Why is life so hard? When every day is a struggle and others seem fine

What "life is hard" means in the stories

The stories under this question are rarely about one catastrophe. They are about accumulation. The reader who wrote why is life hard? described a job, a commute, a sick parent and a flat that was always cold, none of them dramatic, all of them at once. A student described being overwhelmed and exhausted, struggling to keep up. A thirteen-year-old asked why life was treating them so badly and got thirty-six replies. Another wrote, simply, figuring out life is hard.

What they share is a comparison. Everyone else seems to carry the same load without effort, and the author concludes that the problem is their strength rather than the load.

What the replies find behind the exhaustion

The replies read these stories differently from their authors. Where the author sees weakness, the replies count the weight: how many things the person is carrying, how many of them are someone else's, how long it has been going on. In most threads the list is longer than the author realized, and the exhaustion is proportionate. Several readers who were hard on themselves got replies pointing out that they were doing the work of two people and judging themselves as one.

The replies also ask about the body. Sleep, food, alcohol, the last time the author had a day off. It sounds trivial and it is the most repeated advice in these threads, because people who felt that life was impossibly hard often describe, months later, that half of it was fatigue. And when the stories describe no energy, no interest, no pleasure in anything for weeks, the replies say the word depression and suggest a doctor, as they should.

Hard life or hard stretch?

The questions the replies ask, which help tell the two apart.

• Since when? A hardness that started with a job, a move, a birth, a loss or an illness is a stretch, however long, and stretches end.
• How much of it is yours? Many authors are carrying a parent, a partner or a sibling. The replies to I struggle to belong where I wanted and similar threads are about putting some of it down.
• Does anything still work? If one area of life is fine, the problem is in the others. If nothing is, the replies look at health and mood first.
• Who are you comparing yourself to? Usually people whose load you cannot see. Several threads end with the author discovering that the friend who seemed to glide had been in treatment for a year.

What helped, in the authors' own updates

Nothing in these threads turned a hard life into an easy one. What the authors who came back describe is dropping one thing, often an obligation to someone else; sleeping properly for a month; telling one person how hard it was, in those words; and, for a few, a diagnosis that explained why everything cost twice what it should. The reader who felt so demotivated and hopeless came back to say that the replies had been the first time anyone counted the weight with them.

If hard has become unbearable

If you are thinking about ending your life, this page is not the right help: call your local emergency number, or a crisis line such as 988 in the United States and Canada or 116 123 (Samaritans) in the United Kingdom. They answer at any hour and you do not have to give your name.

Questions and answers

Is it normal to feel that life is harder for me than for others?

Common, and the replies usually find that the comparison is unfair in both directions: you see your whole load and only the surface of theirs.

Will people tell me to toughen up?

Rarely; replies are reviewed and the useful ones count the weight rather than judge the strength.

What if I am a teenager?

Several of the most replied stories here are from readers under eighteen. Say your age bracket; the replies adapt.

Is it anonymous?

Yes. Your name and email are never stored; you appear under a pseudonym generated from your account.