To think I’ve really arsed my life up beyond repair?

How old are you OP?

I agree with Fatasfook

Meh - we all make bad choices.
I'm 50 soon and still making them!
I often wonder 'what is the point of ME?'
And I have no answer to that.
I just keep plodding on.
Only YOU can change the course of your life.
Time to decide what YOU want from it and aim for it.
If you have no goals, how are you going to achieve them?

Just look forward now.
Think of how you want your life to be this time next year and start putting a plan of action in.

O sandie. I hope you have not done something irrevocable but if you dont want to discuss it is this the best place for you?

I think if you truly believed that you wouldn't be posting here. There's part of you that has not given up and wants to make the changes you need to make.

sadiebeech. At the moment all you can say for sure is that you think you have ruined your life so far through poor decisions. That may or may not be true - we don’t know you and no one knows what path your life might have taken if you had made other choices. You could have made (for example) the good decision to turn down a night of booze and a one night stand in favour of attending church and then got knocked down by a bus on your virtuous walk home.

Even if every decision so far was total shit, it doesn’t mean every future decision has to be. Reflect, decide what you wish you had done differently and make your future choices based on your regrets. It won’t change things overnight but it sounds like it can’t make them worse.

I wonder what your motivation for posting is, if you don't want to discuss your life and decisions?

What do you want people to say?

Agree with others - if you're looking for support on a "everything is such a mess" thread then you're better off posting in relationships, or mental health, or another board related to what is causing the "arsed up life".

If you come on AIBU saying "everything's a mess, i'm not giving details, it can't be fixed and that's just the way things are" then don't be surprised if people get irritated and accuse you of attention seeking.

I only ask because I am pretty sure that there is scientific evidence that any decision made up to your mid twenties can be blamed on your brain not being fully functioning, so you can discount any decisions made in that time as not being entirely your own fault

Any decisions made after that have to be taken in context, who was supporting them, what experiences could you draw on when making the decisions, how many choices did you have available at the time of making the decision, were there time factors at play, did you have to make decisions quickly?

Hindsight can make us judge ourselves more harshly than perhaps we should

OP, you sound so sad and I kind of get that you just want to post up your sadness without specifics. MN is a help-oriented place (well, mostly) so people are trying to make suggestions because that's what people do, mostly!, but it can also just be somewhere where you've stated your sadness. If it helps, I'm also in a situation where I know I have to remain in two places where I knew I was entering something that wasn't right for me. For good reasons that don't need to be aired here, I've decided to make the best of it and stay, but the trick is to work out how I can be at my happiest within the compromised framework I've committed myself to. Sometimes, OP, it's just a day at a time.

Hi sandiebeech, sorry you feel like this.
I have many days when I feel the same. No idea how your fxxk ups compare to mine, but in a nutshell I feel I made terrible work/career choices as a young adult, and bad financial decisions all my adult life, which has led to me being in debt and struggling to get by now. Struggling to reconcile the life I wanted for me and my family with the one I seem to be leading!
One thing leads into another so while not everything has been 'my fault', the train of events may have been set off by my decisions.
However, the way I am trying to look at it is this: if I can blame myself for taking the 'bad' decisions then that must mean I also have the power and the capacity to make good ones too! I am not a complete and irredeemable f**k wit in other words.
And I don't believe you are either.

So why not post . in topics you are interested in?

Rather than posting in AIBU, saying you've messed things up but refusing to say why?

It's unnecessarily attention seeking. People are genuinely willing to give an opinion in AIBU on even the most mundane things.

If you are genuine, and you haven't already sought help, I'd advice you do so.

Hi, I beat myself up a lot about bad decisions, regrets, what I should have done,thinking I should have done better. I think that’s normal to an extent.
without knowing what you feel so bad about it’s hard to advise you, so I’m going to say something quite bland and generic. Do you lack motivation to do anything about your situation? If so, can you think how you can change that? What do you enjoy - can you do more of that?

sandiebeech. I found a habits tracker called Strides useful when I was in a slump. First of all I just used it for fitness reminders and household chores but recently I added in lifestyle things like weekly targets for leaving the house/talking to someone etc. It’s really helped me. I still do feel shit about myself sometimes but looking at the tracker records reminds me that I’m not totally useless - I am making an effort and achieving small things regularly.

What are the mess ups? can you give a bit more detail x

I got to 30, single parent with 2 kids (2 useless arsehole dads) and decided it was my responsibility to sort out my life. I did another A level, did a degree (difficult with a 5yo and a baby !!) and got a well paid career. I had 3 useless husbands along the way, and dumped them all! DH4 is a gem (together 15 years so far).

That's why you have to take control OP. Get a dog (seriously!) Amazing company, plus you can get involved in training, dog clubs etc. People love dogs. Men love dogs.

The past doesn't really matter - some things linger and all that but usually pass with time. You haven't given many details but it doesn't matter what's been, it's how you approach things now. If you've had a nose job that went wrong you learn to work on charm instead and looks at how meaningless looks are anyway.

Just enjoy the little things - the frost of morning, a new song, a satisfying gear change, folding a bit of paper spot on... Regrets don't solve much except to make you feel doomed to repeat the past

You may not be able to fix what's gone wrong, sandie, but you can draw a line under it. Start again today...Monday if you need to prepare yourself. Even if it's really bad and you've lost everything and everybody, you're still here. Go for a walk to the library. Say hi to someone or smile and hold the door open. Try to set yourself a couple of small goals that you can tick off before bed tonight for starters.

Sandie - it's not like it 'bothers' people. We are here to help, but if you can't give us specifics (relationships, job, housing, wrong country/house/work, education...) we simply can't help. So other than 'you ok hun?' what more can people do with out you expanding a little so we (the collective) can think about your situation?