Am I self sabotaging or not taking enough risk?

[Running20]

Hi all,
I wonder if someone can advise. This is a lengthy post so please don't feel like you have to read all of it. Advise on even just the first issue will be greatly appreciated.

I have recently made decisions that I thought were in the best interests of my family but after a while, realised they were the worst mistakes I could have made in the circumstances. Now I can't sleep properly, am eating myself dead with worry and my mind is all over the place that I can't concentrate on any one thing. To give you a clearer picture,

Mistake 1 - after I had my child the relationship with my husband broke down and subsequently I didn't want to have sex with him even if I so desperately wanted a sibling for my child. Now years later, am desperately wanting a sibling for my child and we are going through a divorce (that I initiated). No sibling for my child who keeps asking for one. My heart is being broken for my child and myself. And now I've hit an age where I don't know if this is practical anymore and if it were, have no partner to help me fulfil it. I've considered sperm donation but I keep freaking out at all the complexities.

Mistake 2 - I was made redundant early this year and had an interview for a job that made perfect sense career wise. However the money was less than what I had been earning and therefore in the end decided not to attend the interview and therefore lost out on a shot of getting it. I kept applying but so far have had no luck. That's now eating me inside as I think I should have gone for the low pay anyway.

Mistake 3 - We live in a very tiny space and I had the opportunity to move us to a bigger and suitable property. However, on looking at the area I found that someone had been shot on the road where we would have moved to (this was a one off and hadn't happened before nor has it happened since), the area also has a lot of gang activity and the reporting of stabbings on the news seemed uncharacteristically frequent to other areas I have heard of or lived in. When I looked at neighboring areas, a resident said that the area is ok as long as one doesn't mind "the odd shooting". I was horrified. However, to counter these comments, a friend advised that these bad things tend to happen to people involved in the gangs and that my family and I are unlikely to be affected. And if by some bad luck it happened to us, it would be a matter of accidental probabilities just like getting knocked down by a car. But the comments had instilled so much fear within me I was having nightmares and imagining all sorts of terrible things happening to me and my family if we moved there. As a result of this I decided not to move to the property. Now a few months down the line and still stuck in this terrible tiny accommodation am thinking I should have just moved there. Atleast we'd have more space to live and deal with everything Covid is throwing at us.

Mistake 4 - I had the chance to enroll my child into a private school and had to turn down the admission because there was no support from my husband despite the fact that we were paying the same fees at a nursery. Now years later, I regret not having taking a more proactive role in working when the child was little so that when the chance came, I would have been in a position to fund the education myself. My child is a very happy child and doing ok at school but needs extra help to bring him in line with his friends. I am so worried and just think that I've screwed my life and don't know how to rectify.

To make matters worse am 47 and feel like a total failure. I feel like my family are thinking the same because all their children are doing exceptionally well and privately educated. Am so desperate I think the only way to ensure my son gets privately educated and lives in a nice house is if I died and he then got access to my life insurance but I don't want to die and leave him. Has anyone gone through similar life events? What do you do to pick yourself up? Am trying to study for a course to help my job prospects but my mind is all over the place and am not able to concentrate on anything. I wake up in the night and just stare into space. I was given anxiety tablets which I put off taking as apparently they don't work until you've been taking them for a month. I need to feel better NOW not in a month.

Hi OP. Have you ever spoken to a GP about your anxiety? It is very apparent in your post.

First of all, hindsight is a wonderful thing and we cannot change the past, we make the best decisions that we can based on the information and finances that we have available at the time.

Your parameters for 'success' need to be adjusted. Why do you need to earn xxx, have private schools etc to be happy? Who are you trying to keep up with - why are you feeling this pressure?

Your child is happy, and with support will find happiness wherever they go. Especially if their parent is happy in themselves.

It does sound like in a lot of instances you are very scared of change, not attending the job interview despite having nothing else in the pipeline was probably a daft move. But it's the kind of mistake that we can regret but ultimately harms nobody. Learn from it and move on.

Given how unsettled you are currently, another child would make life very difficult for you. I have an only child, she's very happy and it means I can dedicate my spare time to her. It's not a bad life. I'd focus on what you do have rather than what you don't.

Do you get any support from your ex-DP with childcare etc?

Whoa, you are being way too hard on yourself.

I would say you made the best decisions you could in the circumstances for legitimate reasons, especially the first.

Just because life doesn't turn out how you dreamed or becomes difficult, that doesn't mean that every decision along the way was a mistake! Most of life is luck anyway, it's not a question of success or failure. And there's no prize giving ceremony upon death for totting up the most "wins".

I wouldn't describe "mistake 1" as a mistake. Grieving for the life you dreamed of having doesn't make something a mistake. Bargaining and denial are normal parts of grief, and that's how your reasoning comes across to me. I do not believe you would have come well out of that situation if you had coerced yourself into having sex and brought a child into a relationship you knew had already broken down.

A child asking for a sibling doesn't mean they're heartbroken or scarred for life. lots of children say things like that even if they already have siblings. I used to ask for a second sibling as a child, not understanding the implications - I didn't get one and it hasn't ruined my life!

If you never start taking the tablets, you'll never feel better.

If you start taking them today, you may gradually feel better over the coming weeks.

I understand your desperation at needing immediate relief, but the only thing you're doing that I might describe as a mistake is to deny yourself the possibility of ever feeling better because you're so desperate for relief immediately.

Have you looked at or considered cognitive behavioural therapy? If you Google "cci resources anxiety" there are free self-guided modules based on CBT.

I think it might help to reframe these events in your mind op. They are not "mistakes" and thinking of them as such is holding you back. Life is a series of decisions. Some are better than others, but we make them with the best intentions and information we have at the time. You are being far too hard on yourself.

Can you just focus on one thing ATM; perhaps the job search is the most immediately important? And once you have that one thing sorted, the others things may not loom so large.

Perhaps try and book a few on-line sessions with an on-line licensed psychologist to try and work through these issues. And take the medication! Do you have any RL support such as friends or family? If so, please talk to them?

TrollTheRespawnJeremy, thanks for your comment. I typed my post in a way of unburdening myself. So didn't really go into the context of what I was saying. But no, I don't think private schools are the key to happiness nor do I necessary want lots of money. It's just that the former was something I had set my eyes on for the longest time and it was an affordable place and the later, well, I've been working towards certain earning goals to be able to look after myself and child and got to a position where I felt that if I let myself accept a lower pay, it might take me a while to build my pay packet back up to where it was. But having said that, a low pay job is better than no job so I agree that was a daft move :-).

Am going to work on being happy with what I have. And yes, I get child support so thankfully that's not an issue.

The situations you describe aren’t mistakes. We all make decisions every day that lead to different places, we’ll never know how the other ways would have turned out so stop beating yourself up over them. I’d prefer a smaller house in a nicer area and your son will be fine whether he gets private education or state. The best thing you can do for anyone is focus on yourself. Write a list of what you can change and take one step at a time. Be kind to yourself and get help for your anxiety, small steps.

user14179543589 thanks for your post. I don't know about cognitive behavioural therapy but have seen it mentioned in various places. Will take a look and see.

My worry about my child being an only child was the loneliness and going through life by himself after we pass on. Am still grieving for my mum 15 years since she passed on and yet I have 4 siblings. So I keep worrying how he'll manage when the same happens to me and he won't have anyone who understands exactly what he's going through. Ofcourse, the unthinkable could happen and life does it the other way round but it's something that worries me. I just need to find a way to deal with it.

I have decided to give the meds a go.

Artforartssake I hear you. Yes, am going to try to focus on one thing at a time. Thank you for posting.

Pinkchocolate thanks for your post. I will make that list.