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

Everyday. i am amongst a hateful crowd but i stay positive and focused.

So much to relate to here. Some just unbelievable shit has happened. I feel exactly by PPs, that it affects me massively. My nervous system is shot, I feel like it’s on top of my skin most days. Here I am awake at 4am again. I’ve turned to Buddhism and meditation to try to let go and reconnect to my body with kindness.

Love love love all your experiences of adversity and just utter shite, but particularly the strength you’ve all shown in managing to keep on going despite that!

Ive started to write my thoughts down, of what I experienced, and how things changed me. Have any of you done this as a form of therapy?

One last question for anyone still checking in, does anyone think they’re cognitive decision making has deteriorated post bad experiences, than how they were before?

Or feel like their brain is scrambled in some way?

And could this be fixed with pharmaceuticals, diagnosis or therapy? Presumably putting in the therapy means months of work?

Hard to tell for me as a lot of my shit coincided with perimenopause and I was then diagnosed with ADHD...such fun 😂.

Re therapy, there's a lot of workbooks you can buy if you want to just investigate on your own. I used some materials supplied by our local counselling service as they offered me group therapy which is not for me, but found the tenets of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helpful.

I've also have online therapy which I found much easier to manage around a generally busy schedule, and just as helpful as seeing someone face to face.

It's basically just about finding what works for you.

I had such a bad few years a few years ago that genuinely started to believe I had a curse on me and there were dark forces at work. It drove me to that level of thinking, and I didn’t have any kind of mental illness that caused delusional thinking and I don’t generally tend to believe in anything religious/spiritual/paranormal. My exH became abusive after suffering from
MH problems, he then left me (which in hindsight was a blessing but I didn’t view it that way at the time) then took me to court to try and take our children away from me saying I was the abusive one, a narrative that was believed for a while, my home got repossessed because I couldn’t pay the mortgage because I was forced to pay lawyers fees for a court case built on lies about me, I got caught drunk driving (not something I’m proud of obviously) and lost my licence, I then lost my job as a driving licence was a requirement for it. But that series of events were all a knock on effect of the very first one. Many series of unlucky events are like this, not all of course, some are completely random. I don’t think there are lucky or unlucky people, rather people can go through unlucky or lucky phases - sometimes just randomly, but a lot of the time one unlucky thing causes the next & one lucky thing causes the next eg. A loved one dies and grief causes you to perform poorly at work so you end up losing your job, then your partner leaves you because you’re jobless and depressed. Or the other way round, you get an amazing promotion at work so you shine with happiness and good energy wherever you go, which in turn attracts people to you, so you bag yourself an amazing partner and a happy relationship etc etc.

I have a friend who has suffered trauma and tragedy one after the other. My heart breaks for her when I think about all she’s been through since we were kids. She threw herself into caring for others for a long time, but it’s catching up now. She’s had to be strong for such a long time and has pushed it away to cope. I’m hopeful she will take a bit of time for herself and process stuff in her own way.

I had a run of 4 significant deaths, one parent getting very ill, part of my house got flooded and badly damaged in a storm, a car crash, a serious illness for DH and losing my job and therefore us getting in a lot of debt within 3 years, as Covid kicked off. Felt like a comedy sketch the way stuff just kept happening. Anti-depressants and time were pretty much it!

My cognitive ability is absolutely scrambled.

I didn't get the luxury of 15 years to endure my run of traumatic events. I squeezed them all into 2 years.

• husband starting on the path to an emotional affair. Whatever broke inside me is still broken
• fell over and shattered my proximal humerus head. Had surgery to put it back together although I may only ever have 50% shoulder movement
• severe osteoporosis of the spine diagnosis
• fell again and tore ligaments in my wrist. These cannot be repaired so is permanntly splinted
• breast cancer diagnosis
• surgery for suspected uterine cancer (thankfully clear)
• further shoulder surgery and relocation of the biceps tendon
• my mother has just died

I want to be able to sleep again. I haven't slept for more than an hour at a time for 2 years. I am mentally, physically and emotionally drained.