Those of you who had an extremely low period in your life but overcame it, how did you do it? What is your success story?

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1. Just before my 40th birthday, I had to shut down my comic book shop. My 17 year marriage collapsed. I was unemployed, up to my ass in debt, depressed from losing my dream despite my best efforts, single again for the first time in my adult life, about to turn 40, 80 pounds overweight, and crashing in my friends guest bedroom. Absolutely ruined.

   But the thing about ruin is that you have nothing to cling onto. Despite the horrible situation, I was completely free to rebuild myself anyway I wanted. Just for me. Little by little, I clawed my way back to self sustainability. Found a job that paid enough to get by. Took those first terrifying steps back into dating. Started going to the gym at work. Spent a lot of time just thinking and journaling about my thoughts and feelings. Attended a coding Bootcamp.

   Within a couple of years I was completely back on my feet. Maintaining a good job with good pay, living alone in my own apartment, I lost a lot of weight, paying back my debts, and in love with an amazing woman. I can finally say that I genuinely am the man I want to be. But I had to build him from the ashes of the life that had crashed around me.

2. Girlfriend cheated, got pregnant, said it was mine, I proposed( front of church), got ready to be a father like I always wanted. Baby girl was born and I found I wasn’t the father due to the blood types.

   Turned pretty suicidal, my childhood bros got me pass out drunk, shoved me into truck , and I woke up in Colorado when I went to sleep in Texas.

   All 5 of us ended up backpacked around the Americas for 6 months. Visited most countries on our side of planet.

   Haven’t spoken a word to her in 7 years now.
   Live on a ranch with those bros now in Texas.

3. I actually got arrested at my low point, I had just found outbthat my 3 month old son wasn’t mine and I completely lost it and was taken by police for criminal damage and a few other things.

   After that I spent 2 years I therapy, moved away from everyone, got myself off my meds and never looked back. it’s been almost 5 years now

4. Not sure how much of a success story this is to others but i grew up in a broken home, was one if the first children in this 4 mio people city in a foster family to make it to their A levels, started a career, even though I had to go into debt, I was on my way out of the ghetto.

   Then it all fell apart, debt remained, career was suddenly gone (due to bureaucratic shenanigans in the place I was working), gf left and the unemployment bureau forced me to move cities. Family blamed it on me, friends tunred away, became alcoholic, smoked weed to numb the pain from the humiliation, therapist basically just told me to “just man up” while I saw no reason why.

   At some point for some reason I can’t remember I asked myself: How sweet would revenge be? What would that look like? And I decided after they all told me I never had it in me to become anything, becoming successful without them would be perfect revenge without ever laying hands on them. Since I was gaming and smoking a lot I developed the idea of turning myself into a “game character” abandoned all patterns of normal human beings – started to work, earned money, paid off debt, got home and waited for the next day, consumption as close to zero as possible, taking my bycicle 20 km each way back and forth to work, eat the cheapest junk, clothes as tattered and missfitting from wearing them almost 8 years and a shitty diet. Learning and working, learning and working. Eventually moved into a smaller town, lower rent, easier to pay off debt. Got a better job. During that time I learned about finance and saw something like another financial and economic crisis coming again, family and friends told me I’ve gone nuts. Okay. Started to invest in a “crisis portfolio”. Now, about 9 years later I paid off my 5 figure debt, got a small portfolio of 30k, work in an essential STEM type of field with okay salary and recently friends and family came back asking for help due to inflation while asset prices fell hard.

   Told them they told me to deal with my problems by myself, I learned that and have done it and now it was their time to do the same. Wished them luck, cut them off.

   It’s not a pretty story and I still have a long way to got but from my perspective I have closed many chapters of the past and finally am able to look towards the future more than anything else. Found new friends, loyal friends who have already gone through tough times with me. Soon I’ll be starting my first small business. Feels like I have a shot to live a good, positive second half of my life at least.

5. Set goals and regularly evaluate your choices, ask yourself if you’re doing the best for yourself given your current situation. If the answer is no, change your approach. If the answer is yes, keep taking steps towards those goals.

   Be patient. It can get pretty bad when it feels like you’re going nowhere fast. But if you’ve evaluated your efforts and determined you’re on the best possible path. Then all you can do is be patient.

   When it comes, don’t celebrate. The work is never finished. Keep setting goals and evaluating.

6. I listened to a lot of Peter Gabriel, cut down on my drinking and got a lot of sympathy blowjobs from the other half.

   Took a few weeks but i felt a lot better afterwards.

7. Step one: have amazing friends that do roadtrips with you and pick you up at your lowest.

   Money can be regained if you have skills and connections. No friends? yep you are screwed

8. Have had chronic suicidal ideation for as long as I can remember. Have had very dangerous thoughts and subsurface levels of self-worth. I redefined how to gauge my self-worth, made habits of mitigating my persistent negative thoughts of myself, and continuously tried to improve the other aspects in my life that caused low self-esteem. Right now, I’m still pretty self-critical (not nearly how I used to be), but I’m trying better from looking at my actions from an outside perspective (almost like a friend) and practicing self-forgiveness. I’m worried that my harsh self-criticism will be projected onto other people based on on the lack of room of error I give myself.