The most stressful situations in our lives...

Life has its ups and downs on an almost daily basis. But there are some things that don’t happen very often but, when they do, the stress they can cause will often far outweigh all the other stresses you might experience in your entire life.

I can think of several forms of unique situations which can cause extreme stress and I’m sure that we’ve experienced all or some of them in our lives.

For example, losing a loved one is not only stressful but quite traumatic even if they passed away from natural causes. It doesn’t really matter who that close loved one was. It could be your mum, dad, sibling and even a grandparent. But I must confess that losing a grandparent may or may not be traumatic for everyone. It really depends upon how close one was to them. I barely knew my grandparents and I know this must sound terrible to admit, but when they passed it didn’t affect me so much because I hadn’t seen them in decades. But it did affect my parents when their parents passed. It was very traumatic and a very stressful time for the entire family.

Severe illnesses can also be very stressful, whether they’re short term or chronic. Both can land you in hospital. Chronic illnesses are stressful for everyone around the sufferer because one is watching one’s loved one suffer the pain caused by the illness. One is uncertain if the person is going to survive and that in itself is gut-wrenching and painful. There may be constant trips back and forth from the hospital, taking away any sense of normality for the family and, more importantly, for the person suffering.

Being ill has the added burden of not knowing if one’s constant absence from work is going to result in one losing one’s job. Whilst there are laws in some countries that protect someone from being unfairly dismissed, there are plenty of companies that will try it on nonetheless. Sometimes, though, it’s not an illness that causes a job loss. It might be the economy or, worse, office politics. I can tell you that the latter reason is far worse and more upsetting and stressful than the former. When it’s the latter reason, you then begin to stress about when and if you’re going to get your benefits or compensation, whether or not your boss is going to give you a reference that will help you get another job and, of course, if you’re ever going to get another job at all.

Being unemployed can be quite stressful. Every rejection you get is another knock to your self-esteem. Every day is a day that is wasted and slowly you stop trying to find something and even feel no reason to get up. This is stressful not just for the person unemployed but for their family too. Whereas there once was a lively go-getter, there is now someone with no enthusiasm for life. Imagine the stress the entire family must feel, most of all the person who had a career!

I suppose retirees feel a little bit the same way even though they had to stop working sooner or later because there is a retirement age after which employers no longer employ people. Husbands and wives stop getting along with each other because they are now seeing each other all the time or are under each other’s feet. They’re not used to living like that. They both have their way of doing things around the house, chores that now become the central focus for both parties who spend their days tussling over the way chores should be completed. Even a single spoon moved from one place to another can be annoying and lead to battles which, in turn, lead to stress.

And we mustn’t forget that one of the most stressful situations is moving, whether to a new house or to a new country. The mere idea of having to pack can lead to battles. The logistics of doing so are undoubtedly overwhelming but people begin to find things they thought they’d lost, and the war of who gets to keep things or not is huge.