What Would You Consider The Greatest Obstacle You've Ever Had To Face?

[Scorpionvenin14]

How did you overcome it? Explain. Thank you :)

[Mamyalynne]

As your life progresses ostacles come along , I would find it hard to pick the worst/greatest.

Death of a spouse.
Fear when I heard the Nurse tell a Doctor she couldn't find my pulse.
Depression and crippling panic attacks.

With each obstacle I do as most do - face the fear and carry on the best I can.

[lardhelmet]

The death of my second child.

[seadogg]

Alpine face in blizzard. Mate badly injured. Rope frozen into a fissure. Lost a crampon and pitch black night. Could neither climb up or down. Just jumped and by sheer luck landed in soft snow inches from a crevasse. Got back to the hut and roused a search party. He survived. Sheer jammy.

[seadogg]

Peanuts compared with yours lardhelmet. Hope time heals for you.

[Mamyalynne]

Exactly - Could not contemplate the death of a child - which only goes to show there is no yardstick to measure what we face as individuals.

Lardhelmet.x

[nungate]

Discovering my two day old daughter had meningitis. Thankfully she made a full recovery. Probably the worst five weeks of my life!

[jourdain2]

Almost impossible to answer in a few words. So many levels. Looking back, I realise that being female in my formative years was a huge obstacle, but I just kept on battering away - now I see how that was one of a number of actions which has led to the powerhouse we have today.

Obstacles - being of an artistic/historical bent in a scientific age. All husband's friends were scientists and very 'nice' to me. 'Specifically' is personal and involves divorce after the realisation that an assumed happiness and long-term relationship (30 years) was deadening and going nowhere. This led to the appalled realisation that I went under or 'jumped ship' - very frightening.
In the end, I did not want to be subsumed so I summoned all my courage, threw caution, children (then aged 18 and 21, so not so bad)and security to the winds and went on my apprehensively merry way to France and a total change of life and society.
There is no other way to say this - it was hard. You could lose yourself in bucolic pleasure and timespans, but not all the time. I found a society in which I could function and find friends - lots of them, but only 4 are brought back to UK with me. I did it by going out and helping people, finding a place where I was needed to help other ex-pats., giving lessons for nothing to help people communicate in French so they could manage in their lives. They became friends and a support group.

So I overcame obstacles by simply plugging away, putting one foot in front of another and meeting and being friendly to people. I was hugely lucky in meeting Mr. J2, who was also similarly adrift and coping. Now we are together, married and living in a village in E. Yorkshire - but we have both been through massive upheavals and obstacles (his was being widowed whilst in France). Life will always bring obstacles; you get on with it.

[jourdain2]

I have now read lardhelmet's post and feel humble. Mr J2's youngest daughter died 2 years into our being together and that has to be the worst. We went through it together and came out the other side. My respects to lardhelmet.

[venator]

4 miscarriages and a baby who died in utero, and which my wife carried for two weeks before a natural delivery on doctors' advice.

We tried again, and the birth of our daughter was a joyous occasion, shared by the midwifery staff who had been with us the previous time.

[woofgang]

I don't think you do "overcome" many obstacles. You just get through as best you can.

[Sycamore3House]

Being told I had cervical cancer and the doctor asking 'do you give us permission to operate otherwise you will die prematurely' answer 'book me in when will it be'. No brainer when I had two children aged 8 & 10 at the time. I had to survive. 14 years ago. Still here & healthy. This is the greatest obstacle that I overcame. Not sure how I would of coped in lardhelmets shoes x

[vulcan42]

Discovering after fifteen years of marriage my wife had cancer. She did all the right things, attending the doctor straight away, having operations and treatment and being told nine months later she was clear. It returned and 3 months later she was dead,aged just forty. Having to tell our two boys , aged 12 and 10 their mother was dead. You don't overcome these sort of things, you gradually learn to accept them and carry on the best you can.

[boxtops]

I'm interested to know the reason why you posed this question, scorpion.... greatest to some are nothing compared with the replies you'd had so far. It's all individual perceptions, and some have far greater issues to face than others.

[RATTER15]

The internal fight I had to track down and kill the guy that abused my daughter, I know who it was and he was in the CID, fortunately for him he fled the country a few days after I found out!!

[RATTER15]

The only thing that stopped me was knowing that my daughter needed me!

[gness]

Being homeless and out on the street at fifteen was the biggest obstacle for me I guess......that took some overcoming....☺

Close family deaths such as my husband, granddaughter and son in law weren't so much obstacles as a horrid time in life to be got through....x

[Baldric]

I'm interested as to why the OPer is asking a series of questions like these and not responding in any way (11 Q's & 0 AN's atm) I think I'll pass on this occasion!

[gness]

Mmm.....the occasional response would be nice, Baldric...x

[silliemillie]

Being told I have life limiting Cancer.

I can't overcome it, I just live with it.

[mikey4444]

Giving up smoking when I was in my twenties. But thanks goodness I did, because if I hadn't, I would be like those sad people you see in the newsagents every morning, spending a £1 on their newspaper, but wasting £15 minimum of fags. Actually, at age 61 I might not be around to tell the tale !