Has anyone experienced continuous random negative life events beyond their control?

[jjourneys]

I feel like I’ve had 3/4 significant life events over the last 15 years that I haven’t been able to fully recover from over the long term.

I realise that chronic stress and anxiety can change the physiology of the brain and how we process and function over the long term, and I seriously think this is what has happened to me, but I feel I need a run of lucky breaks (or just 1 lol!) to bring me back to somewhere where I was before this started to happen.

I don’t mean to sound negative or filled with self pity, I’m actually a ‘glass half full’ type of person !! But I just have managed to get to a point of cognitive realisation of the impact of having to be constantly resilient. And that is resilience isn’t a neverending resource to tap into.

Ive actually started to write a book about it as a way of helping me process, but just wondered if anyone else had any knowledge or experience on the subject? BTW I’m 50 this Summer.

much love x

It’s not clear if you just want stories of random tragedies ( I can supply those) or actual tips and strategies to overcome them ( not so many of those).

Three or four (which is it?) significant life events over 15 years is not uncommon. How many good events have you had over that same period?

I don’t want to pry on specifics of what anyone has been through, as I haven’t shared mine, just more interested if similar has happened to others and strategies they might have used.

Three unexpected deaths of people very close to me, in the last 7 years, and estrangement from my DD, who has BPD.

I’m trying to be philosophical about life; I have good friends, a loving extended family, and I’m not in need, or danger.

Sometimes I feel like I’m suffocating with sorrow, but then I focus on all that is good. It sounds trite, but gratitude really does make a person happier.

I have no answers and would be interested...bereavement, serious change in physical health and marriage breakdown in the past 3 years have really left me quite a different person

Yes this has happened to me. I had to pull up my big girls pants and get on with life because I have kids and they need to be fed and clothed. Menopause and anxiety make it hard but not impossible.

Counselling (where the counsellor was actually the one to point out that rather a lot of negative things had happened) and as part of that, EMDR therapy to deal with specific incidents.

Probably four I would, but one lasted 6 years or so of that 15, one was my husband leaving me after 17 years of marriage, another a major legal issue I got found guilty of, despite being innocent that lasted about 4 years. I’m being completely honest here, in case people think I’m making it up 🤦🏼‍♀️. I do think, although they have been unrelated, the impact of each has compounded each one further on the ability of my brain to be resilient and ‘bounce back’. It’s definitely been permanently changed - more so than just ageing or experience.

My dad's death, my close friends suicide, separation and a diagnosis of cancer in 5 months last year has left me in a bad place, constant fight, flight of freeze. I a hoping for a calm few years to help me properly process this time.

As a result of the negative events - 15 years ago I ran a global team of 30 employees, owned two businesses, travelled extensively and money was never an issue. Now I can barely remember what I did yesterday, or even successfully land a minimum wage cleaning job.

I don’t want to return to the point where I was 15 years ago, I just want consistent life calm :/.

’Calm’ … Chasingrainbows8 we both said the same thing x

What’s EMDR therapy? How has this helped you?

Honestly yes everyone has experienced three really bad events in a decade.
Can you seriously think of any person who hasn't experienced at least three of these....
A terrible health diagnosis for themselves or a loved one
The death of a loved one
Imprisonment
Miscarriage, failure to conceive, still birth
Bankruptcy, assault, rape, homelessness, redundancy, divorce, estrangement....
I do agree with you though, that this shit changes you. And often not for the better.

It's a method of processing traumatic memories - https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/talking-therapy-and-counselling/emdr/

It helped me reduce how much I was going over memories of particular incidents, and calmed down my reaction to the memories and other triggers. I'm not saying I'm 'fixed' (not least because I think I should have stayed in therapy longer or gone back to it) but it definitely made a difference.

I don’t believe everyone does experience 3 really bad events in 10, or even 20, years. For example my parents haven’t experienced any of those examples you listed … which if they’re in the minority, they’ve been exceedingly lucky. Maybe I’ve got their share lols! (Joke) …

As I say, I am a glass half full type of person, and also very strong in getting through what I have, but just need the status quo to be calm for a bit! And maybe some therapy :/.

Thanks Martha I’ll look into it x

I agree. My parents are in their early eighties and have led relatively peaceful lives. I am 50 now but experienced rape, domestic violence and the sudden death of a much loved husband before I was 30. In fact the most distress they have endured is worrying about me!

I don't think it's unusual. In fact I think as we get older, shit hits the fan much more frequently. As a comparison, I had the following in an 18 month period: beloved FIL dying horribly from pancreatic cancer; DH developing another cancer (treatable, thankfully); becoming gravely ill in late pregnancy, plus traumatic birth of DS; DM becoming suddenly very unwell with dementia; miscarriage. I managed to plod on but it left me mentally battered for quite some while.

I think ... fwiw, that everyone experiences both good and bad life events. If you believe you know someone who hasn't had any negative experiences, it's because you don't know them very well.

I also think that some things are more difficult for you/me/whoever to get past. It could be for any number of reasons, but sometimes we get stuck. And then we see our continuing lives through a different lens, because we're stuck. Life is no longer a process, but a series of further obstacles. Counselling can help. Time, friendship, connection, finding one's purpose, can also help. But counselling can be really really useful. You might think you don't need it because you know what's wrong - it's bloody obvious, it's because xyz happened, then this other bad thing happened. Well, ok they did, but you don't need to continually open yourself up to the damage afresh, every day, forever from now on.

I’m not sure this is true. Both my parents have died in the last 10 years, but they were elderly and had had extremely good lives. My husband has a not great medical condition but he is ok and we are making the best of it.

Yes, me.

Hideous traumatic childhood with addict parents… all that stuff.

As an adult, one misfortune after another, things just kept happening to me. Culminating in a few years where I was struck down by a very rare lifelong illness (my odds were something like 1 in 5,000) to add to my existing very rare (1 in 1000) birth defect. I then got pregnant and suffered a further rare (1 in 100) pregnancy illness, and an erroneous test result resulting in massive worry for months and an unnecessary amniocentesis (the odds of the original test being wrong were less than 1 in 300, but I was that 1). Post pregnancy I then had a worrying growth which completely baffled medics and led to a further stressful period of waiting for a biopsy and pathology where it turned out to be a very rare but benign tumour (1% of all biopsies in this area come back as the same type I had). Which of course I was grateful for but it was yet another ‘testing experience’ full of worry.

All of the above conditions were totally random and unconnected. You do have to wonder why some people just seem to have ‘luck’ like this but it never extends to anything good, like winning on a scratch card.

I know loaaaads of people who haven't experienced this. I guess the caveat there is that they possibly just havent experienced it "yet". But I'm talking about people in their 50s so not spring chickens

Yes. Like you I won’t go in to details but health and job and family related issues for us and people close to us, that are out of our control and horrid. Life-changing and in some cases life-limiting. I’m in therapy at the moment which is helping but I feel like I’m between the wheels of a grain mill, just being crushed under it all.

I mean, yes? For the last seven years, I’ve experienced about 3+ of the events @Bunnyofhope listed per year - add in hospitalizations and surgery.

Resilience is endless because it doesn’t really exist. It’s a man-made concept. You can have tons of it or none of it; it’s not dependent on how many of these events happen to you. With that said, your sympathetic nervous system is NOT endless, and it is 100% the determinant of how you feel about these things happening. Most humans will experience their sympathetic nervous system kicking in when these things happen, but I happen to know a sociopath who doesn’t feel flight or fight during stressful events, and as a general result, is extremely physically healthy (imagine if you never experienced stress over basic tragic events - but this type of processing was caused by childhood trauma, so their emotional health is meh).

Anyway, I’ve attached a bit about the sympathetic nervous system and what happens to our bodies when we feel under constant stress or threat. I’m so sorry if that’s been the last few years for you, @jjourneys

Really good to hear everyone’s perspectives, which gives perspective if that makes sense??

So there are lucky people, and not so lucky I guess?