To think that not everyone has the tools to make great life choices?

[malificent7]

I hear a lot of talk on mn about life choices. Especially in the context of benefit recipients or single parents.

I used to make very poor life choices. I suffered abuse from mum and in my teens/ early 20s, from my ex.
I therefore made bad decisions and suffered from horrendous mental health.

This resulted on me rebelling against my mum, not doing medicine asshe wanted me to ( regret this now,), turning to booze and choosing a bad dad for dd.

Since emdr therapy, I have been making much better choices but my upbringinghas definately has held me bk.

Aibu to think that if a person from a relatively affluent middle class family can make poor life decisions, so can anyone if their mh is poor. Not everyone can choose a decent partner, not to be an addict or a decent career.

I do feel like i threw a lot of my opportunities away as a young woman.

Actually that's not true Grace. There are things available. There's support on mn for starters. Many many threads offering helpful advice for various issue. There's a MH section, I took you to stately homes. Acknowledgement, support, counselling. Reclaiming control. Loads of good books and support online. It takes hard work admittedly.

Bollocks. They didn’t need degrees to be street cleaners, to use a common phrase that they used to say was coming. As it did, for those of us who followed. Entry level jobs were real entry level jobs, not requiring responsibility and skills, and most did the bare minimum. Many retired the minute they were told they had to work three peoples’ jobs for less money, leaving us in gen x to struggle along doing exactly that while they bought up the housing stock to charge us private rent ‘for their pensions’.

Generational inequality is an economic fact.

We've got better at acknowledging there was an issue. Most of the posters on mn are parents, here because they care. Most are trying, so probably/possibly doing a better job than their parents. So hopefully mn posters dc will be on the stately Homes threads less.

It's not about boomers...its about fortunate people who cannot fathom other people do not have the same good fortune.

I jyst find it amazing that our outcomes are dictated by relationships...often our romantic ones. I struck gold with that now but it was a looong time coming. Most women are taught they need a man to be worthy...hard to escape from that conditioning.

Just to mention, most of the therapy I had was private because the NHS waiting lists were long and only a few sessions offered anyway. The NHS stuff was no help at all and not enough sessions to even scratch the surface.

So even if someone does want to ‘take responsibility’, when they need help in the form of therapy to do it, it’s often not an option. If their upbringing means they’ve made bad decisions, they’re less likely to have private health insurance or £100 per hour for therapy. Maybe they could ask family to help....oh no, wait....

Just another barrier than many people that are already disadvantaged in life face.

It's not middle class, it's to do with your family. Lottery of life. Both myself and DH are from a working class background but we were both raised on caring loving families. Most our friends were also (even if we were council estate). I think if you come from a good home background it makes a massive difference

100% this. I was born into a working class family, money for the basics but little else. However an abundance of love and support

That's true, and I hope so too.

I think it’s helpful to view your own position from one of personal responsibility, but have sympathy for others in the knowledge that some people are at much more of a disadvantage.
I don’t think it’s helpful to view yourself as being at a disadvantage, because having a sense of agency is actively good for you.
I think it’s good to be more sympathetic of others, because that helps us build a more supportive society.

@AnotherDogOnTheSofa I work in NHS MH and this is so true. Sadly, often the first time anyone actually gets to do any work around trauma is when they commit a serious crime.
Society expects poor, disadvantaged young men with low academic success, addiction, anger issues to pick up the phone and wait for hours and hours before someone picks up the phone and makes them a triage appointment in three weeks time.
My ex dp tried to seek help for depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse. The DBT people said he needed support with alcohol, the alcohol groups couldn't offer any sessions which didn't run in the day when he was working and the anxiety medication didn't work. Even if people do seek help, there just isn't the resources. It's also all based on assumptions, like that addicts don't work, that people can use tech like zoom or teams. My ex didn't even have an email address. It's just not fit for purpose.

Should add also young women but I work in the male service so that's my experience.

Life is a crap shoot. Yes, poverty and dysfunctional parenting will have an impact on future outcomes but they aren’t the only factors.

I have never suffered with poor mental health, that is a privilege but I grew up poor in a household where abuse was never far away. I witnessed the abuse, however I was ‘fortunate’ never to be a direct recipient of it. I was a victim of DV and am a single parent (the latter I see as a super power). However, I would say on balance, I have been extremely lucky because the positives have far outweighed the negatives. I am fortunate in that I not to expend too much energy on what I don’t have, for me that is my greatest fortune.

Everything is relative, poverty in the UK is very different to poverty elsewhere on the planet. I have seen people from far more humble beginnings and with more trauma have, on paper, more prized achievements and I am in awe but that doesn’t cast a shadow on what I have achieved because I am me and they are them.

Honestly, I don't know. I think yabu. I've seen kids come from very bad backgrounds but some have made good decisions and some haven't. At the end of the day, the buck stops with you and you have to make your own decisions. I've mostly made good decisions but I own the bad decisions I made in my twenties. All my own responsibility and no one else's fault.

Crappy abusive, violent childhood environment was the norm in my circle.

I was a feminist without knowing I was a feminist. I had strong opinions. (Kept to myself obviously)
My surroundings somehow influenced the life I was adamant was not going to be mine as an adult.
Adamant, stubborn, determined, dogged I was NOT going to live like that.

I was extremely fussy & selective with people I surrounded myself with.
Potential boyfriends were chosen and tested and thrown aside for the most trivial annoyance.
I was completely intolerant of anything that I deemed not worthy of my time.

Choices were explored, paths were carefully selected, it served me well.

I think you also have to look at other factors too. A child with autism or ADHD for example, raised in a loving stable home will face many challenges. Now imagine that child being raised in a neglectful abusive home. It isn’t then a simple case of that child becoming an adult and making “better decisions”. This was me. I didn’t know I had ADHD, but with hindsight I was a classic case. So the neglectful upbringing gave me low self esteem and mental health issues, but the ADHD was a definite driving factor in many of my poor impulsive decisions. I didn’t have that stable family background to “ground” me in any way. It was the combination of things that led me to make many poor decisions, not just one single factor.

Even now in my 50s I have to sometimes fight against a voice in my head telling me to do something impulsive! I’ve mostly come to terms with my upbringing. It still makes me sad sometimes but I’m human. I don’t think it would be healthy to not feel some sadness over it. It doesn’t consume me as it did when I was young but I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I also now force myself to try and be more sensible, and it is a battle. I think it always will be. I look back on my younger years though and really don’t see how I could have done anything different. I did the best I could at the time with what I had.

This. I know I could've done better at uni. I know I should've done better at uni. I know I shouldn't have done x,y,z and did a,b,c instead. I know all of that now.

But i was so exhausted just from living. Not just that, I couldn't see a future for myself,not even a bad. It was hard to get the drive , to see the point when I thought I'd be dead soon anyways. Overwhelmingly, all I wanted to do was die. So I wasn't in a place to think long term and make long term plans, of dream of a career or whatever because there was no long term. I couldn't even see myself in a year ,much less in 5 or 10. It was mostly get through the month,week,day and always in the background "it doesn't matter anyways, you won't make it past 25".

Also, one of the best choices I made , the one that put me on the path of recovery and healing, could've easily been the worst choice that I ever made. At 23 I decided to fuck it all, packed a bag and moved halfway across a continent to be with OH. I was still massively fucked up. I see now, how vulnerable I was, how risky and dangerous that was ,how it could've gone wrong in so many ways. I can imagine the sneers and comments and derision if it had gone wrong. I would never do it now.

But it did go well, i found unconditional love and support, I was given the time and space to heal and get my head straight , realised I'm not that stupid,that reckless,that useless, that bad, that unlovable,that lazy ,that awful and I became more than I ever thought I could be (even if a lot of people still think that isn't much at all).

Also, bad choices can be reversed by a well off or supportive family. How does anyone know that the 'successful' people walking around didn't make the same bad choices that the people living on the street?
Private rehabs
Private tuition to catch up
Private autism/ adhd assessments
Money to leave abusive relationships
Childcare so you can retrain/ learn to drive
Money to start a business
Money to save a failing business
You can buy your way out of a lot of bad choices

YADNBU.

I’m spending my 30s recovering from an abusive childhood, after getting into an abusive marriage in my 20s and making “bad choices”.

As a result, in the last 7 years I have

• remained single because relationships just bring extra complications
• gone to college and Uni (STEM), have a degree and a Masters
• moved me and my children to a beautiful rural area (escaped my hometown)
• had a fuck tonne of therapy/medications because the new area (well, moved here 5 years ago) has much better NHS provision than my hometown

When all you’ve known is chaos, you don’t how to live any other way. ACEs are well proven. Anyone who “does well” despite them is an anomaly and it’s usually down to intelligence levels/a single family member who assists and isn’t like the others. Anyone who has them is around a decade behind their same age peers due to not being able to develop properly and being stuck in their circumstances.

All I knew was that it was change or something or end up dead due to my MH issues.

@malificent7
OP: "its about fortunate people who cannot fathom other people do not have the same good fortune."

Who are what are you referring to? A recent thread? Something that was said to you directly?

People have got better, and do recognise those less fortunate.

Plus we are getting better, generally. I don't mean the NHS support for MH. I mean our awareness.

And I disagree with "Most women are taught they need a man to be worthy..". I disagree. Are mn dd's being taught this? Now?

They do PSHE is ds2's school. They talk about sexual health, saying no. They talk about MH, the increase of suicide in young men. Encouraging self worth and encouraging every child to look after their physical health. And their MH.

This is good.

Possibly the laziest post on this thread.

The "poor choices" brigade are coming from the same place as the people who think rape is the result of women wearing short skirts and drinking too much. They've seen that the world us a scary place where bad things happen and they deal with it by pretending to themselves that bad things won't happen to them because they do the "right" thing. Unfortunately for them it's bollocks, I can tell you no amount of Russell Group degrees and sensible career decisions will prevent your husband developing cancer in his 40s.

You are completely correct that there's often reasons but what does grate is when a person is given a lot of help, sometimes multiple times but returns each time to whatever the problem is, then blames everyone (from the government downwards for their poor decisions. Ultimately we do have to take responsibility for ourselves and stop blaming others/making excuses. Some people have crap childhoods, some people have tragedies both are very sad but putting that bottle to your mouth, having that bad partner and not having a job (or bad job) are all things you can change and there's people out there who can help you. I'm a debt counsellor and I've seen people turn their lives around when they stop blaming others. Kind of a tough love message I know but very much you can do it and take the help offered, then capitalise on it

@badgermushrooms

That's seriously offensive.

I don't think they do. I don't associate poor choices with rape. I don't blame someone for being raped. It's not their fault. It's the rapists choice. To insinuate that those who question poor choices compare it to rape is not true, certainly not of me. That's a cheap shot you've played there.

At what point does the blame game, of blaming someone else for your poor choices stop? and instead of blaming someone else you take responsibility for your own choices.

And no one mentioned anything about going to Uni, then developing a medical condition. Which we all could. 1 in 2 of us will develop cancer. Probably me, and you, most of us here. That doesn't relate to your childhood. That's not what we are talking about here.

There's plenty of counselling, on line support and self help books available. To at least try!

I know this example is likewise cheap, but : Imagine being a 40-year-old or 50-year-old, going to court and saying to the judge. Oh I'm sorry I stole that from the supermarket it was because I had a bad childhood. That wouldn't cut it.

I had an awful childhood and made some bad choices in my early twenties. When I became a single parent, I realised that the only way I could give my child a better life, was to pull myself together and start thinking more sensibly. It was a long, hard slog but I got there. I didn’t have much money or a great career but I didn’t make rash decisions on relationships, work or any aspect of life. I thing sometimes you just have to stop looking back, stop blaming the past and get in with it. No, it’s not easy but it can be done.

I agree with this to some extent.

My parents were drinkers, not alcoholics but most Friday or Saturday nights they went out my Father would come home having had far to many and start the most awful arguments.
I'd hide under the blankets and try to block out his ranting voice, if used to frightened so much.

I vowed back then never to be the same and to this day, now in my late 50's I've never been a big drinker of alcohol.