I knew a family where the son brutally killed his mother, and I think the father (and the mother obviously, but that was shorter) probably went through just about the worst personal tragedy dealing with that.
Honestly, there are many examples of tragedies that are quite large scale and intense like what the indigenous of the americas have experienced, or what many Palestinians are currrently experiencing. Another that comes to mind is the colonization of Haiti, and what they have gone through. The greatest widespread purveyor of tragedies is the industriously exploitative evolution of capitalism/colonialism IMO.
Outliving your own child.
This maneuver is gonna cost you 51 years.
Probably everyone you ever loved dying painfully while you yourself survive but severely crippled.
It sounds flippant and stupid, but like… What could be worse???
Yeah is is. This is it. I was thinking family annihilation, but this is much better criteria.
My wife was rushed by ambulance to the area hospital with post-partum complication at about 48 hours.
Then seven days latter our new born was rushed off to the same hospital with suspected meningitis - she spent nearly 2 week there starting in NICU.
Both wife and daughter survived, although both were pretty hard to go through at the time.
If either of them ended for the worse it would have been crushing - if both of these had ended badly I suspect it would be fairly well up there
I’m sorry that you and your family had to experience such frightening times like that. I’m glad that they both pulled through.
Thanks, almost 9 years ago now so not too bad to look back on it
Being enslaved probably?
A whole feast of greasy grimy gopher guts, mutilated martian meat, and little baby birdy feet… But you don’t have a spoon. 😔
I think Anterograde amnesia Is pretty high on the list.
Losing your wife and child during childbirth
It was looking like it might go that way when my child was born. 2 years later I’m still reeling from the fear even though everything worked out fine. That has to be the right answer.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that
I would think that loss of a child. As a teenager, I had a neighbor whose friend had lost both a child and a spouse and who said that the spouse was more difficult. Of course this is subjective and will depend on each person.
Discovering the person you have been in a relationship with simply isn’t who you thought they were, and how they led you to believe was something you deserved.
Refusing to vaccinate your children and losing one to measles in 2025
https://abc13.com/post/texas-measles-death-parents-child-died-stand-decision-not-vaccinate/16065046/
What about when your brain is capable of the mental gymnastics required to deny any culpability in said preventable tragedy? These morons tend to have that superpower.
Is it really a tragedy when you harm yourself or you own family through you own stupidity?
It’s a tragedy for the child, and their friends, but I wouldn’t say it’s a tragedy for the parents.
It’s basically a Greek tragedy. These people have such hubris to think that they know better than doctors, and they lose their children because of it.
Being born.
In a way it’s a bad thing to have a competition who has the worst. We all suffer one way or the other, and we should lift each other up.
Anyway, here are my top entries:
- abuse by one’s parents
- loss of a loved one
- refusal to get help
I wouldn’t say “the worst”, but being abused by your own birthparents are probably in the top 10. Literally breaks your brain. Much depression.
