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

So … next stage on … as your decision making process is impaired over the long term, do then decisions get incorrectly made to then potentially cause or attribute to further negative life events happening down the path of life beyond your control … I realise this is getting deep lol! It’s just I’ve been giving it a lot of thought!

Maybe the thread should be entitled ‘reversing the negative effects of psycho-social mental health’ ??

And anybody reading this thinking ‘nothing negative has significantly happened to me, and wonder if or when it will?’

I actually forgot a significant 4th/5th of being seriously sexually abused repeatedly as a young child by a 60+ year old man (he’s dead now), but that wasn’t in the last 15 years, hence why I didn’t include it, although I guess the feelings, and subsequent resilience, of that 7/8 year old little girl are still with me, so are still ‘in the mix’.

Have you read the book 'The Body Keeps the Score' it's very informative about how trauma remains in the body and impacts then throughout your life. Given the SA you mentioned, EMDR therapy may be really helpful for you.

No advice as I have none myself haha, but I get what you mean. I had an absolutely charmed life until I was 24, and since then (I'm now 35) it's been one thing after another, after another. Break ups, my parents breaking up, various difficult situations.

I am quite literally the simplest person ever, easy to please. I just want a warm, tidy home, food in my belly, and someone to spend life with. Me and DP life a great life within the confines of our home - but there's so much crap coming at us from outside. We don't deserve it!

I wouldn't really describe a four-year long protracted legal fight to prove your innocence an 'event'. That sounds like an excruciating endurance test of your mental strength and resilience. You must have felt constantly under attack. No wonder it's taken such a toll on you.

Yes surely thats life

Yes, that's the classic book that came into my mind too.
Also for @Chocaholick I wonder if this book could make some sense of your health troubles which might not be as random as they seem.

Having had a few myself in the past I find it’s left me with daily anxiety when, as I stand today have no reason to, it’s all in the past. All those bad things haven’t been anything Ive done but other peoples actions or decisions or whatever, but I’ve had to cope and live with, things that you just wake up on a normal day and then boom! Your life is instantly changed through no fault of my own, and leaves me feeling powerless and not in control, I now live every day (subconsciously mostly) wondering/worrying/anxious when I shouldn’t and have inner strength resilience that I’ve had to have to get on with in every day life. So I find it all cope able when life is “normal, happy, good” but I find that the slightest thing (nothing on the scale of the past) and it throws me right off and can sometimes take months to get over and move on from and just pushes my anxiety back to square one. It’s so frustrating. Things that other people take in their stride and it’s no biggie.

Yes, definitely.
I've had a lot of really horrible things happen, including a series of awful events that were so unlucky it's almost unbelievable. I've also been hit with multiple health issues and disability.

I've never been able to work out how to "move on" or "get over it" and I really wish I could. I feel scarred and weakened by it all and I absolutely don't believe in "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". I feel it more acutely as I get older too.

I don't agree that everyone experiences this. Yes, everyone has misfortunes and bad experiences, but not everyone has really bad ones like being violently raped, their child being murdered, or becoming severely disabled (for example). And not everyone has these awful things happen to them again and again.

I sound like a right miserable moaner, but I'm really not! I always count my blessings and look for positives, and I'm grateful for what I have. I don't go round complaining or looking sad, and I'm day to day life I'm cheerful. But I do feel that these events have taken something from me and sapped my energy and strength, reducing my quality of life.

Hmm now let me see...

• Childhood spent with a violent abusive alcoholic father and overbearing yet emotionally distant mother
• The death of all four of my grandparents before I was 12 (3 natural causes at a fairly young age, 1 suicide)
• Said father managing to slowly kill himself with drink when I was 13
• Lifelong bullying due to undiagnosed ASD (diagnosed at 35)
• A relationship with a man who abused me physically, emotionally, sexually, and financially, forcing me to lose my home and have to rebuild my life with family and friends who'd cut me off
• A serious car accident that left me with permanent facial scars
• My mum being diagnosed with breast cancer (she's fine now)
• A hysterectomy aged 39 due to severe endometriosis which means I'll never have children and am now in early menopause

HOWEVER

Although there are times where I may have a little melt down about how life isn't fair, I've made it my mission in life to prove everyone wrong and to not let the past impact me so much. I've got a lovely home, successful job, education, great friends and family, I have hobbies, I travel, etc. It would have been so easy for me to give up on living my life, or end up in prison, drug addicted, etc. and many people would have explained away as to why. I know the things that happened to me weren't my fault, and maybe one day I'll be repaid even more with good things (but don't tell me 'everything happens for a reason!' or for once I may bite!)

Wow felt good to get that off my chest

And ended up with a criminal record I didn’t deserve at the age of 50, 150 hours community service with 20 something male drug dealers at the age of 50 (!), when I’d lived my life incident free until then, and a suspended sentence (!) … honestly … because I didn’t liquidate my business when I closed it!! Lost my job, and pick myself up and start again … this was only 1 of them !!!

Another I had house arrest in a foreign Middle Eastern country for 6 years as a single woman! Again something not caused or created by myself but caused maliciously by someone!

I sympathise wholeheartedly! Just want simple and calm, but these things seem to have just ‘occurred’.

I will look it up and order it - thank you!

This. I think when struggling with depression there can be a tendency to think: bad things always happen to me. When those things are examined, either they are well within the norm of bad luck most people have, or they have actually happened to others close to us and we register the events with such stress they feel personal.
I could make a list of bad things that have happened to me over the past 15 years that would make life sound horrific. Or a list of good things that reads like a charmed life.
Both are true.

You have been lucky compared to me, but there are also people who’ve had it worse than me too.

It is not a competition.

So good on you for realising you need a bit of self care in the mental health department.

I had a period of around five years during which
I lost three grandparents and an uncle in quick succession
Had a baby
Suffered severe blood loss and had a long period of recovery from birth injuries
Separated from my partner for a period of time
Suffered PTSD
Suffered verbal and physical attacks from in-laws (now no contact) including untrue allegations to police and SS (all proven to be lies)
Supported DM following DF affair
Had a car accident
Supported DS through an extreme year of mental illness

Honestly I look back and wonder how I survived because I dont think I could again.

However some people have suffered much worse and some not so much. Everyone is different as are their coping mechanisms

Thank you for sharing and well done for getting through it … do you think it’s changed your cognitive / mental functioning from before to now? Or have you managed to bounce back to the person you were before? Are you different negatively to the person before the events? You don’t have to share if you’re not comfortable I’m just interested re long term impact.

Has what you’ve experienced changed your memory capacity, decision making processes, cognitive function? Or do you feel you’ve managed to bounce back after each event after events initial anxiety / stress effects?

Yes positive things do happen, but when overwhelming significant negative events happen beyond your control, they tend to overshadow anything positive that does happen … idk whether I’m right with that assumption ??

1. Yes
2. Partially- some things are not bounce back able.

@jjourneys when I first saw your post last night, I had a whole bunch of stuff I was going to say

Then you updated with your legal battle...

Like another poster, I'm really shocked by that and it is in no way a "life event"

I look at people from things like the post office Horizon scandal and I am in awe. I suspect your situation would be similar.

I have had some experiences that some people were classified as trauma. I'm not sure I would. But I tend to have quite an old-fashioned stiff upper lip of view of things - or at least in 2026, that's how I feel about it.

To give some context, I recently found out that someone I know was the sole survivor of a car crash when she was a child. I would certainly count that as a trauma. My stuff, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, that's by the by

i'm not sure how helpful this will be for you, but I have always thought that the best thing to do is to move forward. I'm not a fan of counselling, I'm not a fan of dwelling - I realise it can't be avoided sometimes so I'm not convinced that any activity that focuses on unpacking what you've been through is a great idea

I also read a book by Abigail Shrier - it was about children and it's called Bad Therapy. I didn't read it for me exactly, I read it because I don't like the direction that things are taking if you have problems. I took medication for depression and anxiety. For about 30 years. I still have those conditions. I'm just trying to avoid the doctor! Anyway, if you're looking for general recommendations, I think there was something in there that spoke about adults and how army officers and so on tend to do better if they are encouraged to move on. I think that's been a development in PTSD studies that doesn't get reported very often

I'm not 100% sure the book will be any use to you but just chucking it out there. I read it in 2023 after a nervous breakdown and I suppose it helped me because it told me what I wanted to hear? Which was "bloody get on with it"

I think being wrongly accused and fighting a massive legal battle is a very specific situation though

I'm not really sure how valuable it will be for you to look at generic resources.

Are you worried about making decisions going forward in case they're crap decisions? I suppose one option would be to say "what's the worst outcome of this going wrong? How badly wrong can it go?"

but that wouldn't anticipate what happened to you.

Is it worth you reading the survivor stories out there from those who have been through wrongful imprisonment and so on?

some of those people will be out there giving talks and so on. Would you do that? Would it help? It would probably raise money for you.

I wish you all the best 💐

It’s really tough but you can get through it.

I had a terrible childhood - violence, sexual abuse, parental addiction, DF in prison, etc. I have an ACE score of 10. I was taken into care, fell pregnant at 16 to an abusive older boyfriend who used to beat me, and never gave me a penny for our DCs. I managed to escape him when DCs were 7 and 2. I went back to college and started work and bought a house on my own. Life seemed to finally be going well.

Coming home from work one evening I was mugged, raped and badly beaten at knifepoint.

At the same time I was in the middle of a custody battle with my ex. He got custody of our DC. I was devastated. It left me in tens of thousands of debt. I kept on working until the police caught my attacker, who had committed an almost identical assault but had actually stabbed his second victim to death. He got life in prison, and I had a breakdown. I couldn’t work and got into more debt. Eventually I had to sell my house as it was about to be repossessed. I was homeless, and six months later I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I recovered, found a house to rent and went back to work. I met a wonderful man who was fantastic with my DC who had by now returned to me. After a couple of years we got married and bought a house together. Weeks before the wedding my DF died, and within the next 18 months I lost both my much-loved foster parents, my step-dad, 2 uncles, an aunt and a very dear friend. Two years after I got married my DH began to change. He became extremely coercive and very gradually he wore me down and made me stop work. I think at that point I was too exhausted to even argue. I did everything he dictated. Every time i tried to stand up to him he would make it clear that he’d destroy me. He even had me sectioned at one point by telling lies about me. It was years of hell. When I discovered he’d been having an affair for years I finally broke free.

With my divorce settlement I got therapy and it felt like being reborn. My life has been wonderful ever since. I’m married now (to a good’un!), and we’ve both had a lot of health challenges but I’ve never felt so happy and content after 45 solid years of back-to-back shit. It was very tough but I can’t believe how life-changing therapy can be. I wish I’d done it decades ago.

Sending you lots of good luck and best wishes for the future!

So in the last 8 years I have had a cancer diagnosis (luckily just surgery required), a traumatic birth, four consecutive miscarriages, subsequent birth ended as a section, severely colicky baby (think 24/7 screaming) resulting in depression and feeling suicidal, death of a family member, fall out with my mum from lack of support and a near divorce. it has def changed me, on a good day I think I’ve done well but gosh the bad days are awful. I’m burnt out, stress is sky high and I’m constantly on high alert. I long for a boring mundane life right now!

The five most stressful things in life:

Death of a loved one
Moving house
Separation and divorce
Job Loss
Major illness/injury

Have experienced all but one (touch wood!!!) in the last 10 years (am also 50) including over 18 months living with parents post-separation, then a second move into my own place; and caring my dad who was put on end of life about 10 days into the first Covid lockdown after breaking his back in early 2019. He passed in May 2021 and the resulting trauma left me unable to return to work for two years (I'd already been forced into an unpaid sabbatical to care for him by unsupportive employer).

I suspect the forties is naturally a time for a lot of change and things going to shit tbh, rather than it necessarily being pure bad luck. There were definitely a few more curve balls than I anticipated and life certainly isn't perfect now but I feel fairly positive and at peace going into my 50s (contrary to the username which I must update!)