Forum menu
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....
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 - MemberI'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.