you'll be ok".

But I haven't been ok. My life has been nothing but struggle. Worse, is the terrible feeling of being alone. I don't have one person.

I look around and I see people going for dinner with aunts , having a great relationship with grandparents. It upsets me.

I'm 42 now and I feel sad that all my young life is gone. I never enjoyed my teens or twenties as it was a struggle just to survive.

I look at some teenagerss i know now and they are so well supported by parents, grandparents . Their families pay for holidays.

I'll never experience the joy of being an 18 year old teenager going on holiday with my friends. At 18 I had huge burdens and responsibilities.

It's just all so unfair. And the unfairness of it is driving me mad. Why couldnt I have had one person that cared about me. Why did I have to have such a tough life. Why do other people have easy lives and other people have tough lives.

I look at children in the news who are similar to me. They only usually make the news when they are murdered. Preston Davey. There are countless other children who being neglected and unloved. Why is life so unfair. Why does it have to be such a struggle.

Any thoughts?

Some people on this thread have zero empathy.

You're right OP - it is massively unfair that some are born into completely lovely circumstances with loving families, support, comfortable finances, while some experience absolutely horrific crap in their childhood that goes on to influence their whole adult life.

You are right to feel its massively unfair, because it is.

However. The big 'however'. Dwelling too much on the unfairness of it isnt going to right all the wrongs, nothing can really. The only thing you can is try your utmost to improve your narrative going forward - make the most of any small opportunity you have, try and be the change. If you have children, be a more loving and supportive parent to them than the parents you had yourself. Make sure the damage ends with you. And try to pat yourself on the back at least a bit for even getting to wherever you are, in the face of huge adversity.

I hear you OP. Life can be unfair, dreadfully unfair and I’m sorry if you fall into that category. It doesn’t sound like you had a very easy time growing up but things can change, if you want them to. I don’t have much in the way of family and I know how isolating this can feel. Take one step at a time and you’ll be surprised how far you’ll get. Take care x

Maybe volunteering could give you purpose. Helping those who need extra love and care. Like the Age UK telephone befriending service or something for children with similar backgrounds. You sound like you have a lot of love to give despite adversity and would equally benefit from having someone relying on you.

Sometimes I'm proud of myself for getting this far. And sometimes I feel ashamed of myself for not achieving a lot. I have no partner no kids crap job no house.

But at least I have a job and enough money to survive. I just wish my life was fun sometimes. It all seems to have been such hard work.

I'm proud of all of you too. As all of us go through hardships just from being human.

Having had a shit ton of counselling and CBT
I can confirm,that it is much better to reinvent yourself
To put the bad memories in a box ,and throw them in a lake .
Every time someone called my name ,it just reminded me of my mother's hysterical screaming of my name for the slightest thing I did wrong.
So I changed my name legally,and cut of all relatives who I knew were bad for me .
Dragging up the past in counselling never worked for me .. because I needed answers..why ..and they can't give me that ,one is dead and one has dementia.
So never going to get any answers..and their version of the truth,would not be mine ..so pointless trying to make sense of it .. because it doesn't make sense..
They didn't care ..so what can you do ...you can't make people care ..
You can do the best you can with what you have .
42 is young op
You have half your life left to live .
It's a big F you to all of them ,when you make a success of your life

I

Thank you . I appreciate that. I send you love ❤❤

Thank you! I send you love. I really do. There is a real love and understanding between people who have suffered child abuse.

I think there should be more resources to help people get over childhood trauma. Therapy doesn't work for a lot of people. It's too sad to talk over it all again for many people

Please never feel ashamed for not achieving a lot. That is being unkind to yourself.

God loves you too...

OP life can be hard , but your still here, what is unfair is when I know loved ones in they 30s who have died leaving babies behind and would’ve given anything to have been able to stay… life is what you make it .. I think you need to stop with the pity party

Is 42 young. It's really hard to gauge an age. I still feel young but men around me tell me I'm old lol

id i had a do over then id have choosen a better partner, but as it stands im me because of the past

i Have had a lot of shit happen in my life too, @MyFastZebra . Yes, it’s unfair

But assuming that everyone else is happy with no worries isn’t right: I’m often surprised by the horrible things that “normal” people have gone through! On the face of it, I too look successful and happy, and people are gobsmacked to hear some of the stuff

I made a conscious decision to change how I thought about things. And had talking therapy and also REBT. The latter really helped with ruminating on bad things, and also compulsions I unknowingly used to keep myself safe (magical thinking rituals!) Gave me lots of tools I could use to stop images of the past intruding and so on

Something like that might help, @MyFastZebra ? You do sound depressed, are you on any medication? You can get yourself out of this! Even asking the question on here is a start

I think that’s the point. That even though folk in the UK have to use food banks (sadly), they exist in the uk in which there is food banks. Most places globally wouldn’t have them so people just wouldn’t get fed.

I’m don’t think that at 42 you should still be blaming your upbringing. You’ve had twenty plus years to make a life yourself. Wallowing in self-pity isn’t going to help. Take some exercise, volunteer, join some clubs. But you will need to cheer up if you want to find someone.

Not all of us grow up in great homes with great parents and pets and suchlike but you make your own choices eventually and strive to overcome your past by choosing a different future.
My younger life was emotionally bloody awful and yes it's affected me all my life and I think about it a lot at times but nothing can change what happened and you just have you move on. It's no good wallowing and saying how unfair life is...it's just our crappy circumstances. There comes a point when we have a choice to just crack on and start over with a fresh mindset..or just live our lives in the mindset of it's not fair..

Your start in life was similar to mine.
Mum and dad were divorced by the time i was 2, I was being sexually abused by the age of 3, dad was completely out of my life by 4 because he was an alcoholic who scared me, I was neglected and physically abused at home. I never made friends, between the neglect and being very anxious no one liked me.
I had my first child at 17,
Was chucked out of the family home and was alone from that point onward.
When my dad was allowed back into my life as an adult he gave his heroin addict mates details of what was in my house and when I would be out.
I married an abusive man.
I have 3 autistic children.

My life has been hard from the start and any time ive tried to have any sort of relationship- friendship or romantic, its never really worked out.. it seems I have mug written straight accross my forehead.

So I concentrate on my children, I pour everything i have into creating a better future for them. They will grow up knowing they were loved, and that they were important. Their needs come first, and I just hope that i am doing enough to provide them with the start in life that makes them feel that they are whole human beings deserving of every good thing in life, because no matter how much counselling I have, I will never feel deserving of most of the "good" things other people enjoy freely.

I feel like when youre given a hard set of circumstances to grow around, you have to make a choice and whatever it is you choose becomes your lane to commit to.
I refuse to let my abysmal childhood affect my kids outcomes in life and if thats the one thing I can die knowing ive achieved thats something to be really proud of.

Acceptance. You can’t change the past, but you can make sure your own children are loved. It does hurt when “family” ignore my DCs (they’ve never had so much as a birthday card from any of my relatives) but at the same time it shows me that it wasn’t me, it was them. I always felt not good enough, but I know my children are awesome and they neglect them too.

Learning to be your own parent and taking care of your own needs is liberating. I had a lot of therapy before I found a therapist that worked. Don’t give up!

I agree OP, life is very unfair and none of us know why. I'm so sorry that you have gone through the awful things that you have. My DH had a dreadful childhood and it affected him his whole adult life, although he was lucky to have a loving grandmother. He got bowel cancer and died three months ago aged 46 - and you know, just before his diagnosis I feel like he was finally starting to win at life, he was content and making plans for the future, and then cancer robbed him of absolutely everything. Life is unfair, you are so right. All I can say, as some posters have already said, is that we can try and make positive changes while we are here, try and make our little corner of the world a bit better in small ways. Although I appreciate it's hard to think that way when you are full of sadness and trauma. I wish life had been kinder to you OP x

I don’t think OP was comparing her past to Preston Davey. She was making the point that like herself, many children exist in poverty and are abused in various ways by family, but they never make the news unless they are the extreme.

42 feels young to me! And my age must feel young to someone ten years older.

I hear you OP. My childhood was not as bad as yours and it was only in my 40s that I really understood how badly it affected me and led me to make some really poor choices because I wasn't able to see the red flags and warning signs that others could. I don't think people who have no-one can really understood what it is like to feel so alone in the world.

I often think life is unfair. Because it is. Its okay to acknowledge that.

I didn't say it was the same.

Show me where I wrote that.

Have you always had such poor comprehension skills?