Paralysed by regret - how to move on?

[fuzzpig]

Life is difficult at the moment, really difficult. For various reasons I am stuck in a massive rut and at the same time going through some massive changes. I am 25.

I have become totally fixated on the decisions I made when I was a teenager and how I made the wrong ones. The main one being not going to uni and having DCs young.

Now I know these decisions were not right, and I recognise that they were not really 'my' decisions either. Having grown up in a dysfunctional family with abuse, my own mental health problems including hospitalisation, I was certainly not in the right 'place' to make an informed choice. I know it's not my fault, and not DH's either (similar, but worse, circumstances for him).

So how the hell do I get over this? I keep thinking how I wish I could go back, but I can't. And then I feel guilty - how on earth can I regret what I didn't do, when I wouldn't for a minute regret having my wonderful DCs? And I'm not a bad mother either, I would never put my DCs through what I faced as a child, and they are growing up so beautifully.

I don't know if I would feel like this if other things (that really have nothing to do with the choices I made; nobody could have predicted what is happening) weren't going so drastically wrong. But I keep returning to the thought that I should have had a career and earnt money, got a mortgage, should have made more friends, should have lived on my own first. I just want out of this life. I am scared I will spend the next 50 years feeling I have made a mistake.

I don't know what to do.

you are still really young!! it's not too late to get a career although it will need juggling with having kids. Why not have a look at courses you could do, there may be a bursury to help with funding.
Also consider counselling to deal with some of your regrets, won't change your decisions but may help you to understand why they happened and how you can move on. Good luck

You make decisions based on the information you have at the time. It's always easy to look back and think you did it all wrong. But life needs to be lived forwards and taken as it comes. Very few people live lives as planned. So many things come in between.

Most of things you mention are not things that need to be regretted. And at 25 the world is your oyster and you can still do everything. And there may come a time that you enjoy being 'child free' again really young (dh will be 60 when ds is 20, I will be 53).

Start thinking what you want to do next. Whatever it is. Then work towards making it happen. I'm 38 and about to start training part time as a counsellor so I can help others who had childhoods like mine. Not a decision I could have taken when I was 18. And it will mean leaving practising law behind. It's never too late for changes.

If it's any consolation I really really wish that I had had my three dcs at your age rather than in my late thirties; for a start i would be in their lives for a lot longer. You have plenty of time to make lots of great choices.

Sorry I didn't reply yesterday, very rude of me after such lovely replies. Actually ended up going out for the day.

Did a lot of thinking; I think the problem is that my world is too small. Does that make sense? I just feel like there's... Nothing. I see other people with their huge families and lots of friends and hobbies and I get so jealous. We have nobody except each other and we are both falling apart. I am surrounded by people all day but feel incredibly lonely.

I recently found out I have Aspergers. Obviously this explains a lot (it is like I've been an alien wandering the universe for eons and then finally discovering my home planet) but it is wrapped up in bitterness that I've spent so long not knowing, and regret at how different my life would have been if my parents had given a shit and actually realised how miserable I was, and fear that because it is an unchangeable condition I will be like this forever.

I don't know how to change anything, I can't just get out there and meet people and I barely keep the friends I have. We have no money, no transport, no help, nothing, just day in day out with nothing changing except that every morning I feel a little more like giving up.

Fuzzpig, you sound like a lovely, thoughtful and intelligent person. I have a six year old son with aspergers. The thought of him as an adult being married to someone who loves him, and having children, fills me with hope and optimism.

If you were not depressed you could see that there are many, many opportunities out there for you educationally and career wise. But I think you are depressed and have got into a rut of negative thinking and pessimism. All you need to change is your thinking.

FWIW, I also have moments of deep regret that I didn't have my family earlier. I had my last dc at nearly 40, and now worry that I won't live to see him grown and settled, particularly as he has special needs. But I can't change that. I can just make the best of the circumstances I find myself in. Which is what you must try to do.

Re: having DCs early/late, the decision was heavily influenced by the fact my parents were older - though TBH they would've been crap no matter when they had me. They are just selfish and I am only recently accepting that they will never be the parents I deserve.

How on earth do I change my thinking?

When I am clinically depressed I can't be anything other than pessimistic. Humiliations and failures in my past haunt me, thoughtless slights hurt me so much I squirm inside. Depression distorts normal thought processes in the most unpleasant and subtle ways. When the depression lifts ( last time it lifted after I took Prozac, this time I've started on St Johns Wort + running, plus nutritional changes, which are making a difference though early days yet) it's like a fog lifting and suddenly the view looks lovely and exciting.

Distorted thought processes are a consequence and a symptom of depression. Address the depression and the thought processes will change. Address the thought processes and you will get relief from your depression. here tools to help - many of them free.

Fuzzpig, it will change. My experience was that my mid twenties was probably the bleakest point for me questioning my choices and feeling regret over my inability to do what I feel I should have done. I didn't really realise that all my energy was taken up with merely surviving and that I simply could not do more.

I remember going to a therapist and sort of flobbing out all this awful painful regret and unhappiness and inability to see past it (I was 25 incidently). I always remember him saying - I have no doubt that in five years time you'll be in a very different place and doing something very different and worthy of your abilities.

I was, and 15 years later I'm on an even keel in a way I never thought possible. Like another poster, I do personally regret not having kids sooner. There's a lot to be said for being young and energetic, and university is better when you're more mature. I did a degree and got nothing out of it. I'm doing OU now (I recognise you from the procrastinators, no?) and it's so much more rewarding.

Some good advice on here - you don't have to suffer like this, there are many therapies available which could help you.

Hope you feel better soon.

I'm going to sound like a right old fart now and say fuzzpig you are only 25! I am 35ish and I've just about managed the mental gymnastics that you are going through now (the whole I had a shit upbringing which is why I did x, y and z, okay, so how do I move on and do things differently in the future?) You have a great future ahead of you (I realise you may not feel like it now, but trust me in 5 years you will look back on this thread and see how far you have come - and I am psychic and everyfink!)

One thing that helped me is to think that:
Even if I had managed to go to uni and pass (impossible - clinically depressed, unable to get out of bed or feed myself for 2 years) then about now, I would be wanting to retrain in a different field anyway - and if I hadn't had dd by now (years of fertility treatment needed) then by now, I would be out of time - literally. There is no, right, perfect way to live your life. Even making all the 'right' decisions can lead to ending up right up shit creek! Keep this in mind rather than panic-ing about ways in which you feel you've 'failed' - it's a red herring sent by the depression imps of evil!