What was your hardest experience so far in life?

When I first moved to SF I had no friends and lived in a really bad area in a sub leased apartment with a random guy in his 30s. My random roommate barely spoke english and was very unhygienic and cooked the most horrid smelling foods. I sacrificed my friends and my relationship for this new job in SF and I became really lonely really fast. After my 3 month sublease ended in that really bad apartment, I was supposed to find an apartment with someone I kinda knew from Miami who also got a job in SF. He flaked on me and ended up living with someone he went abroad with. I then didn't have a new place to live so I was living out of hotels and Air BnBs for a month. Despite staying in really shitty hotels in bad neighborhoods, this was costing me about a thousand dollars a week and I had to put most of my possessions in storage, so I was living out of 2 suitcases. These hotels also just had shared communal bathrooms and no hot water, and no kitchen obviously so I was having to eat out every day. Most of the money I was able to save was now spent. I had to ask my boss If I would be able to work out of the NYC office for a while until I found a new place to live since all my friends now lived in nyc. All the apartments I had applied for were quickly taken by other people. I gave up trying to tour places and would just send in my application but still couldn't get an apartment. They let me go to new york for 3 weeks where I stayed on my friend's futon in his tiny studio. I finally had a friend from college get a job in SF and agree to live with me. We eventually found a place and I was able to go back to SF in July and have been doing okay ever since. But that was such a pain to deal with. 

living with bipolar

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When I was 7, I had to call 911 when my moms aorta dissected while we were doing chores around the house. We were singing the clean up song , when suddenly she went silent. I turned the corner into the living room (the irony) and she had collapsed. She could only snap to communicate. I got aspirin from the cabinet and called 911. She got lifelighted downtown and survived the emergency surgery, but then passed away less than a year later from anesthesia complications during a minor follow up procedure. My little sister was only 2, so she doesn't remember much. I was very close with my mom, and she was the rock of our family, so it was a pretty heavy loss that still lingers some to this day.

Or

My own medical issues... She passed on the heart disease issues to me, though thankfully not my sister. I was monitored most of my life, though negelcted that some in college. I had to have a major open heart surgery in June of 2020, just after finishing Undergrad. It was a 13 hour long procedure, where they replaced my ascending aorta and also placed 2 titanium bars to reshape my chest wall (nuss procedure), breaking most ribs. The combination operation has been done maybe 50 times in the entire world, to the point that my surgery team (one of the top aorta surgeons in the country) said they really had no data to predict how it would end up and that I'd be a whole medical study on my own. The recovery was grueling, to say the least. I couldn't even get up out of bed on my own for about a month. That was a tough pill to swallow for a stubborn and self sufficient 22 year old.

I managed to get healthy and get back in reasonable shape over the next year. I also earned my MBA during and after that recovery, graduating last December. I even received my job offer while crossing the stage. The chest bars were just removed this July, which was nice and not nearly as painful. Though the Dr's have seen some minor issues on recent echo scans of my heart, hopefully treatable with just medication. On the bright side, the fear and pain and challenges from that surgery have really strengthened my resolve as a man and my ambitions in life. I've got a beautiful girlfriend (soon to be fiance), her 4 year old son, and now a daughter of my own on the way in March, which I'm incredibly excited for. Being that I spent much of my life not knowing if I'd live long enough to have kids.

Though I certainly wish I still had my mom and never endured the medical issues I've had. I don't think I'd be the man I am today without facing those crucibles.

Isaiah, what would you say is yours? You’ve experienced a lot of stuff: military training (elite level), Canada syrup woods religion, mom health issues, crazy roommate wanting to smash and you say no so she screams and bangs on your door.

I don't listen to Joe Rogan, but I really like [Arroz con Pollo]'s excerpt that he threw in there, regarding how the toughest experience one can face is a subjective struggle. It's true. I've thought about my own issues in life and they seem so overpowering at times until I compare them to someone else's. But comparing those kinds of things will get you nowhere, as they're just not logical constraints - you can't flat-rate pit them against each other like you can some logical things because emotional and mental stress is so subjective in and of itself. 

I've touched on this before, so I won't get too into it, but my toughest personal 'battle' was either losing my best friend to a car accident (college, I wrote a novel of a comment about that one) or splitting with a girl who I'd been living with and dating for nearly four years, which inspired my great solo vacation (also somewhere in an equally textbook-length comment). 

Directly contradicting my above statement, I'll compare the two as food for thought: losing my friend, who had physically died, didn't feel as bad as losing my then-girlfriend, who is alive and happy to this day. It's just different forms of grief. The loss of my best pal pushed me to the brink of failure in a good way, as I was determined to live THROUGH him and FOR him. Losing my partner had me retreat into the covers of my bed, afraid to open the blinds for fear of what might hurt me next. To this day, I have zero percent sadness about my former girlfriend, but still feel sad about my friend whose life was cut short. There are always "what could have" scenarios for both of those things, but I know that one wasn't meant to work out, and the other... well, if cutting a life short is 'meant to be', then I just have a hard time getting behind that one. 

However, I'm glad that I can write these posts in hindsight and not through the middle of them as I once would have. Even the most towering amounts of grief and loss ultimately become manageable. Something of this caliber never truly 'ends', as anyone whose been in a similar situation can testify to. It simply stops becoming the primary factor in your cerebral cortex and is slowly shoved out of your brain until it no longer reflects your DtD. And that's okay, not a bad thing at all - as long as you use the experience to ensure you come out the other side a better person. I certainly did, or at least I'd hope I tried.

My friend's birthday was last week. He would have been 33. October 30th, 1989. Contrasting that, I met my former partner for drinks a couple of weeks ago as well - she's since married, and we're good friends to this day. It's just fascinating how it all comes around, one way or another. 

Side note - Isaiah, I hope you are doing well & so is your mom. Let me know if you need anything. 

Watching people who loved me unconditionally die. If I play my cards right, I'll get to see them again one day but nonetheless, that won't be for a long time.

Since we're playing defeat olympics:

Hardcore alcoholism. Like ambulance rides after not being able to even walk on my own anymore and barely even able to dial 911. All at home, always had the dignity to not try and do that crap out in public or involving driving, thank you very much. Highest of the worst record of 0.43 BAC at one point (that's not a f*'n joke either). Have to take medicine everyday to subdue seizures because I did enough damage to my nervous system. Imagine having a seizure on the highway at 75mph but thankfully not harming anyone else but wake up to an EMT cutting off your jacket to put you on the stretcher to check you. The potential that if I fell back into it, but then stopped, the withdrawal could pine box you. Also lost a few friends along the way (abra-ca-duh obviously).

It's hard, but I got it under control now. And I don't take that I can hold my job for granted. Now I'm watching an extended family member go through the same at half my age, and it's just painful. Both from watching them but also the shame of the family coming to me as "they've been through it, so they're the person to go to".

Isiah, have you gotten yourself into some insidious trouble where you're trying to farm WSO user's information and personalities?

I spend 20 minutes writing a introspective reply and I pressed the back button. What the FUCK?

TL;DR My career is a failure despite everything. It'll drag me down. . I feel stuck because I enter numbers into Excel and I want to apply to a decent MBA program, but they're all asking me about employees I've managed, initiatives I've led and budgets I've had to work with.

I haven't led any initiatives or accomplished anything other than burning myself out. Boss asked for feedback, gave honest outstanding feedback and was ghosted. Literally floated the idea of a 10 minute structured product and procedure troubleshooting session during our meetings, and was ignored. This was based on the frequency and types of questions I've notice my juniors and some seniors bring up. (I might not have accomplished anything or managed any people, but I'm pretty sure I'd be a good leader/manager.)

My current job, which I should have left last year when I started whining about it, but I really am leaving it soon, no later than 10 weeks (been looking for the past 6 weeks without any responses), is like your first Rotary Club meeting. You go in thinking about all the great shit you can do for the community but it's just a bunch of old people, who's motto was self above service until they retired. They can't even finish their soup but insist on wasting food in a three course meal before brainstorming the next canned food drive. Pew, pew.

My tough times? One word: cardioversion. I'll save you the gory details, you can look it up for yourself. I still can't watch videos of people going through it. 

I cannot begin to express how damn scared I was. I always tell my friends that if you take the world's most avowed atheist and leave them alone in a hospital room and tell them they're having a cardioversion in 12 hours, they will find God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha . . .

Reading this post OP

Diagnosed with severe spinal issues at 17. Had really bad chronic pain from then until 23/24. 

I still can't run or do anything that involves putting too much pressure on the spine as I will aggravate the issue, but I am only at a 1/10 or 2/10 for pain levels which is basically pain free and not a huge issue for my quality of life. I can lift now and I just have to be careful, no issues benching 300+ or doing shoulder press, but I definitely can not squat heavy or do deadlifts. 

Before, I could barely think, had issues walking, etc.

Dad died of heart attack when I was 13. Motherfucker was drinking and smoking too much. Still remember the day when the nanny basically b-lined me to the airport to meet my mom on my way home back from school. Flew directly to the funeral and he was in the dirt 3 days later. Other than that, nothing else really, maybe one or two hairy business deals when I was getting started, almost went under for it but survived.

No hard experiences. Only good times.

Cheers.

Thankfully haven't had any major deaths or illnesses in my immediate family, which would be at the top of the list if I had.  My low point was probably when I was 19 - had several athletic scholarships that were lost when I suffered a career-ending injury.  I fucked around in school banking on the fact that I would either have scholarships to play college ball or go to BUDs if I didn't get any offers.  The injury removed the possibility of doing either, so I was pretty well fucked.  I had previously had 3 major injuries in the last 2 years and had spent 8 of the last 24 months more or less laid up recovering from surgeries, so I was burnt out on being injured to begin with as well.  Athletics had been my entire life up until that point and all I had wanted to do for a career since I was 7 years old was to be a Navy SEAL, so losing those things put me in a very bad place mentally.

I had previously had 3 major injuries in the last 2 years and had spent 8 of the last 24 months more or less laid up recovering from surgeries, so I was burnt out on being injured to begin with as well. To avoid a longer story, the injury was misdiagnosed, which led to it not being treated properly for months, making the pain symptoms worse.  I wound up being completely immobile ~23.5 hours/day for over a year.  During that time, I got fat as fuck and developed a strong physical dependence on painkillers that I was prescribed by my doc, and was more or less by myself all the time.  All of my good friends were playing college ball, so I didn't see them and hearing about their seasons in our group chat bummed me out at the time.  All in all, I went from a very good athlete w/ a full-ride and a promising future to a fat, wildly depressed drug-addict in pretty short order.

I eventually got the injury treated to a point where I could function normally, kicked the painkillers, decided to more or less reinvent my identity (was just as an athlete before), and put a big focus on getting back into college and achieving academically.  Things tend to work out in the end / happen for a reason, and I wound up on a much better career / earning track than if I had played ball at a shitty academic school and picked the easiest major.  That said, I spent years missing football and running through what-if scenarios in my head essentially every day.  That said, I still feel a lot of shame / worthlessness about the fact that I was of fighting age during the longest war in American history and was unable to serve.  That has started to wane as the war has ended and I'm moving out of being fighting age, though. 

All in all, I've been very fortunate. 

One of the most difficult times for me was watching my grandfather going through lung cancer and chemotherapy.  I was 13 at the time, and watched him deteriorate rapidly.  At the time, it was a rough experience partly because he lived in the same house as me.  Looking back on it, the experience gave me the opportunity to spend more time with him.  We were not very close until this experience, despite living in the same house.  During the summer during last few months of his life, we went fishing like everyday, which was a nice bonding experience

The following is going to sound very trivial but at the time, it weighed on my mind in a bad way.  As a teen, my physical development happened at a later age than for most guys. The delayed development affected my confidence and my overall state of mind, especially when it came to interacting with girls.  I was always thinking that some nice looking girl would prefer someone who looked older than 13. I realize now that most of issue was in my own mind but it did not feel that way at the time.    

I posted about it a few months ago and saw such strong support here that honestly really helped me get through some of it in the short term. To be frank, from an outsider's perspective seeing someone like myself come here and complain on a forum makes you really think why would he/she come here to tell us about this instead of doing X, Y, or Z? In reality, I really needed a place to let some steam off and read real human responses and especially hear some of the straightforward advice regarding legal complexities I would face as well as the heartfelt comments giving me support. I didn't post on Facebook, I didn't post on Instagram, and I didn't post on Reddit (although I probably could've as it had that informal community-type feel). I posted here because I felt like it was disconnected enough that I wouldn't have to hear the sadness and disbelief in the voice of my friends and family but I was still able to see people respond to me. 

Back in March, I lost my brother and dad to a mental health-related issue, and my Grandma followed in April unrelated. It was one of the most stressful and difficult times of my life as I was in my senior year of University, about to graduate and start my life. It taught me how to be strong and courageous in times of great stress as I was able to come to terms with the death and finish up my last semester of University and graduate. I started my full-time opportunity after as I realized delaying starting my life would put even more stress on me (Ended up in quant trading and was not going to risk having to re-recruit in a difficult and competitive job environment). More importantly, though it made me think more about where I want to be when I'm 25, and what I want to accomplish by 30. It made me look at life from a different perspective; primarily one of a positive light because I realized why should I be sad when I don't have to be. It was a tragic event but I was going to continue my life and make the most of it because sitting and dwelling on negativity like that would not bring them back, would not make me happier, and would not put me in a positive mental state which I would need to support my mom after losing her husband of 30 years and her only child. 

I am fortunate to have such strong personal networks and relationships with my friends that I was able to stay mentally strong throughout the events, and I now meet with a therapist on some random website that was recommended to me that is quite popular. I met with her twice and felt like I was making progress with each session, and now we kind of just focus on my personality and how to keep my mental clarity while working through the tragedy and living with a significant other. I'm only posting this again to raise awareness of the fact that there are occasionally positive and fortunate people who may have faced some significant struggles to get to where they are, and I now think about every person and their emotions/mental health much more seriously than I did before.

Hardest thing I've ever dealt with was watching my grandmother fight and ultimately lose her battle against cancer. Started with breast cancer, she had surgery but shortly thereafter it wasn't looking too great, they found multiple myeloma (blood cancer). 

She was an immigrant who spoke broken English and had a limited understanding of what was happening to her and how the procedures and treatment was supposed to help her. She had already suffered through surgery, constant doctors visits, and chemo for the breast cancer and now her family and doctors were recommending another round for the MM. At first she really didn't want to but the family ultimately convinced her (very tough to write that because in hindsight I think it may have been the most cruel thing we could've asked of her). This time it was much more brutal.

A month or two passed, she wasn't getting much better but things seemed stable (although I only ever got updates from my parents... maybe they weren't fully honest; I don't have it in me to confront them). I remember I was taking a train into work and must've missed a few calls from my parents. Finally got service and a bunch of missed calls and a text came up. It read "she's not doing well, you should come"

I don't even remember but my body must've been on auto pilot. A buddy told me after the fact that he was so confused why I had gotten up a handful of stops early and gotten off the train. Instantly called an Uber back to my home state from NY. Few hours later I got there, rushed in, and saw my grandmother completely out of it, doped up on drugs, and as frail as can be at maybe 90 lbs. of soaking wet skin and bones. She wasn't really responding to sound cues, couldn't eat anything... I remember bringing her some water and ice chips and her scolding me because it, in our native tongue, "tasted like shit". That was the first time she called anyone by name and it meant so much that she was aware enough to recognize me. Later that night we caught up with her docs and they said she had maybe a week at most to live.

I called my brother, got him up to speed, and told him to come home ASAP. He was in UG at the time, about a 4 hour car ride away. Worst part was he was a freshman so no vehicle or friends with vehicles. The idiot calls me back a bit later and is asking which buses he should take. In that moment I realized I was inadvertently downplaying the situation, told him to Uber home however much it cost. If nobody would take the ride, to call in local rides and ask if anyone would bring him home. Luckily he found a guy open to long haul drives and made it to the hospital.

Over that next day a bunch of friends and family came to visit. My blood boiled for 2 days straight as a bunch of fuckers I have met once or twice in my life came into the room and eventually started screaming / hollering my grandmothers name "its so and so, do you recognize me?!" as if that mattered one fucking bit in that moment... 

She passed about a day after my brother got there. Looking back I'm so grateful we got to spend time with her and as much as holding her hands and sitting by her side as she took her last breath was painful, it would've been infinitely more painful had she survived another few weeks. COVID began, the world shut down, and she wouldn't have had a room full of her family next to her as she passed.

She passed the day before my birthday. I've never told anyone this... it has been a few years but I absolutely fucking hate that time of year now because all it does is force me to re-live those last 48 hours with her and all I remember is my pain and that of my family's.

Dealing with panic attacks — the real kind.

I suffered from severe panic disorder for about a year. I’ve always been a “anxious” person, but while grinding for the CFA exams and a mix of other life events happening, something snapped. I remember the first time it happened like it was yesterday. Heart rate in the 180s and dreaded my then imminent death. Every day I genuinely thought I was going to die from my heart blowing up in my chest and it sent me to the ER a handful of times. Its tightening up just typing this. It ended up being the fear of panic attacks that would cause panic attacks and required medication. Its hard to explain unless you’ve been there.

Meditation and learning to breathe are definitely key. I’m actually happy I went through it. It still lingers, but I’ve learned a lot about the human mind through it. I’ve been through a lot of tough times, but real mental health issues are definitely no joke.

The realization that a big part of people's life is already decided for them the moment they came into this world. They either conform to that social economic class they grew up in or they decide to change and go beyond that. Most people stay comfortable and stay within the same class. Very few actually can go from low class to the high class. Growing up low class is like a death sentence, no one questions anything, the dumb stay dumb, no one can think for themselves, it is a real problem.

I think if more people realize this, they would start to question more things in their life. Sometimes advice from people the closest to you aren't always good advice. They can't understand what you can understand and they can't see what you see because they don't get it. 

The reality is highly educated families with kids have a huge leg up on those born to families from the low class. So it's not so surprising to anyone when upper middle class people are successful because they were groomed and set up for that life. Someone from poverty isn't set up for shit...

This is a great prompt and I wish to reply with my own but I cant given the fact that I would effectively dox myself. This is why I wish you could still reply annon for off topic as a certified user. 

Alcoholism / drug addiction. I was let go from an early stage fund that just hit $50 billion this year because I couldn’t hold my shit together. It’s there every day. Usually I’ve got it under wraps but if I slip up I’ll blow my whole life up, disappear for a days etc.

Isaiah_53_5 💎🙌💎🙌💎

When were the hardest times for you? 

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Dealing with backstabbing.

not my own experience but the VP who invested in the startup I was working at once told us that her hardest experience (up until when this conversation happened) was when she was working at MBB and sent client the wrong version of the operating model, she couldn't sleep for a whole week straight. Now she's dealing with that startup founder in the midst of an embezzlement case and accounting fraud (not FTX) and the company completely crumbling down because of it, and I can only imagine how this experience will impact the rest of her life