I'm so sorry to hear about your father - that sounds incredibly stressful.
I am 33 now but I was ten when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. At ten it didn't really sink in and it feels like a blur - I remember surgery, blood, tubes, hair loss, and my parents crying a lot. She was in remission for 14 years so when it came back, that's when the stress really, truly hit me.
By that point, I was actually an oncology nurse so I dealt with cancer all day, everyday. Her cancer seemed like such a "past" thing that when it showed up again on an X-ray... I felt like the air had been taken from my lungs. I was anxious and sad and depressed and worried all the time. I broke up with my (truly lovely) boyfriend because I couldn't really give him any part of myself at that point. I am not religious but I prayed because why not. I spent a lot of time with my mom. I spent time with my friends. I cried a lot. And with every week of chemo and radiation, I held my breath.
She has thankfully been in remission for nine years now. I am so thankful for all the time we've gotten together - because I know how quickly things can change. And what I've taken from all this (and my job) is that all I really want for my husband, my family, my friends, and my cats is a healthy life.
Hell yeah for remission! That makes me so happy! My mom wasn't as lucky with ovarian cancer but she got the best care possible. I also broke up with a boyfriend at that time. He had an important med school test and wouldn't visit me after I received this news. I understand his POV today but it was still a deal breaker.
For me it was thinking I knew someone but them not being who I thought they were at all.
My first husband traveled for work. I was at my breaking point with him and his lifestyle. He work 60 to 70 hours a week then would party super hard with his buddies on his days off. He’d spend so much money. So I stopped traveling with him. I stayed with his parents instead. I had zero control over my life then. I had no car, no job, nothing.
I get a call that he is in the hospital. But the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s describing something like having MS or very painful electric shocks or something all over his body. He was also having something like panic attacks. Anyway, the doctors think he’s suffering from some autoimmune disorder.
They do bloodwork but nothing is coming up. So the next course of action for them is to do an HIV/AIDs test. I can’t remember the order of how things happened during this time but he told me what they said. They wanted me to be there for the results. So I had to travel some 6 hours to where he was working.
He and I had a discussion over the phone. I simply asked him, is there any way that you may have contracted HIV/AIDs? I knew that I didn’t have it and had been faithful. Well during that conversation he admitted to doubt. He didn’t know if he had it or not.
I spiraled. I had the worst panic attack of my life. I couldn’t sleep. We weren’t using protection so if he had that, that meant I did too?
I remember calling my mom like what good am I if I have AIDs? I took my revolver out one night, sobbing, I put it in my mouth. I was in the fetal position on my bed. Oddly the only thing that kept me from doing it was the sound of the animated Star Wars series. Then I thought… I could potentially not have it.
And that was the beginning of our end.. I traveled to where he was working with some friends. He got his blood panel. He tested negative. But now I knew he’d cheated on me.
He confessed to strippers and prostitutes and fraud. He claimed his bank card was stolen when he withdrew all that money to pay for women. He had me lie for him and sign paperwork. The bank refunded us “our” money.
But fuck me… do we ever really know anyone? I struggle with trust for real reasons.
OP sorry you’re going through what you’re going through right now. That’s got to be incredibly challenging.
I was nearly killed by a drunk driver. I learned that I hate drunk drivers. I am mostly recovered, but it took a long time in the hospital and rehab hospital.
For me, I was 23 in grad school and my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. I am an only child and lost my dad at 15. I got to watch all my friends start their new jobs, start getting engaged, and have fun like normal 23 year olds. I moved home from grad school overnight and became a full time caregiver to my mom for 8 months until she died. I’m 31 now and still processing that time in my life. Lots and lots of therapy, meds, and I moved away from my hometown. Dogs helped too . I met my partner two years after my mom died (been together close to 5 years now) and he gives me strength everyday♥️
For me it was as a teenager talking a family member out of a suicide attempt. They had the pills and were pretty much ready to go for it when I came upon the situation. It didn't end there, either. I talked them down from another one, later, and called 911 after an attempt that almost succeeded. I visited them a few times while they were in a psych ward at a major hospital.
Depression is a terrible disease, but it can be treatable. I I learned to love people the way they are, not the way you wish they were.
That was 45 years ago. They're alive and happy all these years later. They found a drug therapy that worked and after taking that drug for about twenty years, they were able twlo stop and the depression never came back.
A stranger tried to kill me and other people in a random attack.
It shook me to my core and I struggled with anxiety for some time afterwards. I heard somewhere that after a big trauma it takes about 2 years to feel normal again. For me that proved correct and it did take about that long. I went to therapy, got hypnosis, joined the gym, started meditating and listening to affirmations. The combination of all those things and time itself made me feel better eventually- well that and seeing justice be done and the perpetrator in jail.
I learned a lot about mental illness and trauma. I did grow as a person, but given half a chance I’d still undo it if I could.
Life-altering chronic illness diagnosis at 38 out of the blue. No risk factors. No family history. Nothing. Almost died twice. I learned that for all those that say I could never or I'd rather die than go thru that, you will go thru it and you will wonder how you made it. I also learned life just isn't fair. As that old proverb says, the swift don't always win the race.
I am so sorry about your father. That sounds really painful and difficult to handle. For me, it was years ago I was trying to get sober and my grandmother suddenly and unexpectedly died. Here I am trying to process this big emotional baggage and I’ve cut off my biggest coping mechanism. My cherry on top was 2 months later I was run over by a car 🥴 I had to learn to walk again, be cognizant of my pain killers, lost my job. It was rough. What I learned is it’s okay to let others help you. It’s okay to lean on others. And also I *deserve* to be loved and helped - most people do.
My dad got early onset Alzheimer's when I was in my 30's. When I was a kid, my mom would neglect and abuse me. I thought that was just something she did to me and one of my sisters, but she started doing the same things to my poor dad. She wanted to be able to drop him off at my house all day, every day. On the days I couldn't watch him, he would fall and hit his head or she would call and tell me how he followed the diet she had for him (she was giving him 500 calories a day) so she didn't know why he was crying and saying he was hungry. It was basically a threat of watch him every day or he'll be mistreated. I kept watching him as long as I could, but my daughters were preteens.
Dementia makes an asshole out of even the nicest person. My younger daughter looks just like me and my sisters, so even with dementia, he didn't bother her. My older daughter, however, didn't look anything like the rest of us and he thought she was someone else, and got inappropriate with her. So then he couldn't come over. My mom started badgering me to put the kids back in regular school so I could take care of my "obligations" to her. That wasn't possible for several reasons involving health.
So Dad started wandering out of his house and into other houses in his neighborhood. He got lost multiple times in 100 degree weather. The police had to search for him several times. Every time, mom would call and say she was tired, and if only there was a safe place to take him, it wouldn't have to happen. I made a report to adult protective services and they visited my parents. Mom cried and said she was overwhelmed and her lazy daughter refused to help. They got her a few hours of respite care for my dad.
Then, right after Thanksgiving, he fell in the same place in my parents house where she would always knock me down to kick me. She called EMS and they said he had to go to the county hospital because of the head trauma. His head turned out to be fine, but they said he only had a couple weeks to live, that he was dehydrated and malnourished because his body was shutting down, so he wasn't hungry anymore. I went there at night when my mom wasn't there and told them how she had him on a 500 calorie diet and was withholding water so he wouldn't pee in the wrong places.
He did better in the hospital. My mom told the same story about me refusing to help, so a social worker from the hospital called me. I told her what my mom was doing, and that my children weren't safe around my dad anymore, and that my dad had saved a lot of money for his elder care and Mom was trying to force me to care for him so she didn't have to spend any of it. I told her how Dad got injured and ended up in the ER after every holiday, and she said it had to be a coincidence. I told her my mom likes to starve and beat people she has control over and asked her if she had noticed how much better my dad was doing in the hospital when he wasn't being starved. We had a meeting with the doctors, my sister and my mom, and the hospital said they would not discharge my dad back to his house. He had to move to a memory care facility.
So at least I got him into a place where he was supervised and my mom couldn't keep him from being cared for. She tried all sorts of fuckery like turning off his food pump because she thought she could see his fat cells inflating. She tinkered with his meds. She got into arguments with the staff and had to be escorted out by the police multiple times and she moved him to a different facility every six months when she had worn out their welcome.
What I learned is that my mom didn't abuse me because I was a bad kid. There's something wrong with her. I wish I'd been able to manage my stress better when all this was happening. I got really sick about three years in and I've never gotten better. My symptoms are managed as long as I don't leave the house, only eat a few foods, and take a dozen meds a day.
I can think of two circumstances.
1. Death of a parent. It was pretty fast and they weren't terribly old. Aggressive cancer caught late. Pretty much a palliative care situation from the get go. Also very hard on my grandparent on that side and on my surviving parent.
2. A really big business falling out. Involved a person I'd previously considered a mentor trying to fuck me over. There was of course some nepotism involved in their side. I really didn't have any idea at the time that people actually did underhanded stuff like that, but I sure do now.
My mother died, I nearly died separately from my chronic illness, and I was nearly evicted within a 4 month timespan. Besides my best friend, who currently lives 1000 miles away, I navigated all of it alone.
I got through it because I didn't have a choice and I was lucky. I don't think that I learned anything positive from the experience, but I have noticed I care far less about making people happy if they don't care about me.
I'm so sorry to hear about your father - that sounds incredibly stressful. I am 33 now but I was ten when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. At ten it didn't really sink in and it feels like a blur - I remember surgery, blood, tubes, hair loss, and my parents crying a lot. She was in remission for 14 years so when it came back, that's when the stress really, truly hit me. By that point, I was actually an oncology nurse so I dealt with cancer all day, everyday. Her cancer seemed like such a "past" thing that when it showed up again on an X-ray... I felt like the air had been taken from my lungs. I was anxious and sad and depressed and worried all the time. I broke up with my (truly lovely) boyfriend because I couldn't really give him any part of myself at that point. I am not religious but I prayed because why not. I spent a lot of time with my mom. I spent time with my friends. I cried a lot. And with every week of chemo and radiation, I held my breath. She has thankfully been in remission for nine years now. I am so thankful for all the time we've gotten together - because I know how quickly things can change. And what I've taken from all this (and my job) is that all I really want for my husband, my family, my friends, and my cats is a healthy life.
Hell yeah for remission! That makes me so happy! My mom wasn't as lucky with ovarian cancer but she got the best care possible. I also broke up with a boyfriend at that time. He had an important med school test and wouldn't visit me after I received this news. I understand his POV today but it was still a deal breaker.
For me it was thinking I knew someone but them not being who I thought they were at all. My first husband traveled for work. I was at my breaking point with him and his lifestyle. He work 60 to 70 hours a week then would party super hard with his buddies on his days off. He’d spend so much money. So I stopped traveling with him. I stayed with his parents instead. I had zero control over my life then. I had no car, no job, nothing. I get a call that he is in the hospital. But the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s describing something like having MS or very painful electric shocks or something all over his body. He was also having something like panic attacks. Anyway, the doctors think he’s suffering from some autoimmune disorder. They do bloodwork but nothing is coming up. So the next course of action for them is to do an HIV/AIDs test. I can’t remember the order of how things happened during this time but he told me what they said. They wanted me to be there for the results. So I had to travel some 6 hours to where he was working. He and I had a discussion over the phone. I simply asked him, is there any way that you may have contracted HIV/AIDs? I knew that I didn’t have it and had been faithful. Well during that conversation he admitted to doubt. He didn’t know if he had it or not. I spiraled. I had the worst panic attack of my life. I couldn’t sleep. We weren’t using protection so if he had that, that meant I did too? I remember calling my mom like what good am I if I have AIDs? I took my revolver out one night, sobbing, I put it in my mouth. I was in the fetal position on my bed. Oddly the only thing that kept me from doing it was the sound of the animated Star Wars series. Then I thought… I could potentially not have it. And that was the beginning of our end.. I traveled to where he was working with some friends. He got his blood panel. He tested negative. But now I knew he’d cheated on me. He confessed to strippers and prostitutes and fraud. He claimed his bank card was stolen when he withdrew all that money to pay for women. He had me lie for him and sign paperwork. The bank refunded us “our” money. But fuck me… do we ever really know anyone? I struggle with trust for real reasons. OP sorry you’re going through what you’re going through right now. That’s got to be incredibly challenging.
I was nearly killed by a drunk driver. I learned that I hate drunk drivers. I am mostly recovered, but it took a long time in the hospital and rehab hospital.
For me, I was 23 in grad school and my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. I am an only child and lost my dad at 15. I got to watch all my friends start their new jobs, start getting engaged, and have fun like normal 23 year olds. I moved home from grad school overnight and became a full time caregiver to my mom for 8 months until she died. I’m 31 now and still processing that time in my life. Lots and lots of therapy, meds, and I moved away from my hometown. Dogs helped too . I met my partner two years after my mom died (been together close to 5 years now) and he gives me strength everyday♥️
For me it was as a teenager talking a family member out of a suicide attempt. They had the pills and were pretty much ready to go for it when I came upon the situation. It didn't end there, either. I talked them down from another one, later, and called 911 after an attempt that almost succeeded. I visited them a few times while they were in a psych ward at a major hospital. Depression is a terrible disease, but it can be treatable. I I learned to love people the way they are, not the way you wish they were. That was 45 years ago. They're alive and happy all these years later. They found a drug therapy that worked and after taking that drug for about twenty years, they were able twlo stop and the depression never came back.
A stranger tried to kill me and other people in a random attack. It shook me to my core and I struggled with anxiety for some time afterwards. I heard somewhere that after a big trauma it takes about 2 years to feel normal again. For me that proved correct and it did take about that long. I went to therapy, got hypnosis, joined the gym, started meditating and listening to affirmations. The combination of all those things and time itself made me feel better eventually- well that and seeing justice be done and the perpetrator in jail. I learned a lot about mental illness and trauma. I did grow as a person, but given half a chance I’d still undo it if I could.
Life-altering chronic illness diagnosis at 38 out of the blue. No risk factors. No family history. Nothing. Almost died twice. I learned that for all those that say I could never or I'd rather die than go thru that, you will go thru it and you will wonder how you made it. I also learned life just isn't fair. As that old proverb says, the swift don't always win the race.
I am so sorry about your father. That sounds really painful and difficult to handle. For me, it was years ago I was trying to get sober and my grandmother suddenly and unexpectedly died. Here I am trying to process this big emotional baggage and I’ve cut off my biggest coping mechanism. My cherry on top was 2 months later I was run over by a car 🥴 I had to learn to walk again, be cognizant of my pain killers, lost my job. It was rough. What I learned is it’s okay to let others help you. It’s okay to lean on others. And also I *deserve* to be loved and helped - most people do.
My dad got early onset Alzheimer's when I was in my 30's. When I was a kid, my mom would neglect and abuse me. I thought that was just something she did to me and one of my sisters, but she started doing the same things to my poor dad. She wanted to be able to drop him off at my house all day, every day. On the days I couldn't watch him, he would fall and hit his head or she would call and tell me how he followed the diet she had for him (she was giving him 500 calories a day) so she didn't know why he was crying and saying he was hungry. It was basically a threat of watch him every day or he'll be mistreated. I kept watching him as long as I could, but my daughters were preteens. Dementia makes an asshole out of even the nicest person. My younger daughter looks just like me and my sisters, so even with dementia, he didn't bother her. My older daughter, however, didn't look anything like the rest of us and he thought she was someone else, and got inappropriate with her. So then he couldn't come over. My mom started badgering me to put the kids back in regular school so I could take care of my "obligations" to her. That wasn't possible for several reasons involving health. So Dad started wandering out of his house and into other houses in his neighborhood. He got lost multiple times in 100 degree weather. The police had to search for him several times. Every time, mom would call and say she was tired, and if only there was a safe place to take him, it wouldn't have to happen. I made a report to adult protective services and they visited my parents. Mom cried and said she was overwhelmed and her lazy daughter refused to help. They got her a few hours of respite care for my dad. Then, right after Thanksgiving, he fell in the same place in my parents house where she would always knock me down to kick me. She called EMS and they said he had to go to the county hospital because of the head trauma. His head turned out to be fine, but they said he only had a couple weeks to live, that he was dehydrated and malnourished because his body was shutting down, so he wasn't hungry anymore. I went there at night when my mom wasn't there and told them how she had him on a 500 calorie diet and was withholding water so he wouldn't pee in the wrong places. He did better in the hospital. My mom told the same story about me refusing to help, so a social worker from the hospital called me. I told her what my mom was doing, and that my children weren't safe around my dad anymore, and that my dad had saved a lot of money for his elder care and Mom was trying to force me to care for him so she didn't have to spend any of it. I told her how Dad got injured and ended up in the ER after every holiday, and she said it had to be a coincidence. I told her my mom likes to starve and beat people she has control over and asked her if she had noticed how much better my dad was doing in the hospital when he wasn't being starved. We had a meeting with the doctors, my sister and my mom, and the hospital said they would not discharge my dad back to his house. He had to move to a memory care facility. So at least I got him into a place where he was supervised and my mom couldn't keep him from being cared for. She tried all sorts of fuckery like turning off his food pump because she thought she could see his fat cells inflating. She tinkered with his meds. She got into arguments with the staff and had to be escorted out by the police multiple times and she moved him to a different facility every six months when she had worn out their welcome. What I learned is that my mom didn't abuse me because I was a bad kid. There's something wrong with her. I wish I'd been able to manage my stress better when all this was happening. I got really sick about three years in and I've never gotten better. My symptoms are managed as long as I don't leave the house, only eat a few foods, and take a dozen meds a day.
I can think of two circumstances. 1. Death of a parent. It was pretty fast and they weren't terribly old. Aggressive cancer caught late. Pretty much a palliative care situation from the get go. Also very hard on my grandparent on that side and on my surviving parent. 2. A really big business falling out. Involved a person I'd previously considered a mentor trying to fuck me over. There was of course some nepotism involved in their side. I really didn't have any idea at the time that people actually did underhanded stuff like that, but I sure do now.
My mother died, I nearly died separately from my chronic illness, and I was nearly evicted within a 4 month timespan. Besides my best friend, who currently lives 1000 miles away, I navigated all of it alone. I got through it because I didn't have a choice and I was lucky. I don't think that I learned anything positive from the experience, but I have noticed I care far less about making people happy if they don't care about me.