Regret is ruining me

[ThatNimblePeer]

This isn’t really an AIBU, posting for traffic. I think more than anything I’m just looking for people who have experienced the same thing, and can understand what I feel.

A few years ago I had to make a big choice that would really affect my life (think between 2 houses/2 job offers etc) in a short time. It was incredibly stressful. I did my best to consider carefully and weigh pros and cons, but ultimately I made the wrong decision. I knew pretty much as soon as I’d made it that it was wrong, but it couldn’t be reversed. As time has gone on it’s become clearer and clearer that it was wrong and why, but I can’t change it now. I just have to get up every day and live with the consequences, knowing the other choice would have been so much better.

I don’t want to go to therapy. I don’t want to be told I can’t know for sure the other choice would have been better - I’m as sure as I can be. I don’t want to ‘make the decision right’ (I’m doing my best, but there’s just no way round the fact that it’s a huge, huge cycle uphill). I cannot console myself with the fact that I did my best to make the right decision at the time - if anything, that makes it worse, knowing I tried so hard, went through so much stress, and still got it so badly wrong.

All I want, the only thing I want, is to be able to go back in time and change the decision. I know I can’t do that. It’s the only thing I want. I know I am BU.

I’m not looking for suggestions for how to make it better. I don’t think I can. I just want to know there are other people out there who know how this feels.

I had an abortion about 20 years ago that I regretted deeply and your post word for word was exactly what I told myself every day for the next 10 years or so.

I tried talking therapy but it didn't help because the therapist tried to make excuses for what I did and blamed everyone around me, which wasn't what I wanted or needed. I didn't want to make peace with it. I guess I just needed to find a way to live without that peace.

In the end the only thing that helped was anti depressants. I resisted them for many years because I thought they couldn't help because they couldn't change what I had done and because i didn't want them to help because I felt I deserved to be miserable. Insanely, they did make a difference. I still thought I'd made the wrong decision. I still knew I was guilty and I still regretted it but I started to feel a bit lighter. And I started to find something like acceptance. Acceptance that I'd made a terrible mistake, that I was guilty and always to blame for it and that it would be something that I would always regret, always want to undo and that would always be a part of me. And I realised that it was ok to hang on to the regret and thst in fact for me it was the only way.

(This isn't relevant unless maybe your regret is about abortion as well but I did eventually kind of get over it once I had a child. I still feel.guilty about it and wonder about the what ifs but it's a very mixed feeling as if i didnt have that abortion i wouldn't have thr kids i have now).

It can get better. You might not want it to at the moment just as I didn't but life can get better and the thing that now seems like the only thing that matters will become just another one of your life experiences.

@WeNeedSomeRainNow are you me?! So many similarities. I really liked your post too.

There's been a lot of help on this thread, some really thoughtful stuff not just the MN usual "look on the bright side".

How do you know that the other path would have been better.

The road not taken is always full of ifs, maybes and infinite possibilities.

Looking at this at the neglect of what you have will only bring misery. Look forwards into your future path, the road has many twists and turns and may bring you to the same place, but via an indirect route. Noone knows what the future holds, but it will be on the road you chose, and this is also filled with possibilities.

You could have taken the other job and been killed in an traffic accident on the way to work the next week. So you never really know for sure what the best choice was. I think "what ifs" are pointless, if tempting, and you just have to try to improve your current situation. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses too - there are some things that just don't improve with effort.

Yep, me OP. Had an avoidable head injury and decade ago then became permanently injured by an off label antipsychotic prescribed for severe insomnia and anxiety, which gave me a permanent neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia. This is a bit like Tourette's and Parkinson's disease combined 😢😞

Every day, I regret it. Every day, my beautiful broken brain reminds me that I have a huge regret.

But I live with it. And life goes on.

As terrible as somehow these things are, there is always something to be grateful for. I know that is cliched and twee, sorry! 😂

Yep, as they say - youth is wasted on the young 😂

Love your name (and that James Blunt song!)
Yes it's an interesting thread.
Makes me feel less alone to realise others are messing up too.😀

You have three options-

accept your decision and make the best of it , access therapy or find ways to make your peace

change the situation

continue as you are

i made a life changing decision that had difficult consequences, I had a breakdown in the end. Once I hit rock bottom I started to pick myself up. I got CBT to help with negative thinking, hypnotherapy to relax anxious nervous system. I took up yoga and meditation. I basically learnt to accept negative emotions and to accept my life as it is now (my decision could not be undone)

. you hit on a v real truth there when you said you had to learn to accept the mistake you made.
My friends husband was a v wise man and one of his mantras was ..acceptance is peace.
It is so true ime.
We all have regrets. We all fail and fall and do things we wish we could undo but at the end of the day we have to accept it . We have to if we want to move on from it and in that is a measure of release and peace I think.

I wanted to come back to the thread to say that during the time we were having this conversation, I mentioned I had a hard decision to make. Well I made it. Twice. I couldn't choose between my plan to buy a shared ownership house or look for something else, they both had serious drawbacks and financial implications. So last week, I chose the house. Within hours I was in such a state, I withdrew from the purchase. I was also offered a rental, and I made such a mess of the application that was withdrawn as well, so then I begged to be allowed to continue with the shared ownership purchase.

My family were really worried but I overruled them. And then yesterday, I pulled out of the purchase at exchange.

This leaves me with 4 weeks to find somewhere else to live, even if temporarily, and every rental I try to get they say no outright. I am waking up 4am in complete panic, I have never felt nausea like it. The worst of it is how worried my family are.

The thing is I am not asking for housing advice here, I need to get my shit together and sort something out, but as the OP @ThatNimblePeer was saying, how do you live with it, and I'm asking - why do we do it? Why did I make such a mess of it? I suggested that the OP might use counselling to help and now I can take my own advice - my counsellor is lovely - but I don't think she can explain to me why I made such a terrible mess and put myself and my DD in such an appalling position. I am observing my own panic with fear for the future. How did I get here?!

Pp...if you can afford a shared ownership purchase...couldn't you just rent somewhere for a while instead?

It sounds like you're creating problems and extra stress for yourself.

It's not like you could live in a shared purchase anyway right? Unless you were also renting from the other owners?

Just rent something simple and keep an eye out for something else.

As I say @Sodthesystem I wasn't looking for housing advice (who are the other owners?) Its more on the theme of regret and how to handle it.

Oh OP, I feel for you. I’ve had similar experiences, and grieved about them. I’m happy and contented now, but given a chance, and a time-machine, I would still go back and make the other choice.

Luckily, time and ageing are a big help. The older I get, the less I care about the past.

I hope you can reach a stage where it doesn’t hurt you any more.

I know what this feels like, it caused so much upset and anger. There is a 10 year chunk of my life where we lived with the consequences . At the earliest opportunity we went back to what plan A was. We are 10 years down that road now and happy.

My advice to you is try to find a way to stay living and enjoying life. I got into such a rut and lived as a victim for 3/4 years. Life is short so find a therapist and work out how to the most out of a bad situation.

Thank you @ForFunGoose and @LeftieRightsHoarder - got to be done hasn't it, just got to find somewhere else to live and crack on, I've really upset my DDs the last week or so showing how upset I was. Now I need to show them I can move on somehow. Its very heartening to hear that people managed to sort something out, in the end.

I hope this thread has been helpful to @ThatNimblePeer as I have pinched it (not entire hijack just a nip!) and I still feel for them.

Every day you get the chance to start afresh with life

Stop looking backwards and move on with your life

I had regret over moving and I had therapy. Please know Op this mental turmoil is about your own mental health etc irs not about a long ago decision that is now done and gone

I've struggled with regret in my life.

but in the end OP - all we have is the now. I really really suggest the things you have ruled out (therapy etc)

What is the point looking back and refusing to engage in the tools that will help you move forward?

A small period of bemoaning our decision is normal - allowing it to poison our current lives is very unhealthy and a waste of our health and life.

You could be hit by a bus tomorrow - or get a life ending illness - but for now you are alive, you have your health and you have the chance to make of this life what you want to.

Only you can put that regret down and look at the life you have and the new opportunities every day to start again with life.

This is the perfect situation to watch the film sliding doors!