[Closed] Most stressful time in your life?

Losing my job wasn't much fun.

edit

Actually the worst was when my wife contracted Strep A the day my daughter was born. Got taken to one side and given "the numbers" by a doctor. This was the same day that I negotiated our new house (good timing eh?). I was on the phone to the estate agent and actually thought that there was a 50% chance that I would only be needing 2 bedrooms not 4.

I was strangely calm at the time but had a bit of a wobbly about 2 weeks later when it was all over.

edit#2

Nothing like as bad as some of the posts below though.

Waiting to see if my then three and a half year old daughter would survive her cancer and secondaries......came within half an hour of loosing her one night.......she's twenty five now and gets married later this year.
Nothing has stressed me out as much as that and some crap and mega stressful stuff has happened since then but the worst were only a threat to my life, not my child's.

The last 6 months & counting.

First son was born 13 weeks early. All good now.

Losing someone you love to cancer is pretty stressful.

Splitting up. Nothing has come close.

I have twins on the way so will probably be finding out what stress really is!

Harry, I got made redundant just before Xmas. The run-up to it and subsequent waiting to see if I have got another job have been stressful......but of a much lower magnitude than some have had to deal with above.

For me it's probably having stage four hodgkins Lymphoma (lungs,stomach, spine, hips, femur etc etc) and then also being diagnosed with auto immune hepatitis ( my body is trying to reject my own liver) all in the same couple of months. At the age of 25. Although it was the second time I'd had the cancer I was still pretty bloody stressed as was my family.
40 % chance of surviving Still that was nearly 8 years ago, puts things into perspective a tad though

the loooong week in hospital after heart surgery last august.

From working as a site manager on Civil Engineering contracts with a lovely partner,nice house and dog to having an enormous crash, losing everything, attempting suicide twice, being sectioned in various mental institutes in Wales and Austria, gaining 6 stone from medication and struggling to get any kind of help from the NHS. They still are bloody awful with mental health and none of the managers give a shit!!!!!!!!
I'm trying to rebuild my life but it's bloody hard.
Quite stressful.

Indeed, there is always someone worse off than yourself was how I looked at it at the time.
Loverofminkys, keep up the fight! 😉

January, February, March 2014.

A better year this time, I hope.

The last 9 months for me, getting worse over the last 2. Numerous reasons but (nearly) all due to Miss Houns. Not out of the woods yet either

The last 2 years of my life - my gorgeous wife died suddenly ( strep A) & I'm struggling to make sense of everything whilst bringing up my 8 &10 year old kids. Give your wife & kids a hug tonight.

Suggesy. Very true words. I have to admit I spent most of the time in hospital looking around at everyone else in there feeling lucky I wasn't as ill as them. Defo makes you realise what's important in life tho and I feel strangely lucky to have learnt that early on (would of still much rather not learnt that way tho!)

both teenage lads being hooked on legal highs a couple of years ago, eldest also injecting. every day we seemed to have police or social workers round, they also went missing for days on end. eldest has ended up in the mental system with paranoid scizophrenia and psychosis. youngest seems to have got off with it but still does weed.
has resulted in us having to move house so my wife wasnt left to deal with it when i was away working, so neither of them live with us now.

we seem to have come through the other side, but the scars are deep and lifes far from ideal.

EDIT: reading some of the above make you realise someone always has it worse tho.

I've had to wait on the results of cancer tests, and also had a load of tests when I was getting mysterious chest pains and dizzy turns.

Not great, genuinely scared, but nothing compared to what some of you guys have been through.

Been made redundant twice and wasn't that worried by it either time, tbh. Always knew I'd find a job even if it was stacking shelves

Having read some of the above posts mine seem piffling by comparison but for me it was losing my business and almost going bankrupt at the same time as trying to get into the cops because the first would almost certainly have ruled out the second! A year of hell (comparitively)

Having Guillain Barre Syndrome from 2002 to 2003 was shite too.

I had cancer twice, first time when I was 4weeks past my 21st and then a relapse when I was 23. Rough time on the 2nd go.

Tbh it was nothing compared to when my son became very (verg) ill not long after he was born. Unfortunatly it didn't go well for him and he has been left with a lot of problems. Tbh it took me 3 years to come back from it, but I did (cos you have to).

Being rushed to hospital in an ambulance (twice) with all things sticking out of me and the subsequent constant anxiety / depression. Never knew anxiety disorder could be so convincing.

Best feeling was eliminating the anxiety disorder and getting back to normal, knowing having gone through the recovery it can never have the same effect on me as i know and have that experience of how i recovered, and nothing gives more confidence than actually doing it.

The 3 weeks before I emigrated to Oz, 3 years later a lot more of that makes sense.

I've been worried about my job for a while now. That all pales into total insignificance compared with what members above have had thrust upon them. Ouch.

Deep respect to you all. I particularly liked the remark from johnikgriff about just getting on with it 'cos you have too'. This is so, so true.
life kicks you in the nuts, you collapse in agony, pain, awfulness. And then you get up, brush yourself off, and get back to dealing with it as best you can. Special stuff.

Worst time ever was when stavro jr. was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 12 yrs old. It got so bad my hair started to fall out but we all got through it and jr. is now a 26 yr old layabout, university graduate.

I've been really 'stressed' the last month about my job.

I have had a bit of an epiphany today, and realise that it is all very likely to be ok, and even if it isn't, it's not life and death.

I have had real stress (although nowhere near the level of some on here) in my life. I now feel stupid and a bit ashamed that I had got into such a state about my job. Even my own experiences should have put that into perspective, but I just got on a bit of a scary and negative spiral.

The mind is a funny thing sometimes.

Big respect to those of you out there who have dealt with really bad stuff and come out the other side. Hopefully for those still in these situations, you keep finding the energy to keep on going.

Wife #2 going through a nervous breakdown, encouraging her marine boyfriend to remove me as a problem whilst also having relationship with a married local copper was a bit tricky specially cos I was going through a difficult time at work with a senior colleague having nervous breakdown due to drug abuse and staff reporting my manager to me for sexual abuse.

With hindsight wouldn't change it for the world it was like an episode of holyoaks in realtime!

Prostate cancer diagnosis in August 14 was up there. Telling the kids (8 and 12) was up there too. I had my prostate removed 6 weeks ago, will get blood tests every 3 months for many yrs now, not great times but could be a helluva worse..

This year ran out of tea bags local shop was closed till 6am in the morning I was gasping even sipped on some Earl Grey YUCK!
Last year having this taken out of my chest CT scans showed it pressing against my heat and lungs Doc said it could be attached to my lungs and I would lose one!!! But that was not the worse case senario got pressed ganged into getting married a day before the op 🙂
[url= https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7295/11148845675_b15134d614.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7295/11148845675_b15134d614.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/hZbKpa ]DSCF4172[1][/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people/22534490@N00/ ]Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3710/11148961566_ac3435f2ff.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3710/11148961566_ac3435f2ff.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/hZckRh ]DSCF4173[1][/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people/22534490@N00/ ]Richard Munro[/url], on Flickr

To echo other comments, some people here have some tough battles. I wish everyone the best. For me the last 18 months have been a roller coaster. Previous employer went bust. Current employer means working away from home. We had our third child 10 months ago at the same time my mum was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease. I am currently going through genetic councilling prior to a test to see if I will inherit it. 50/50 chance. Not so much bothered about how this affects me, more the rest of the family, especially the kids.

Point being...to anyone who may find themselves in the thick of it(medical stuff aside) it's the best bit of life, enjoy it, there'll be plenty of time for dull.

^^^ indeed, proper nasty medical stuff puts the rest of life's crap into perspective..

Since I was born.

😯

Agree with other, some amazing stories of courage on here.

Stress? I thought I wasn't one of those people that suffered with strew, I'm pretty relaxed as a person normally.

Going through transition has been an eye opener, though! All sorts of worry over situations I knew would be coming up caused stress but, the scary horrible things I worried about never materialised. I nearly packed up and ran away from that first Pootle! Somehow, it seems my imagination is far, for worse than reality!

I do have to admit to having a huge wobbler in the few minutes before actually going under for surgery, though. I really did start to question myself and whether I was doing the (very permanent) right thing. Would I even wake up? All that type of thing. Apparently my heart rate was a bit raised! Of course, having my surgeon helping the anaesthetist out my putting in the canula and missing twice really didn't help...

(Not admitted to the second thoughts before - needless to say, I absolutely did make the right call in the end 🙂 )
Rachel

Couldnt find a matching pair of socks last week.. dont know how i managed to make it through that day tbh.

I've had a tough few months but nothing compared to some of the posters above. Those who are still going through it now - I'm thinking of you.

Take care J

The last 15 months have not been good, although only the last 6 months have impacted on me directly.

Sept 2013, mrs_d's sisters''s husband, Jem, fell ill. Turned out to be pancreatic cancer 🙁 3% 5 year survival rate.
June 2014 mrs_d found a lump in her right breast. Cancer. 7 months of surgery & chemotherapy later, we think she's going to be ok. Radiotherapy still to do
September 2014 Jem lost his battle with pancreatic cancer 🙁
He was a couple of months younger than me, I'm 50 next month. Nothing like that to remind you of your own mortality

December 2014 my mum started having bowel problems, suspected pre-cancerous polyp. Surgery last week, seems to have gone well, waiting on biopsy results...

Currently waiting to find out if MrsScunny's endomitriosis has made her infertile, op in 10 weeks.

It understandably heartbreaking for her - and me!, but my lack of empathy (I have some low level social/dyslexia/aspergers thing, you probably wouldn't notice if you met me in the pub but people that know me do) makes it hard for her to talk about it and i've been pretty strict about not involving our parents. Shit for me, moreso for her.

Could be worse.

My son was born with CHD. He went into heart failure and needed major surgery when he was 5 months old.

Although life was very hard for those 5 months, I don't know if I'd describe it as stressful. You just kind of get on with it and cope. There's not a lot else you can do.

Every morning, just as the kids leave for school.... 😀

Watching BBC4 as I read this (in awe of every one of you), and they're showing Top of The Pops from he 1980s. The song as I post?

Billy Ocean - When The Going Gets Tough....

Reading these posts keeps making me think I need to go back to the hospital and get that follow up chest x-ray to see what the nodule was, but I don't want to go.

Go. ASAP. It's probably nothing. It could be serious, in which case the earlier you get it looked at, the better your chances of a good outcome

Minor flirtations with doctors and blood being where it shouldnt were pretty stressful but the troughie for me was whistleblowing at work but then realising the trail could be traced back to me due to a stupid schoolboy error I should never have made

For a couple of weeks I was paranoid that Id be unemployable with 2 small kids and a GF to support

Fortunately my employer was too stupid to realise where the noise had originally come from

Annoyingly despite my stress the complaint came to nothing and my boss continues to be on the make now the dust has settled, Im too chicken to grass them up again..................... which is another stress in itself

I don't know if I'd describe it as stressful. You just kind of get on with it and cope. There's not a lot else you can do.

Indeed you do. If/when you get confirmation that all is clear, though, that's when you can relax and you realise how hard it really was

I've had health problems for over 10 years now. Felt like most of my thirties were completely wasted due to feeling like crap. I can't put a finger on the most stressful point in time, I feel like I'm stressed almost always, or its just bubbling under the surface. When you look at others and problems they've been through it makes your own worries seem petty. I find I'm constantly asking myself what's it all about, and that's pretty stressful in itself.

Was going to post something

Prior posts put everything in perspective 🙁

For those that are truly struggling, if you're near Glasgow and need ANYTHING, just ask.

Compared to some above, I have nothing to worry about and plenty to be thankful for.

All the best to those of you dealing with a rough time, I hope it gets better for you ASAP.

4 Years ago, almost to the day....

http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/when-your-heading-for-rock-bottom-how-do-you-know-when-you-get-there

4 years later... Happy kids, great friendly relationship with ex, perfect new girlfriend, very successful work life. Never been happier.

My thoughts are with you guys going through it at the moment. Hang in there and keep on keeping on.

I've learned that life is indeed pain and suffering... its the joy in-between that you have to find.

Last year my wife gave birth to twins, suffered post natal depression and I had to help her into a hospital as she'd wanted to kill both herself and the girls... now nearly 8 months on and I don't think my marriage will survive as her depression deepens. I'm a very lost soul deep inside.

Edit: you don't chose a life.. you live one.

Sept 2010.
Wife goes into labour with our second daughter, labour went well then stalled, massive pain then the baby goes into distress and her heart stops beating.
Cue 'crash' C-section where we run down the corridor and she is taken into theatre, the last thing she remembers is the anaesthetist jumping on the bed and saying 'count to ten'
Doc tells me to get some scrubs on, and they'll give me a shout.
I sit on a plastic chain outside Theatre for over an hour, my mind is going crazy, convinced something is going very wrong.
Then 4 people wheel out an incubator with our daughter in it, she is tiny, and covered in blood, they say she is fine, but needs to go to SCBU.
I ask about my wife, and the reply is 'yeah, someone will be out to talk to you about your wife in a minute'
I collapse back on the chair, convinced she hasn't made it.
a short while later another surgeon comes out, covered in blood - his first words were 'don't have anymore kids'

It turns out my wife's previous C-section scar had given way during labour, and the baby had fallen out of the womb, and was drowning in blood, she was effectively dead when they pulled her out, and had to be resuscitated multiple times, and had 16 stomach flushes to get rid of all the dirty blood she had ingested.
My wife had over 200 internal stiches, and two blood transfusions.
Both were in hospital for around 8 days.
We were terrified that our daughter had sustained some damage as she was starved of oxygen, but everything was fine.
The hospital were very pleased with the result, because a ruptured uterus during delivery normally means either mother or baby don't survive, and sometimes both.
5 years on and my wife still suffers a few aches and pains. Our Daughter is one amazing/bright and funny kid, with only a tiny trace of asthma on cold days.
I can't wait to sit down and tell her about her grand entrance when she's older.

Feb 2011.
My 92 year old Nan collapses in front of us, myself and my Dad do CPR, she dies on the kitchen floor in front of us, after the paramedics have no success.

Oct 2013.
I sit in a dimly lit hospital room and hold my 36 year old brothers hand as he takes his last breaths.
After a 6 year fight, bowel/liver cancel finally got him.

Life is tough sometimes. You just need to work through it.

Sorry about the long post - the baby thing still messes with my head 4 years on.

Had a two-week period with dd junior in hospital pretty seriously ill - inside our own bubble that was a horrible time indeed. However, spending time in a children's hospital meeting and talking to people who would have loved our problems gave me some perspective, as has reading some of this thread. Good luck to anyone going through the mill at the moment.

[i]Prior posts put everything in perspective [/i]

Bob - if you want to get something off your chest, post!
I don't think you can use other people's problems to [i]compare[/i] with yours, simply because that's what is happening to someone else. Unless it's a family member or friend maybe, it doesn't effect you. Whereas your issue does.
Dunno if that makes sense, but that's my take on it.

Deffo getting divorced, seeing my ex Mrs going into the blokes house up the road who she finally moved in with after denying anything was going on. Still in the same house with her for 4 months before she moved out with our daughter who was 5, but on the upside I worked shifts so wasnt in the house at the same time. I just didnt feel I could escape from the stress so slung my leg over my road bike and just rode, it was winter :D, and that helped loads 😀 😀

June till Oct last year ranks pretty high, my Wife had our Daughter, fantastic - I remember the day she was born I'd been awake for nearly 48 hours because there were a few complications, not serious but enough to focus the mind - they wanted them in over night and kicked me out - I spent a few hours replying to messages and politely (and less so) telling loved ones no they couldn't visit yet - anyway I gave up at 8pm and went to bed and fell into a coma - I have never slept so hard in my life - I still feel bad about it, because I woke to about 5 messages from my Wife - she had the worst night of her life, including losing her mum 6 years previously - she was exhausted, baby wouldn't feed - thankfully the midwives were decent and not to harsh about breast feeding and allowed her some formula - Wife's not one to give up at all and I know it was an agonising decision for her - that was the last time we slept for more than 3 hours in one go until Nov the 12th.

Honestly - I've been homeless in a foreign land, I've been made redundant twice, I survived being 'managed out' for 6 months, I've lay on a Forrest floor alone for half an hour with two badly broken arms, a huge compound wound and serious blood loss, the 9 month recovery from that when all the docs wanted to do was fuse my elbow, I've watched my hero slowly be turned from a massive hulking dock worker and boxer into a frail shell and finally killed by motor neuron disease, I've held my Grans hand as she died of cancer and got lost in Alps riding with my 8 year old son - nothing is as hard, depressing or stressful as sleep deprivation for me - it just make everything hard - add in a depressed wife, a baby with food allergies who cried constantly for 3 months and working full time and more than once I thought about doing a Reggie Perrin

ti_pin_man - Member

I've learned that life is indeed pain and suffering... its the joy in-between that you have to find.

Couldn’t have put it better Joe, sorry to hear things are bad when it should be a happy time.

I find myself in an almost permanent state of stress between home & work, work is my own doing as I sometimes feel as if I’m the only one who gets the big picture while others let stuff wash over them?
Home is much worse as my wife’s MS has totally changed our relationship, seeing someone you’ve been with for over 30 years reduced to a shell of the previous dynamic person they were in such a short time is heart-breaking & the continuing decline of her condition makes me feel so many negative emotions I often find myself crying to myself at the slightest thing.
But as others have said “you just get on with it”

2011 - Really horrible stressful job, travelling 2 hours each way, and struck down with severe ulcerative colitis (couldn't go 5 minutes without nearly shitting myself).

Then got made redundant and ended up in a really nasty legal battle all whilst with the colitis and going through IVF for good measure.

Followed in 2012 with worsening colitis and having to have my bowel removed and 4 weeks to the day after I came out of surgery babybgoode arrived.

Broke me and I am still pretty broken today (last year was particularly shit as well but that wasn't so much stressful - just miserable).

Buy hey, I am still smiling most of the time and worse things happen at sea...

My stress & anxiety seems to have gone away by simply not working 😀

It will return when I run out of money though. Still, riding bikes helps keep things under control.

Thankfully no medical stresses like the above stories! Hospital incidents have been bike related mainly and biggest I just woke up in hospital and just thought, "err, okay" and was on happy juice so wasn't fussed about it really. I do keep looking now at adaptive bikes just in case the next time I wake up there's a limb or two missing.

Just having my MUm to say is stressful enough; the only time Mrs Gti and I have actually opened up and rowed about things was when my Mum came and everything went tits-up. Now we just don't talk about anything so we avoid rows.

Major stress was 10 years ago when violent drug dealers moved in next door on Christmas Eve and life suddenly became very unpleasant. We tarted up the house and sold it cheap, the relief at being out and in temporary accommodation was huge. 3 weeks later we bought a basket-case house, at which we are still throwing money now, ten years later.

over the last 18 months or so the wife has had 2 miscarriages, each on there own stressful enough. now in the early stages of pregnancy number 3 and we're both extremely worried and stressed. ever hopeful that it will be 3rd time lucky!

I'd say a couple of events 4yrs ago that effected me for the next 4yrs isolating me from friends, turning my hair grey etc. However reading the above puts ones life into perspective and reminds me that sometimes I can wallow in self pity.

Thank you guys and all the best.

In 2008 my job turned into a stress monster. I was overseeing someone else's design (and in another office) which was slowly unravelling and requiring attention, attention I was having difficulty giving it because I had another couple design jobs that were pressing (and my responsibility, with no assistance). I lived and breathed that job for a year, every waking hour... I had the firms titular head call me all the time (they were chasing a major project with the same client and there was one time he even said 'obviously your jobs not on the line over this...' 😯 ). Evenings and weekends, relentless, no respite.

In the middle of this I took a biking holiday in the US. Halfway through (and just before the main supported guided holiday in the Utah mountains) in the motel car park at 7.25 am of a 7.30 departure I washed out the front wheel, went down and dislocated a finger (which wouldn't reseat and needed an op). I ended up back in the motel in room 101 for the week instead. I can remember being deposited at the international departure gate in DIA by my mate (who headed off to internal departures) and being quizzed by the desk staff over my splint. Telling them no it wasn't a cast, it was stitches. Oh, we'll need to check if we can let you fly sir.... That was a very stressful 15 minutes until all I needed was some ibuprofen in case the wound/stitches swole up.

On return to the UK my GF was acting weirdly and then decided she'd had enough and we need to sell the house.... Which we had recently bought at the top of a rising market and spent £40+k upgrading...

Now what else happened in 2008? Oh yeah, the credit crunch, house price deflation and job insecurity. On the run up to Christmas they announced possible redundancies and we all got lettered/interviewed. In the end I jumped ship (because I could). But there were days in Oct/Nov when I went to sleep hoping I wouldn't wake up, trying to will my heart to stop.

I read some of the posts above and I am truly in awe at what people have battled through.

not being allowed to have any contact whatsoever with my 3 boys for 3 years while i took the ex through family court was the most stressed i've ever been. her solicitor tried every trick in the book to drag it out, whilst raking in the legal aid, in the end she capitulated at the zero hour, everthings good now but the boys and i will never get those 3 years back...

Managing two girlfriends during university.

😆 @ the above comment been there done that but not at uni

Being given six months to live, due to rare metastatic cancer.

^^^ bullheart, glad you popped up on here. I thought about your posts a fair few times in last 6 months, incl when I was getting wheeled in for my prostatectomy. Inspiring.

I left my girlfriend of 11 years, lost my business due to the recession caused by fat bankers and went bankrupt and then ended up having to move in with my mother in my 30's. Tough times!! Everything's roses now though.

Managing two girlfriends during university.

Only two? Pah!

Seriously though, just reading through some of those posts above is a sobering experience. I guess one of the few good things about getting a bit older is the increasing chance that you've had some life event/experience that goes some way to putting the rest of life's noise into perspective.

When it comes to life's darkest moments, talk about, don't talk about it, the choice is yours, but you'll certainly find out who your friends are and some people will surprise you.

My dad is very much from the "you just don't talk about it" school of thought. His father committed suicide when he was late teens or early twenties. I have no idea about it other than that, because it's not really any of my business and he has never shown any desire to tell me. But he broke down in tears when I told him my wife had had the first of several miscarriages.

Life certainly teaches you things, the hard way a lot of the time.......

Only two? Pah!

I don't know how you coped.

Ones hard enough. 😆

I've nothing to add after reading this thread. I probably thought I would when I opened it, but now it appears I stress over some very petty things indeed. Much admiration for some of you folks and what you've dealt with. Perspective eh.