Hey Pandas, What Was The Hardest Thing You Have Ever Overcome?

Every time one of my dogs died. Especially my last one. Six years later it still hurts like hell.

My parents’ divorce
Deaths in the family

Actually expecting who I am. I’ve always been told being gay was wrong by my dad, here I am. Telling him was the hardest thing I’ve ever done though

My depression, anxiety, PTSD, and suicidal thoughts

I had a full on psychotic break. I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. I honestly thought I was nothing but a corpse that moved for months. It's taken *ten years* for me to be able to more-or-less function in society, and I still have bad days where I disassociate and can't quite tell where reality is. When I'm taking a "Mental Health Day" from work it's because I'm hallucinating too hard to be a safe driver.

The fact that I will never find someone... ALSO two numbers... 2020... Anyone else?

Coming out as bisexual. In another ask pandas I said I was having a hard time. Two weeks ago I came out to my mother and it feels really good. :)

I don't know if this would count as overcome, but depression. And anxiety. And Eisoptrophobia (which is a rare phobia that causes one to be afraid of looking in the mirror). It's been really hard. There's been suicide attempts. Too many to count. And the worst part is: I'm still a kid. A 12-year-old girl. I want to enjoy my life without feeling upset most of the time. I don't want to feel panic every time I hear a noise. I would like to say that I want to live, but I don't. I don't want to live. I haven't overcome this, but I want to. I really do.

I had to go to a taekwondo place for like eight weeks in the morning on a saturday and just practice punching and kicking for like an hour.
It was worth it though because I got my black belt.

A lot of my childhood. I had an older sister who suffered severe, permanent brain damage when she wasn't even 2 years old (well before I was born), leaving her epileptic and with major behavioral problems. Most people have fuses for their tempers, a slow, steady buildup--hers was more akin to a switch, flipping her from calm to screaming and violent at the drop of a hat. Her mood swings were incredibly violent and unpredictable, placing terrible strain on my parents' loveless relationship. I spent many nights when I was little unable to sleep because my sister would scream and throw things at my mom well into the night when she tried to enforce bedtime.

My dad was pretty much emotionally absent and resentful of my mom for her financial irresponsibility and the way she treated him. My mom hated him for not appreciating everything she did to make our lives easier with my disabled sister's problems. They refused to divorce because it would be "bad for us"--I was frequently (unintentionally) neglected attention-wise between all of this, and often the target of nasty verbal abuse from my mother. This worsened after my sister's death.

I witnessed my sister try to murder my mother twice, and once found her hiding a knife under her pillow before we all went to bed, likely with intent to kill our mother in her sleep.

My sister attempted to murder me once, too; it was the single most terrifying experience of my life. She was profoundly sorry each time, sobbing and deeply upset because she didn't understand why she was like this. I was too young to really understand that it wasn't her fault, it was beyond her control because of the brain injury she'd had, and at the time treatments were limited to us.

She was raped at a mental health facility specializing in cases like hers, and she passed away suddenly when I was 13; I found her body, and I didn't forgive her and blamed her for my shitty life and thought she deserved to be raped because I was so angry. My family fell apart after her death, though my parents still didn't split. My dad became even more emotionally absent, and my mom's abuse ramped up to include physical abuse; my dad defended her actions and words sometimes, even.

I became severely depressed and attempted suicide for the first time at age 10. I never went to therapy for the trauma of being the victim of an attempted murder, nor for witnessing two other assaults. I almost successfully took my life at 16 by heavily overdosing on Wellbutrin and whatever anti-anxiety meds my mom was taking. The overdose caused me to severely hallucinate and the experience was absolutely terrifying for me. I was still never taken to therapy; I was just told to take my pills and they would fix me. Years later, I still have fleeting suicidal thoughts, but they're more like passing remnants of that time, like mental scars of how bad my depression was.

I'm nearly 30 years old and it's only been in the past few years I found out I may have been misdiagnosed for depression for almost a decade; I have moderate to severe ADHD, which is frequently misdiagnosed as other disorders in women my age. I've been struggling to develop better coping strategies only recently for years of PTSD and anxiety and being told to "just stop thinking about it" and "all you need is meds." I've only recently started to forgive and let go of the anger I held towards my late sister. I have many more milestones to go, but I'm getting there, one step at a time.

After many treatments, being told I could not have children. For some reason faith was twisted because I have a beautiful daughter now, conceived naturally.

When I was 26 and realized that apart from not having good social skills, I also lack basic life skills that most people learn during childhood

Hearing my best friend make a racial slur about MY RACE, in front of me and she did not realize how devastated by her remark I was.

The physical damage caused by my search for something to ease my depression. I have been depressed for most of my life and I’m now 63, which means I’m a survivor. But the last 3 years as I searched for a medical cure to the depression things have gone terribly.

In July ‘17 I was so depressed I checked into a psych unit. It was the first time I’d felt compelled to separate myself from society to keep from being able to act on my suicidal thoughts and it was the right thing to do. I was physically normal. They added an anti depressive and after a few days I went home.

But something was wrong. I was increasingly having a hard time speaking, swallowing, feeding myself, writing, concentrating, walking and my hands were shaking. By thanksgiving I couldn’t keep the food on my spoon long enough to get it to my mouth. Nobody could understand what was going on.

I searched and searched for an answer and discovered the medication they’d given me had produced a form of Parkinsonism — it was a rare side effect. I went back to the hospital so they could get me off the med in a couple days rather than tapering off over months as was recommended. I was told it would take 18 months to see which side effects would fade and which would be permanent. 2 years on it now looks like the speech and throat problems will make me sound like I’m drunk and make me cough when I eat, and I will shuffle my feet for the foreseeable future.

I’ve fallen 24 times since then and have had several concussions which cloud my thinking and planning abilities. My forehead has a dent from one bad fall and I’ve had stitches to the back of my head.

the next medicine they gave me left me with 2nd degree burns In January 2019 when it left my coordination so bad I spilled a pot of boiling soup down my chest. That med lasted two weeks. Med 3 made me way more depressed. 2 weeks.

I’ve lived an independent and interesting like. I’ve been on 4 continents, lived on two, speak part or all of four languages. I’ve been to the top of the Rockies, lived in Foxfire country in Appalachia, sat at the top of MacchuPicchu, sledded down the Alps, travelled thru India and Russia. My last big trip was to explore Iceland.

Right after the trip to Iceland, which showed me how disabling the past years had been, a wave of depression hit and I tried very seriously to kill myself april of ‘19. I ended up with permanent numbness from my right calf to the ends of my toes. My balance is shot.

Med 4 led to constant facial twitching in under a week. That’s since gone away but could have been permanent. The good news is if it had become permanent they now have a pill for that! Med 5 made me sleep all the time. Med 6 put me in the hospital this February because I could not stand without collapsing.

I went back to my original meds.

I had shoulder repair surgery after a fall this April. I broke my hip in July, had to rehome my dog (my baby, really) while I was recovering In the hospital. My daughter helped me move from my dream home in the wild mountains of north Georgia to flat hot northern Florida this past August (to live near her) the day after I got out of the hospital.

It feels like I’ll never regain my independence. I need a walker all the time and have a ramp to my front door. I’m now losing fine motor skills in my hands and a tremor is returning to my hands.My grandmother died of Parkinson’s when I was a kid and this might be the real thing this time.

But I’m still here.

I can’t say I’m “over it.” But I’ve committed to giving this a full year to play out before I judge how it’s going. I’ve got a medical marijuana license for the depression which I use in bed at night to keep it from making balance issues worse. It helps the depression for a couple days at a time. I spend time every week with my daughter and we’re becoming friends. I listen to comedy podcasts. I got a cat. I get everything I need delivered to my door. Now, after the election, I have hope.

Haven’t overcome it yet but my parents divorce and a breakup with my boyfriend at the time. He was the only person I felt like I could talk to and with covid things took a turn for the worse. Still battling anxiety, self hate, and insomnia. It’s hard but I try to remember that things will get better.

I don't even know where to start. I mean, I left my many friends then got bullied by somebody everyone thought was my friend, I gained a lot of weight because I was depressed, which made me more depressed, then all this started and got me out of a bad situation but I was stuck with a family that would rather not have me around which wasn't much better, plus I have anxiety and I think I have Bipolar and OCD but I'm no professional so yeah.

What Was The Hardest Thing I Have Ever Overcome? Well, a death. I lost my aunt at the age of 7. Then 3 years later her husband (my uncle) started dating another girl. When I was 8 or 9, my grandma lost her brother and won't stop talking about him and how he and his dad loved trucks. I hope nobody has to go though a harsh and sudden death like I do.

my mom abandoned me when i was 7 and my sister was 9 months and it was a really long night i was scared and called the police they came inside my house and they saw my mom wasn't there and then my aunt arrived (lived near us) after hearing all the sirens from police and fire department before that my mom and step dad got into a lot of fights and he would hit her and she would hit him i would stay up all night screaming mommy scared she would get hurt i started living with my grandparents and it turned out i was malnourished and i couldn't eat really sweet food because it made me sick

Learning that Alex Trebek died. We watched Jeopardy! almost every night and I always loved Trebek's comebacks, so hearing he died was a huge blow.

My first cat that i owned and had owned for 4 years died in October. It was heartbreaking and i sometimes go talk to him in the backyard (where we buried him). We got two kittens and that actually helped a lot. It also helped knowing that he died from old age and he was sick, so he was in a better place. I still miss him.