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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel completely devastated by having forgotten to collect a friend's dd from an activity?

42 replies

lowlandlady · 01/07/2009 10:27

A couple of weeks ago I collected friend's dd 8 to take her to basketball with ds. Then was very busy with the usual stuff, interrupted sleep, hot bothered distracted and then dh said he'd collect ds. I forgot in a fog brained way to say, collect ds's friend too. So he didn't collect her. I only realised when they got back home. Made a call and friend had gone to collect her dd.
I've apologised enormously and taken presents and everything. The girls parents have been fine. I just feel so awful though. I can't forget how stupid I was. I just don't feel I'm going to be able to get over it enough for our friendship to survive. I'm so ashamed of myself and can't really get out from under it, I'm overwhelmed actually.
I would have been so upset if someone had done the same to me, I don't think I could trust that person again.
Any empathy gratefully received.

OP posts:
smallchange · 01/07/2009 10:29

Dont' beat yourself up. It's bad, you know that, you've apologised and you won't do it again.

Maybe a good lesson to be learned from your friends' example though re: forgiving and trusting someone even though they make a mistake?

yappybluedog · 01/07/2009 10:34

it's done, her parents are fine with it, give yourself a break

saying that though, I once looked after a friend's dd and she fell DOWN A STONE STEP and had an enormous bump on her head

I was distraught for ages and even now I shudder t the memory of it

AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:38

are you depressed or usually prone to anxiety? this does seem like a massively disproportionate response. the child is 8, perfectly capable of asking someone to phone her mum if she's the last person there.

Pyrocanthus · 01/07/2009 10:41

I agree with smallchange. It was a communications error and presumably the child wouldn't have been abandoned on the basketball court if nobody had turned up, so wasn't in any danger. I would trust you in the future because you've accepted responsibility and apologised (and are unlikely to make the same error twice!).

Original poster
lowlandlady · 01/07/2009 10:42

thanks thanks thanks

Yappybluedog, how did you get over it with the parent? Is it ok now?

I wish I could stop but I have an enormous metaphorical stick and am battering myself with it all the time. Just can't seem to stop. This couple are lovely people. Very responsible, very kind, very thoughtful. They are the very last couple whose child I would choose to neglect so shamefully in this way.

Parents are fine but I didn't manage to get eye contact with the father when I went to apologise. I think he's furious and I don't blame him. I came home and dh said "You wanted total redemption and you didn't get it did you?" and I didn't! I can't make it not have happened! Surely shame can kill a friendship!!! Not from their side but mine.

OP posts:
Original poster
lowlandlady · 01/07/2009 10:45

AitchTwoOh no, but you're right, dh says 'get over it and yourself'. I just came to mumsnet for some sympathy really because I don't have much for myself about it. I'm so annoyed with myself.

But thanks I will go and get busy and try to forget about it, I've done what I can, I won't do it again, and we'll get over it as friends or we won't, time will tell!

OP posts:
AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:45

they're allowed to be cross with you, you're allowed to make a mistake. do you suffer from anxiety problems generally?

AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:47

x-posted there. but really, you're making a huuuuuuge drama about something that is just an everyday common or garden human mistake.

AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:47

x-posted there. but really, you're making a huuuuuuge drama about something that is just an everyday common or garden human mistake.

hmc · 01/07/2009 10:47

Oh, I'm so sorry for you. I'm not going to patronise you and say it was nothing - because it wasn't, but you really must forgive yourself now. Your friend will see how distressed you are and will feel empathy and understanding - I am sure she will.

I disagree that your response is disproportionate - rather, it reflects positively upon you by showing that you are a warm, caring person who takes her commitments and responsibilities to others seriously. In your situation I would feel similarly...

...but no harm done, you'll never repeat the mistake and it is over and done with. You apologised profusely - time to cut yourself some slack

abraid · 01/07/2009 10:48

Don't worry about it. I once looked after a friend's toddler. He was sitting on the floor six inches away from where I was sitting, watching TV. Suddenly he jumped up and pushed the TV off its stand against the wall (TV wasn't properly secured to the TV base). It bounced back and fell on his toe: breaking it.

You can imagine how I felt, even though there was nothing I could have done to stop the accident. But our friendship survived.

hmc · 01/07/2009 10:49

Incidentally Aitch, it just shows how people are different - if a friend of mine forgot to pick up my dd and dismissed it lightly as simply a 'mistake' she would be an ex-friend in a heartbeat

AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:51

two weeks later, the child is 8, no harm done, parents fine about it? the response is wildly disproportionate, hmc.

Original poster
lowlandlady · 01/07/2009 10:52

Aitch, I probably do suffer from some anxiety and have name changed to post this as well.

I just feel awful and find mumsnet such a great place to say what I don't feel I can say anywhere else. I feel so ashamed. And you know, it is quite bad, It's 'only' a mistake but it is a very very beloved child of extremely responsible parents who I know for a fact would never do anything so stupid. They just wouldn't!

The huge drama is going on inside me, I haven't been self-immolating outside their house!

OP posts:
AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:52

hmc, your name used to be 'handlemecarefully' didn't it?

she's not dismissing it, she's apologised and is clearly mortified. but enough, already. it was just a mistake.

hmc · 01/07/2009 10:55

I'm not saying she is dismissing it - quite the contrary; I was suggesting that you were: you said it was "a common or garden human mistake" and queried whether she had anxiety issues!!, merely because she feels a lot of guilt about the issue

Original poster
lowlandlady · 01/07/2009 10:55

You know I think the truth is somewhere between you both hmc and Aitch

This place is good for that levelling out of my emotions, I am a bit prone to being too upset by things and it's good to hear from everyone.

I'll stop going on about it now!!

OP posts:
AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:55

you can't know that they wouldn't, what an extraordinary assertion. they're nice, you're nice, their child is beloved, your child is beloved etc etc etc. you are not a bad person, no harm was done, you may need help with controlling your anxieties.

honestly, what would you have done if these nice people had forgotten to pick up your 8-year-old? (btw shouldn't either of the 8-year-olds have mentioned to your dh that they were getting picked up together? it's not their responsibility of course, but it seems peculiar that they didn't.)

muffle · 01/07/2009 10:56

Oh lowland - I actually don't have a similar tale of woe - yet - I'm sure that's only because my DS isn't quite old enough for this kind of mutual favour to be happening yet! - but I absolutely would have the same reaction and feelings as you. Just from social faux pas and fuckups I have the same deep, horrible feelings of shame that are really hard to shift.

There is one thing you can do, I know it will sound mad (especially as I learned this from of all places, hippie novel Island by Aldous Huxley and I am so not a hippy-dippy type, but it works). What you do is go over and over in your head what happened. Just keep facing up to it. Yes, I forgot. I forgot. She got left behind. I look terrible. I feel shit about it. The whole process of shame and embarrassment makes you push it away and not want to accept it and that way it keeps bothering you. If you face it and accept it over and over again it loses its power eventually. And at last you can say was it the end of the world? No. Would I forgive someone else who had done that? Yes. And you can put it behind you.

Original poster
lowlandlady · 01/07/2009 10:56

Big hug to you hmc!!! And a respectful salute to you aitch!!!!

OP posts:
hmc · 01/07/2009 10:56

Although I see OP does have anxiety issues as it happens!

Interesting though that I would have reacted as per the OP, but don't have anxiety problems...

hmc · 01/07/2009 10:58

"I'll stop going on about it now!! 2

Lol yes, you can just leave Aitch and I to go on about it instead. We'll find some point of further debate, I am sure

AitchTwoOh · 01/07/2009 10:58

hmc it was a common or garden mistake, if i had apologised to you for not picking up your kid and if you'd not taken it in the spirit of human error (esp given no harm no foul to the child) i'd think you were being a precious twat and i'd no longer want to be your pal either, if that helps.

hmc · 01/07/2009 10:59

"precious twat"

Oh Aitch, I just switch off when your posts degenerate.

Back to my text books for another day...TTFN

Original poster
lowlandlady · 01/07/2009 11:01

Aitch ds was totally distracted because his dad had come early to watch the play (the children were in different groups) and was just away with the fairies and often is. The girls' group comes out at a different time.
Bad luck really all round compounded by some kind of brain death on my part.

Thanks Muffle, that is a good technique, it is a shame thing, and if you have a robust sense of confidence I don't think shame wipes you out as much as it can some of us.

These things are internal Aitch and I don't believe for one moment that I'm being strictly rational. And I do feel better from all these responses, it is the magic of mumsnet, I came here all the time after ds was born and I was down.

OP posts:
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