When something serious (the death of a family member, a broken friendship, a loss of a job, etc.) gets you down, on average, how long does it take to "get over" it?

It usually takes about a week, to a week and a half for my pain to fade away. If serious enough, I'll think of the thing that made me depressed for weeks, months, or years post-happening, but it usually won't affect me as much as it did upon happening.

My cat died over 2 years ago & it still affects me & I still cry about it. The pain has gotten much easier to manage & is much less "raw" but it's still there & I know it always will be. The same goes for everything. I guess it takes me a long time to get over most things, especially if they're severe. But if it's something small, it doesn't take very long. I guess it just depends on the situation.

Not long. It took me a month to get over my miscarriage though. I am not sure if me being the victim of the mod abuse is considered serious but it took me a while to get over that and I was upset by a new friend I had and another new friend. I am still recovering from one of them.

depends. I lost Ellu-chan 3 months ago and I'm still upset about that... =__= but I get upset about a lot of stuff... I usually get over it in like, a day but then it comes back to haunt me several days later. x__X usually it's just a really slow process.

Circa forever.

I don't get over anything, ever.

Same. I might forget about something for a little while, but it always comes back and I'm transported back in time. It feels awful.

Took me quite some time to get over some things, like 9/11 and the loss of my only IRL friend. Not much gets to me and I'm thankful I don't get emotional easily.

I get over things very quickly.

I don't typically get over things. I just keep them with me and keep going, really.

It depends on the event. I can get over a death in less than a week. If someone calls me a name or makes a fool out of me, I hold onto it forever and let the rage build up until I can't take it anymore. I lay in bed and toss and turn over things that happened in elementary school. I remember everything anybody's ever said about me or to me that embarrassed me or made me feel stupid. I don't let go of these things, and no matter how hard I try to better myself by letting grudges go, I know I'll take them with me to my grave.

It varies. I am becoming more hardened, I guess you could say. I don't ever get totally over anything. I just get to a point where I can manage. It took me a long time to get used to the fact that my granddad had died when I was 12. I dreamed of him many nights. The same is happening with my grandma now. The only difference is how jaded I have become. I miss her. I miss my cat who died on St. Patrick's Day immensely. He was one of my closest friends. I will never be totally over that. The only "real life" relationship I have ever had ended over three years ago. I would say that I am "over it" now, but it took me over a year to stop feeling depressed about it. Now that depression has shifted to loneliness. I had a long period after I finally had accepted that she was gone where I just flat out didn't give a fuck. I was glad to be alone. Now, I've grown tired of it. Lonely all the time. Where do I turn? Sorry I am being so mopey on all my posts tonight.

It depends on how much anyone or anything was close to me. When a couple of our family's favorite cats died after not even being a year old, we took it deeply. It took about a month to get over their deaths and try to take better care of the ones we have now to prevent anymore. The few ones we have now are more friendly towards me since I'm pretty much the only person in the house who treats them with any attention and decency since my sister had a dog last year. I would greatly miss the only often company to have in my room when I hear them cry next to my bedroom door just so they can sleep on my bed.

When I was in an online relationship with a girl I felt great affection for and after I learned a year later she "left" me because I learned she only used me to ease her pain and loneliness she had with her previous (online) boyfriend, it took me quite a while. Almost half a year, I think. Later on, I grew more cynical and saw myself an idiot for even thinking of "dating" anyone like that. Now I'm just satisfied about being single without worrying about romance and all that shit. We're still good friends though.

If I ever get insulted or bashed, then that depends on the individual of said. If I get called "mean and stupid" by someone who doesn't know me that long or well yet, I'll take it with a grain of salt. Though if it's somebody whom I've personally known for ages, it does start to sink in emotionally. Taking days or weeks of thought to get over.

I don't think i ever get over anything. I feel the effects of the event less over time as i learn to cope with it.

However the fact that i learn to cope with it means that i haven't recovered from it.
It's like a band-aid fix for a cut that will never heal.

A very long time. It's hard for me to forget. I usually beat myself up over it and hold repressed emotions that fester and grow into something ugly and monstrous.

i'd say it depends. when we lost my first cat sneakers i was pretty prepared for it since she was over seventeen years old. she was in a lot of pain from her arthritis so though i was sad i knew it was my selfishness that i wanted her around longer. i'm going to be really broken up when my cats i have now pass. when i lost my last freind it took about a week to get over. when my mom had her first stroke i was concerned for everyone else it was affecting but secretly deep inside i felt nothing, because the abuse i suffered as a kid is something i'll never get over.

I'll let you know when I'm over it

It depends. If its one of those things that have I have no control over, I try to get over it and move it quickly and usually I succeed. But if something happens that I don't understand or lacks logic, it can bother me for quite a while, but I mainly just want to understand why it happened and how I can avoid it in the future, if applicable, etc.

I hold grudges for long periods of time. Sometimes forever.

And I am the exact same way.

I know the feeling...

I pretty much don't get over it, time simply lessens the blow.


I have noticed that a lot of people view their experiences differently over time. For instance my grandfather once told me that when he was a little boy, there was one street he used to dread on his way home from school. Some other boys would sit in the trees there and throw chest nuts at him, which scared him at the time. But as he told me about it, he’d laugh it off. And I reacted to that and said ”That’s not funny; it could’ve been dangerous and they scared you!”

I could never do that. When I think of something that has happened to me, even if it is way back in the past, it’s more like I’m reliving it than remembering it. If somthing made me angry then, it makes me upset now; if something made me laugh then, it makes me smile now. If these feeling are mellower at all, they are only lower on the same scale, never gone. If something made me cry at age 3, the memory won’t make me laugh at it now either, 3 decades later. When I think back it's more like re-experiencing it, reliving the memories, than looking back at something.
It never seems to be past. It doesn't seem to weaken. I don't look at past experiences in a nostalgic light, like so many seem to do. I remember it as I experienced it, including whatever emotional intensity was present. If something felt bad then, it feels bad now, if it was fun then, it makes me cheerful now.
It is not flashbacks, just memories of what happened in the past...no trigger is necessary either, it just happens. It is something that I'm going through a process of leaving behind...so far there is no luck.
Sometimes it is actually a bit problematic. About a year ago I had a talk with my mother that ended up in a quarrel. I mentioned that it seemed like those on the spectrum might remember longer back than other people. My mother then pointed out that she had a memory from when she was 3 and her parents sold her wagon. She hadn't liked it.

I said that then she should've been more understanding of me. About 30 years ago I had outgrown my baby chair that I sat on when eating. Once when my grandparents visited the adults made the decision to have my grandparents take the chair with them and put it in their cellar, as they had more space. (This part I didn't really get back then but I understood that they were gonna take my chair away from me and I clung to it and yelled and cried. My mother let go of the chair and thinking the chair was safe I was put to bed some time after. When I awoke the next day it was gone to my grandparents and I had another tantrum.

Now I pointed out that I never could understand why she had to trump it through, what was the big deal, why was it such a hurry? Why couldn't I have kept it another day or so and gotten used to the idea? I said to her and she just said "I wasn't gonna discuss that with you" (in that special tone that is ensured to have any offspring go off every time). When she saw that I was really bothered, she just said "It's only been about 30 years!" (sarcastically).
Not the point! She just doesn't get that in my mind that event (and just about everything else that I remember) is as clear and close as yesterday. And that something upsetting me then still make me feel the same today. She just made up excuses and was upset over me! No understanding at all. We got over it and began talking again. But moments like that wear me out. To me it is yesterday and I relive it as such, to her it's ancient history and something she has a memory of but no emotions connected to. In my mind that felt like the entire thing repeated itself; being overruled at both age 3 and 32.

I know I'm blowing it out of proportions in this case, but I can't help feel the way I do.


This is truly a blessing and a curse.
It’s a curse when I deal with family members I love and I can’t reminisce with them because what is a nostalgic memory to them is as emotional to me now as it was then. No matter if 20 or 30 years have passed. The worst part is that they just don’t understand.
It’s a blessing when someone does something sh***y to me and I will always remember and never waste time on them again. When I am through with a person I am really through with him/her.
And of course it’s a blessing when I look back at good memories.

Those of you who relive it more than remembering, do things like this happen to you, too?

I still occasionally cry for Nikita, who died 10 years ago. Not to mention Viggo 2 years ago and Nemo 3 months ago. Nemo is still a raw wound for me. TBH I’ve never been this down before, but of course earlier I always had another pet to cheer me up.

Less recent deaths can still make me cry but I think less about them as time goes by, but I can suddenly get a bout of deeply felt grief years later.

i really cant determine the point of getting over something. when my mother died 9 yrs ago i decided going back to school ~5 days after it happened. i got over it pretty quickly it seems, i very good into supressing bad experiences with the consumption of music, but sometimes i still burst out crying because of it without warning, so i got over but i still not in a way.

Since my mom suddenly ran away with some disgusting guy out of the blue when I was about 10 I've pretty much been living with a "Let's not get attached to anything that can't be replaced and depend only on ourselves!"-mindset. So once something is actually over and done with I normally won't grief over it for long, if at all, with little to no exceptions. What's lost is lost and I go on... But since I've never really opened my heart to anyone/anything I don't really know what it's like to lose someone really important in the first place ^^;

But if I feel violated by something in some way I can hold grudges for eternities... I still feel a wave of hate inside when thinking of a certain thing that happened at school or how some idiot stole my bike(I was actually motivated to go walk and run around outside for the sheer sake of trying to spot it and beat the hell out of whoever took it if only I found it(I never did), for months I couldn't pass a single black bike on my way to work without making sure it wasn't mine)... Oh, rage. rising.