Was it bad DECISIONS that led to suffering, or things that were/are completely out of your control?

[Praying 4 a Miracle]

For me personally it was decisions. I was born into a good family and home environment. I was in fact healthy and happy for 57 years. Then I made a few bad (but not horrible) decisions and wham, now I'm suffering intensely. I basically allowed myself to get too stressed out over something silly, and then had a mini-stroke.

What makes me the most angry about my own situation, is that I always lived a squeaky clean life, and never got into drugs (street or prescription) or alcohol, or any of that kind of stuff. And yet, I still ended up suffering in the end, because of a minor and fluky mistake.

What was/is your cause of suffering; decision(s), accident(s), or completely out of your control?

 

[Leiot]

Mine have been pretty much bad decisions. I don't think I'm a bad person, I've just done bad things. My bad decisions fall into two categories: where I was clueless and where I was weak. The clueless decisions were just where I didn't do research or plan for contingencies. But the ones where I was weak are the worse. I took the easy way out of a few situations and will pay for it the rest of my life.

 

[Hvergelmir]

For me personally it was decisions. [...] I basically allowed myself to get too stressed out over something silly, and then had a mini-stroke.

It doesn't sound very reasonable to consider that a decision. To an extent you can be held responsible for your stress, but the stroke must have been a purely unintended consequence. Most people would have been overly stressed out over something silly, at some point, over a 57 year period.

As for me, I consider the cause of my misfortune an unlucky string of coincidences, mostly stemming from childhood.

 

[BoulderSoWhat]

Both. Being alive at all was the primary out of control event that kickstarted my conscious experience of being a human that suffers. All decisions I've made in my life that have caused further suffering to myself have just been maladaptive responses to the predicament of being alive.

A gross oversimplification and perhaps too reductive, but both nonetheless

 

[Reflection]

Both.

 

[-nobodyknows-]

I don't know. Probably a bit of both, but regarding "decisions", it is hard to say whether the decision itself was bad or if things just did not play out well

 

[FadingSentinel]

Probably both, for the longest time I thought everything was just me. But I think a lot has come from how I grew up as well over the years I have been able to lay some connections.

 

[Melly]

Circumstances entirely outside of my control. Awful things happened or were done to me. Cannot help it

 

[badK9wolf]

series of bad decisions and incredibly careless and easily avoidable mistakes

 

[dreamfyre]

It's usually always both for most people; personally most of my stressors were not exactly caused by me but I suppose the way I've reacted to them are my decisions

Circumstances entirely outside of my control. Awful things happened or were done to me. Cannot help it

what happened? x

 

[SnowLeopard21]

I'd say for myself and a lot of other people that it can be a mixture of both in varying balances. There have been circumstances out of my control in my life that contributed to me making poor decisions that I still continue to regret later on in life.

 

[never mind me]

I'd say that it was mostly things out of my control that caused suffering in my life. Still I made some bad decisions, too. But the weird thing is that most of the bad decisions I made had no lasting impact on my life.

 

[Yurin]

I was born in the wrong side of the map, it completely shaped and controlled every aspect of my life

 

[cryone]

majority of my suffering comes from my environment, which hindered me from making good decisions. for instance, the burn-out I experienced b/c of family pressures led me to develop some pretty bad habits.

 

[PI3.14]

Mostly things out of my control. Yes I made a decision to drop out of college, but this decision was made because of my severe depression which was caused by my body dysmorphia.

The root causes are all things out of my control.

 

[blackbeauty]

I would say both. I would say having a super strict childhood upbringing which has impacted by psyche, suffering from depression and maladaptive daydreaming from a young age were out of my control and made my life more challenging but I was making good decisions to manage it the best I could. However, in the last year or so I haven't made good decisions as I haven't been able to manage my emotions (intense stress, loneliness, sadness) so I've lost my job and living like a NEET which is a hit to my self-esteem.

Reflecting on the past versions of me makes me feel so sad especially when the present me is just a shell of who I was. How do you ever go back to being that person?

 

[Life_and_Death]

"dont blame others for your situation"
god that fucking quote/variations piss me off
it must be nice to not be in a situation where its other peoples fault.
do you enjoy blaming babies that cant even walk/wasnt born yet??

it was my "parents" fault 100%
if it was up to me, i would have finished school, went to college, had a job that paid my bills.
if it was up to me i would have been happy.
how could it possibly have been my fault if i got kicked out for being abused?
was i abusing myself?
was it my fault i was abandoned and starved?
i dont think i was the one that alerted the government when i was 1yr

i will blame my parents for my situation until the day i die
to not blame my parents (referencing the quote) is to be just as bad as them
im good, i dont feel like adultifying myself from the womb
they did that for me thanks

im mean, what?
sorry that your parents dont give a fuck about you, baby me
grow up and figure it out

to not blame my parents is more mentally fucked up than me XD

 

[Rust]

Definitely circumstances out of my control. The thing that bugs me is that it was all avoidable. I was just unfortunate to be surrounded by people who only knew how to destroy things.

I've had to pay the price time and time again for the actions of others. Some were naive and stupid decisions that affected me, which I've since forgiven, but others were completely malicious against me. And funnily enough, the malicious actions were performed against me out of paranoia and suspicion that other people caused.

Try as I might, I can never seem to escape. Even after moving countries and cutting out the malicious people, they still seem to find me and discover new ways of causing me harm.

"dont blame others for your situation"

Thankfully nobody has ever said this to me, though I have had people who doubt me, thinking that I'm over-reacting. But I fully agree with you in regards to that quote.
The small bit you've shared sounds like it was extraordinarily difficult. I hope things have improved since. People can be shit, and so often it turns out to be family who are the worst.

 

[OnMyLast Legs]

Mine have been pretty much bad decisions. I don't think I'm a bad person, I've just done bad things. My bad decisions fall into two categories: where I was clueless and where I was weak. The clueless decisions were just where I didn't do research or plan for contingencies. But the ones where I was weak are the worse. I took the easy way out of a few situations and will pay for it the rest of my life.

Same. I really had it all as a kid, good parents, no material wants, decently smart, athletic, musical, etc. But my personality developed weirdly and I started doing things that brought me intense shame. A handful of big mistakes and humiliations derailed my young life and my mind, my soul crashed and burned. The life of a successful person seems infinitely far away now.

 

[Pryras]

I made terrible choices in my life that led me down a road of misery but I partially blame the brain I was born with and the mental health conditions I have which were out of my control

 

[Life_and_Death]

Thankfully nobody has ever said this to me, though I have had people who doubt me, thinking that I'm over-reacting. But I fully agree with you in regards to that quote.
The small bit you've shared sounds like it was extraordinarily difficult. I hope things have improved since. People can be shit, and so often it turns out to be family who are the worst.

thank you

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Mostly bad decisions I made but I likely made some of those due to the circumstances I was in. Still though I'm always very indecisive so I'm almost never satisfied with any decisions I have made even if it's likely to have been the better choice to have made.