Am I unusually weak and selfish? What would you have done?

[compassionforpastself]

I've noticed I am becoming really sad for my past self. I had quite a few challenges very young - didn't grow up with parents, serious chronic illness since childhood, depression and an eating disorder from late teens, the woman who brought me up and was 'mum' dying when I was 25.

All my twenties were hideous. I had zero idea how to look after my mum when she became ill when I was twelve. She looked after me so well, because I was ill...I didn't look after her I was a really fucking selfish teen - and then later I really didn't know how to make sure she saw the best doctors for example. I let her down big time. Maybe she would have recovered and lived a bit longer in a healthier state if I had been switched on enough to deal with things properly and ensure she had the best possible treatments?

I am still so guilty over this but now I also feel really sad and haunted at my own circumstances. It all almost drowned me.

My question is, am I being soft on myself to feel compassionate towards myself?

Was I just particularly weak and selfish to have sunk so badly for years like this? How would a normal person with good moral fibre have dealt with things differently?

Your post has struck a chord with me because of your description of your childhood.

My DD is 13 . She was adopted by me and DH as a baby after being abandoned and also has a chronic health condition that has been a real struggle over the past two years. She has shown early signs of eating disorders too and has been also trying to sabotage the medical treatment for her condition.

She has been an absolute horror lately. She is so angry all the time and although I'm physically fit and healthy her extreme moods have left me with my own mental health in a fragile state. Her actions recently have had some serious consequences that the whole family are now trying to deal with.

But. I love the bones of her and recognise that she is the child and I am the grown up. I try not to take her treatment of me personally.

My mental health is not her responsibility and I never want it to be. I want her to worry only about being a child/teenager and staying healthy herself. She has had enough to cope with without having to worry about others.

She's not selfish - she's just trying to survive day to day as she navigates her way through a life that has dealt her a difficult hand.

I'm sure your mum must have felt the same.

Please don't be hard on yourself

Oh my goodness you definitely weren't selfish in the least!!

You are so completely unreasonably hard on yourself.

You have had a very difficult life.

There is absolutely nothing being served for blaming the child and young adult for things far out of your remit.

Your mother would hate for you to be so hard on yourself.

🌻

If you decide you want counselling, you could have an initial session with a counsellor and you can share as much or as little as you like. Just sit in the room with them and see if you want to go back. If you don't then try another. It's important to remember that when you do start really digging you may go through periods of disliking your therapist or not wanting to show up, but that is all part of it and it is worth trying to still show up if you can. You are looking at things through quite a narrow lens currently and it is worth trying to widen it if you can.

Oh God OP you were just a kid, I feel like the world failed you if you felt the might of the responsibility of being a primary carer for your mum so young (how on earth would a teen know how to do that, properly? There should have been a network of scare around you). Teens need so much care and support themselves. You had a really tough time.

Your mum would NOT want you criticising yourself over this. Just keeping yourself going was a miracle and as a parent I'd be so proud of you to getting where you are. Please be really proud of yourself. You honestly didn't let anyone down.

*care not scare

You did the best you could at the time. Some people your age might have done better. Some will have done a lot worse.

Anyone when faced with the NHS finds it is a mighty juggernaut. Not many of us (not even those who work in it) will be able to change its path. But it's pretty good and I'm sure the care your mother got was decided on by highly trained professionals who wanted the best possible outcome for her. I'm sorry it didn't work out the way you all wanted but thinking logically how can a teenager possibly know better than a team of doctors with collective decades of experience?

You don't sound weak or selfish at all. You sound determined and strong but also as if you have the cares of the world on your shoulders. I agree that counselling would help. As a former counsellor with experience of conducting initial assessments of prospective agency clients (and personal experience of several different therapists myself) . I would say don't get too anxious about having to repeat your story several times whilst searching for a therapist. You will find that every time you tell it, it will be slightly different depending on where your head is in that moment Just the process of telling it a few times in different ways to different people can be therapeutic in itself.

Thank you all, just reading through replies now.