Your experience of getting through some traumatic or otherwise hard times

[Mike 03]

Traumatic or hard times can be many things: Losing a job, Losing a job while having a family to support, a Divorce, Losing money in the stock markets, Coping with an illness/terminal illness, or knowing someone who is coping with a terminal illness, or having recently lost someone you love, or the destruction of a relationship... The list is endless.

Please share.

[NashVegas]

1. Somewhere Between Those First Two

I got the news yesterday that my mom was put on "comfort care."

Mike, sometimes, being strong isn't about being strong. Sometimes, showing weakness - being human - is what being strong's all about.

[H2O Man]

2. Other.

I am old, and like most other people, I have had my share of difficult times. What I've learned is to try to make the most of every single day, and to take nothing -- especially people -- for granted.

In those hard times, and in good times, I try to be aware of the fact that I'm here, now. This is my turn to participate in the eternal. We all get a certain number of rides on this living rock that we call earth, as it goes around the sun. How many cycles we each get is an individual thing. But it is real. And the most important reality is our relationships with other people and with ourselves.

Peace.

Your friend,
Pat

[DeschutesRiver]

5. That is perfect.

I am old too, and I have a list of traumas I had to triage my way through during my time here on the rock, as well. I really like your phrasing re "this is my turn to participate in the eternal", and the thoughts about riding the rock around the sun. The difficult stuff I have survived and endured has given me a very similar perspective - I celebrate all manner and variety of situations, people and things surrounding me on a daily basis, because even one minute more of being alive is not a given.

As to how I handle the trauma while it is ongoing? Maybe the only thing differently I do now than I did with my earlier life traumas is to accept that healing takes time - someone told me that native americans believed that it is normal to take an entire year to grieve and heal from a trauma. I know, also, though, that when life kicks the wind out of you, it can take a chunk of who you are with it, and that is harder to overcome.

When all else fails, and I am most discouraged, I try to remind myself that whatever I am experiencing, it is not something new under the sun, that I share that aspect of living with many others, that the pressure, or shatteredness or stark raw grief and pain I've felt is part of this human experience that not many escape. It isn't a good or bad thing, it is a somewhat universal thing, and part of the price tag of being a human.

[scarletwoman]

3. I don't think this subject really lends itself to polling.

I mean, shit happens to just about everybody to some degree or another. No one actually knows how to get through the hard times, but as long as you keep on living, you get through them. You put one foot in front of the other and move along in your life.

I've been divorced with a new baby, I've been homeless, I've lost two partners to heart attacks, my mother just died last September after a long battle with cancer, I just got a 20% pay cut -- at least my dog didn't die, or this would be a country song.

You get through stuff by just doing it -- getting through it. Life brings changes, always.

sw

[applegrove]

4. When you are going through Hell .... keep going.

[B o d i]

6. The stages of grief can be remembered with a simple acronym: had bad

Flip it around to reverse order, d a b d a h, and they stand for: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, and happiness/hope/healing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kübler-Ross_model">Kubler-Ross model

There is no fixed time for any given stage, and sometimes we go back a stage or two and go through them over again, and sometimes people get stuck on one stage and can't move on, but that's generally the pattern, no matter what you're grieving. It could be losing a family member, a pet, a job, some material possession, finding out about an illness, or even getting dumped in a relationship.

It hurts. It sucks. It happens. Life goes on. Hang in there Mike, losing a parent is hard, but in a way you're lucky that it's happening so late in life, and not sooner.

[BlooInBloo]

7. I just bumble ahead as best I can.

[remoulade]

8. Other: My 2 rules - 1) never sweat the small shit and 2)

it's all small shit.

:shrug: