Physically, mentally and emotionally: Chronic insomnia at the age of 16. That year was the most hazy, hallucinatory and paranoid experience I’ve ever had.
Let’s see. Surviving until I was 20 and able to get out of the particular hell called home, or spending the next 30 years dealing with the fall out from that, including the years of darkness. I’ve got a new appreciation for what people can and cannot survive, and I weep for those of my siblings who couldn’t get back up.
Burying a son, even one who was known for just a few hours. How is it possible for anyone love someone they never knew, and for the loss of a little one hurt so much?
I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose one you’ve known longer.
Not packing it in, when that would seem like the easier thing to do. Hell, it would have been the easier thing to do, but for my children I would have gone there when despair had the day.
Giving up my self-medication to [del]deal[/del] attempt to deal with life, and the initial months of sobriety. Someone said that they would never wish on anyone the personal hell they went through during that stage. No, that’s not nearly as hard as traversing the path I was on which drove me to make that change. Damn. This path of honesty isn’t that much easier, either, but I get to travel along with loved ones, where the other was a lonely, horrific trek.
To admit one’s faults, to take the last pretense of nobility and acknowledge out loud that much of one’s life has been a fraud. It would be easier to drink, but the options are severely limited at this point.
To watch the defeat of what I created, destroyed by my failures and trashed by false pride. For a better person, humility would not have been such a painful lesson.
I pray that there is still time, that there is time to put away the hurt, fears, pride and selfishness and find somewhere, in that mess, some good to give to my children, that they will grow up not knowing the pain and anguish which their father knew.
If so, it will be worth it.
And if not, then I’ll tell them to start saving now. Therapists ain’t cheap. 
“Hard” is so vague. I could name many things.
The most purely difficult thing I’ve ever done was getting divorced.
The most physically difficult thing I’ve ever done was the Combat Leadership Course.
The most effort I’ve ever put into a single objective was probably getting my BA.
The most psychologically difficult thing I’ve ever done was lose 65 pounds over these past couple of years. Still is hard.
The trickiest, most baffling thing I’ve done is still my effort to find a serious girlfriend when I’m a 40-year-old single dad.
I can not imagine.
I wish there would be Birthmom Public Service Announcements, or different laws, or something, anything, to prevent that situation from occurring, ever. What a nightmare.
Sorry for your loss.
Calling my sister and brother-in-law from the hospital to tell them that Mom had been in a car accident and my 2-year-old niece was gravely injured.
She didn’t make it.
There are only 5 people on this planet that I wouldn’t sacrifice in an instant to have her back. Even 8 years later.
Physically hard would have to be walking 40 miles through a rainstorm. (I did walk 47 miles once but not through barbed wire :))
Actually all 40 miles were not in a complete rainstorm. Only about 3 miles. But I had to cross a bridge exposed to the wind and rain whipping toward me at what must have been 40mph. When it gusted I could not move forward. And it stung all of my exposed flesh, which wasn’t so bad except for my eyes, which I had to shield with my hand in order to see what was 10 feet ahead of me. It was coming at such an angle that to see forward completely would expose my eyes to the whipping rain.
This thread has really been an eye-opener for me. On reflection, it’s entirely likely that I’ve gone 42 years and never done anything hard, mostly because I never thought it would be worth the effort.
I’m thinking I will bookmark this thread, then come back in three years and play bokor. Perhaps I will have a better answer for you then.
1 is signing over the paperwork when I was forced to sell my first horse Star due to a financial crisis. I loved that horse more than I have ever loved any living creature-I don’t EVER want to love that deeply, not ever again. I was literally, physically shaking so hard I could barely hold the pen. I don’t ever want to feel that sort of pain again.
Euthanizing much loved pets comes in second.
It wasn’t the birthmother’s fault. It’s a long stupid story, but the upshot is that the birthfather was never on board with an adoption, but the agency we were using did a lot of lying to everyone involved. (They’ve since been shut down. I’m proud to have had a small hand in that.) I surrendered to the birthmother rather than the birthfather because she wanted to protect the baby from his family situation (convicted felons all over the place, including a registered sex offender), which was a major impetus behind the adoption idea in the first place. We still see that child and his family sometimes, and he’s a great kid.
And we’ve got two boys now ourselves. Happy ending. 
I won’t pretend that I don’t sometimes think about someone coming to take them away and break out into a cold sweat, but usually my rational brain wins the argument and I’m fine.
Hands down: giving up a beautiful little girl for adoption. She went to a wonderful, loving home, where she is thriving, and I know I made the right decision for her, for me, for her father, and for the wonderful parents I chose for her. But I hope I die before I do anything harder than holding her in the delivery room for the first and last time…
Telling my best friend for the previous 30 years that his extramarital affair and leaving his wife and 4 kids would probably in the long run cost him his soul.
Watching my dad die of cancer (he was only 53) and my mom die after struggling for a year following a disabling massive stroke.
Getting through naval aviation officer candidate school as an out of shape civilian at the age of 35, when I was older than most of the Marine drill instructors who were yelling at me.
Working in juvenile delinquent detention facilities for years on end, with minimal staffing, oppressive management, the constant danger of an inmate uprising, and precious little alternative to do anything else but quit and lose my pension investment.
Accepting that there really is no god or afterlife and that what I had now, was all there ever will be.
I’m so sorry. I do recognize that the joy I have with my boys came at a terrible cost to someone else. And they have always heard and will always hear from us how deeply they are loved by the mothers they knew first.
Surrendering my child to adoption when I was 16yrs of age. I knew, if I lived to be one hundred, I’d never be as old again, as I was when I was 16. It very nearly shattered me.
Being a caregiver, in my home, 6 yrs, for my stroke surviving, fully bedridden, Mother in law. Being a caregiver was extremely hard. Surviving the end of caregiving is even harder. Your world just stops.
Physically, I have climbed to great heights in the Andes and Himalaya’s, volcanoes on Java, etc. Challenging though it was, it was a snap compared to the other things.
And just one more, really hard thing, coming into reunion, 28 yrs later with the child I surrendered. Whew boy! What a ride. A spectacular person of enormous compassion and accomplishment. More than anyone would have dared dream, all in one package! My child, parent to my Grandchild!
Life is a beautiful, beautiful mess, if you’re doing it right, I think!
In the course of a month (1) I had to come to the realization that my husband didn’t love me, (2) I found out my best friend of 30 years was going to die after a long painful lingering death, and (3) I had contracted three illnesses combined to make me bedridden for 8 months. (4) My cat of 13 years died.
My ex ended up getting a girl pregnant in my house and left. My loved and only friend passed away without me being able to even go see her. I survived and had to learn how to live with the loss of everyone I loved but my children, who were no help because they were all teenagers with problems of their own. I did not leave my room for 2 years after that. Just remembering this brings tears to my eyes.
As an adoptive parent, thank you.
And thank you!
Attend high school for me. Work was hard for me too.
Reading though some of these answers… I’m sorry some of you had it so tough. 
This thread is just breaking my heart. Countless internet hugs to all.
Physically it would be going through recovery from surgery on an ankle broken in three places without pain medication (I was pregnant so no drugs for me apart from OTC paracetamol). The pain was horrific but thankfully short lived, about 24 hrs I think for the worst pain to be over.
Mentally it’s been dealing with sustained bullying I experienced as a very young child. I carried it with me for years and, although it does not in any way compare to what others posting on this thread have dealt with, it did have long-term impacts that were hard to shrug off as a young child and into my teens.