I handle stress fairly well. I've dealt with deaths, childhood abuse, sexual assault, courtrooms, medical crises, all sorts of ugliness. When bad things happen, you just keep taking the next step, and when you finally get to stop walking, you curl up and wallow in your sadness for a bit until it's time to pick yourself up and keep moving forward. 3am can be rough, sometimes, but I always know I'll feel better eventually. At baseline, I'm a happy person.
So ultimately, I still count the most stressful day of my life as one I had when I was 11. On the surface, it isn't the worst thing that ever happened to me, not by a long shot. But, unlike most other things, it was all my fault.
I was eleven years old, newly emigrated to Canada from the US. Feeling resentful about being poor, I stole money from my mother (a single parent, working two jobs to keep a roof over our heads). Over time, I stole so much, I realized she'd soon figure it out. So, to try to cover my rear, I stole some more and headed out to the joke shop to purchase a money-printing machine I saw in the window. Yes, I actually thought I could counterfeit money to replace what I'd taken! While running for the bus, I managed to get hit by a car. Went airborne! The cops were called, and after the ambulance driver determined I was fine, they took me and my scraped knees home. I tried not to tell them how to contact my mom, but they got it out of me eventually (quite gently, actually). My mum came rushing home from work and they lectured her about leaving an 11 year old unsupervised, frightening her badly. Feeling guilty, she ran me a bath and took my clothes to launder them... and found an American twenty in my pocket. She knew immediately where it had to have come from - her emergency fund, the money she'd squirreled away in case Canada didn't work out and we had to return to the US. Which was now not an option, thanks to me.
So, I'm standing there in the tub, naked. She's got my jeans in her hand and is about to confront me on my thieving ways, when...
The doorbell rings.
It turns out our neighbour had seen the cop cars out front and decided that now was the
perfect time to inform my mother that she'd seen me lighting little fires in the back yard.
My mum thanked her, closed the doors, and started screaming at me. Who was still stuck, naked, standing in the tub. Then she cried. Then she screamed some more. Then she cried again. Then she called her sister and asked her to take me, and her sister bluntly told her to deal with her own problems, and hung up on her (my mum's family were awful - the fact that she even reached out for help at all shows how desperate she was). More crying. More hollering.
It was quite late, before I finally got to put some clothes on and go to bed. She went to bed with a stomachache and a hot water bottle, still crying.
The next day she began trying to work out some kind of supervision for me, since I so clearly needed it. The options weren't great. For awhile, I hung out at the community center after school, but I was too young for the teen program, so I mostly played alone in the playground. Then our landlady stepped up to help out and I was allowed to go to her house after school. She collected children's books and made cookies, so I was very happy there. We're still friends! I also began thinking, for the first time, less about the things I didn't have and more about the person I wanted to be.
I laugh when I tell the story now. And my kids think it's a funny story, too. But the one time my daughter brought it up in my mum's hearing... she almost cried again.
So, this is the one day I count as the most stressful. Because I hurt my mum and it wouldn't have happened if I'd made better decisions, and been a better person.
I really do learn most life lessons the hard way!