Has your lowest point ever changed your life for the good?

[creativedan]

I'm curious if anyone's had that rock-bottom moment, where you looked around and thought, "This is it. Everything's falling apart. I have nothing left." And then, months or years later, you find yourself genuinely grateful for that exact moment.

Has anyone been through something like that? I'd love to hear stories of people who hit what felt like their lowest point, and then, maybe with distance or perspective, saw how that dark season led them somewhere better.

If you have been through something like that, I am really interested to know the details.

1. Did something specific happen to snap you out of it or did it just slowly change overtime?
2. Did how you view yourself change once you were on the other side?
3. Did it change your career path or how you act to the people around you?
4. Did you decide to act differently from then on?

I am not trying to take away from or minimize how hard those times are, I am just really interested how being at rock bottom changed people for the better rather than the worse. If you have a story, I would be very interested to listen because hearing these things from someone who went through something similar is helpful comforting and therapeutic.

 

[iset]

I think i havent reached rock bottom yet....

 

[SoLowHollow48]

I think the shithole point I reached in life was when my dad died in 2021 then my mom got diagnosed with kidney failure which also landed her in the ICU, on comatose. I couldn't believe that I was about to lose both of my parents but then she recovered and came back home despite all of the major adjustments she must deal with (dialysis, mourning the death of her husband, the meds, the constant check-ups). Yeah, she was a wreck and in turn, I became a wreck too.

There was this one afternoon in this apartment we stayed in back before we purchased our old house where I thought about jumping off the balcony.

But shit just changed, I guess. Call it luck. Call it a lesson from the dead (my father). I learned how to drive, got a job at a 5-star hotel even if it didn't last, and I got enough cash to pay off the loans I gotta make after having to pay for my mom's recovery.

Somehow, life always gave me a way. But it's always after this really shitty thing happen to me. I don't know what the fuck god or whatever/whoever the hell is upstairs wants from me.

 

[creativedan]

Thanks for sharing. I am sorry to hear about your struggles. I am glad there were positives, even after all of that. Do you think all of that shit awoke something inside of you that forced you to change?

I think i havent reached rock bottom yet....

Maybe it isn't too late not to. I have no idea what to are going through, but I always like to think there is a way use it as leverage for a way out.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Yes. I was refered to a creative agent by someone I worked for. They and a couple of other people there just ripped my work apart. (Metaphorically.) Bear in mind- my work felt like my life for a long time. It became my coping mechanism in childhood to try and cope with intense bullying and stayed with me as an obsession ever since.

On the train journey home- a lady started talking to me and I just burst into tears. I felt really bad for her. She was only meaning to be friendly.

But, I just felt so horribly lost the next few days. Like the bottom had fallen out of my world. Like I now had no purpose. I was working part time in retail too- which I hated anyway but, that made it all the worse. My colleagues were nice though and, my best friend at the time was a great support.

What did come from it though- was something positive eventually. They pointed out that my greater strength was in another medium. So- I pretty much accepted that they were in fact right. I wasn't good enough in what I had been trying to pursue for 10 years but- I showed potential elsewhere.

I made the risky decision to return to uni at the age of 28 to focus on that other artform and I have been more successful at that- although, it's still difficult to pursue a creative career in anything these days I suspect.

But yes- it was soul crushing at the time but, lead to something far better eventually. So- it can be true. It was a challenge though- to put myself back together again.