Have you ever done something that made you feel regret for life?

yes

Sure. But we go on as best we can and deal with it.

Yes, more times than I can say, but one can only try to learn from the experience and move on. That’s life.

Yes.

Yes.

Absolutely…no.

I have done things i regretted for a second or three, but I have learned to love who I am, and I am made of everything I have done or said or thought…so, since I love me, I gotta love everything that makes me be me, including things I once regretted.

I was so close to living 100% regret free in the manner you are talking about. It seemed like for me post highschool I was doing ok, and then it became one bad decision after another. They learn from your mistakes… and thrive… and equality is for all… But I will say this.. I wish I was born into a family with an actual plan to raise a child and not have my parents divorce and be raised by a single parent. I’m extremely talented and could have flourished into something great, instead I’m on the same path as my mother who seemed to live paycheck by paycheck. And if you think I’m blaming my upbringing I’m absolutely not. I’ve put myself through college but came up short. Sometimes that’s the way it is, not having a support system especially with family members is extremely tough! I applaud any person who can jump income gaps because I have personally tried and it’s tough as nails. I love my life now. I truly do. Just wish I had mom and dad because yeah I became extremely friendly moving around and meeting tons of people but I never had true trust with my parents.

Yes and there is no turning back now. Wish I had been wiser and had listened to those older than me when I was younger. You see I thought I knew it all back then!!!!

The mistakes that haunt me are the times I let my kids down inadvertently. :(

I believe everyone carries some weight of regret, whether they realize or acknowledge it

I’m so sorry for the way I treated my Mother when I was 6 to 8 years old. As hard as I tried for the rest of my life to make up for it she never forgave me for the hell that I gave her.

What did you do @gondwanalon???

Yes, and very time I remember that I feel awful. I will never get over it. Don’t know why I did it. No matter what good deeds I do or how I try to be a good human being I will never be able to turn back.

I told my friend to F off online and she stopped talking to me forever.

Yes, but thank goodness it was not something that badly or severly negatively affected someone else. It is a regret for myself and affects me most of all. Of course I have inadvertanlty hurt others, I would assume everyone has at one time, but nothing so devastating that it haunts me.

@gondwanalon It’s hard for me to believe that a mother seriously dwells on the hell her 6–8 year old gave her years later. Why do you think she still holds it against you so much? What did you do? I don’t mean to question your perception of the situation, but I know a lot of moms who bitch about some of the things their kids do, but they don’t hold onto any sgnificant negative feelings. If the child, even if it is an adult child now, heard the bitching and venting I could see how it might bother them to the core, but if the mom is just sharing the vent with girlfriends or throwing it out there at their kid to remind them the “hell” they went through, I almsot never take that sort of thing seriously. I don’t know your mom or what happened, so I am not assuming, but if you hold a lot of regret and guilt and have not shared with your mom how very badly you feel about it and that you believe she holds onto anger because of it, I suggest maybe talking to her on a very serious note. She might relieve you of your guilt.

I agree with @JLeslie. I would add that if she truly refuses to forgive you for something you did when you were a young child, SHE is the one who has the problem, and she’s pushing it on you. A child 6 to 8 years old is considered incapable of making mature decisions for good reason.

@Dutchess_III and @JLeslie

My Father died when I was 4 so it was just my Mother, two older Sisters and I. Mom was always working or sleeping. I ran wild without adult supervision. I lied, cheated, stole, broke stuff, did very poorly in school and had a violent temper. One day after a typical screaming temper tantrum I suddenly could see what I was doing to my Mother and my own ugliness and I was so ashamed. So I tried to do good from then on. I became a good student and a son anyone would be proud of.

Later years my Mother claimed to not remember any of my bad behavior (but my Sisters certainly do) however her behavior toward me has been at times cold and a couple times crushingly hurtful in the most passive-aggressive way. I conclude from that that she never really got over how I torment her. But that was >40 years ago. It is all buried deep down and locked way within me yet continues to drive me to be a good person and to treat people kindly.

@gondwanalon – That is sad that you bear a burden of guilt from when you were a young, confused, and grieving child. You didn’t know better, but once you did, you changed your ways. Give yourself credit for that instead of holding on to regret. Perhaps your behavior damaged the relationship you had with your mother; but perhaps there were other issues you’re unaware of, and you might not have had a close relationship even if you had been an angel.

My son was 4 when his dad and I split up, and he was 7 when his father died. I was really emotionally messed-up for a number of years and the poor kid witnessed some really stupid stuff. We were both in a bad state and we both were horrible to each other at times. The school even called child services on us, and their verdict was to have BOTH of us sign a promise not to get physical with the other. Still, I never blamed him, because he was just a kid who didn’t know better and who had shit for a role-model. I definitely have regrets, but he has forgiven me. I eventually grew up and made amends by behaving like the kind of person I want him to become. He is a responsible young man now, and we are very close.

@gondwanalon I really really hope one day you will free yourself of any shame or guilt regarding your actions when you were such a you child. You lost your father very young, which means your whole family was in turmoil. My guess is you remember feeling horrible when you realized you should be behaving better, but I would bet your memory is absent of how you might have been being neglected or treated badly during that time. My guess is there must have been some of that, and you were reacting to your circumstance. All of you should be easy on yourselves enduring such a horrible loss for such a young family.

Believe your mom. As an adult would you hold a 6–8 year old so responsible for their actions? If she does she is the one who is wrong. I have a friend whose kid is a total pain in the neck half the time. Really worse than most kids. Her mom (the kids grandmother) used to say half sarcastically that he would either wind up in jail or wind up one of the richest men on earth and have any woman he wants. He’s smart, beautiful, but can be manipulative, and be so annoying you just give in. He is 14 now and much better as he matures. She still loves that kid like crazy, even though she still off and on has something to bitch about him. She still wants total custody (she shares with her exhusband) she jokes about hoping her son will never move out of the house when he grows up.

I’m sorry your mom still is a little cold or passive aggressive towards you, but it might not have anything to do with your behavior, in fact is there any chance her behavior towards you is what caused you to act out as a child? Relationships usually have a sort of circular thing going on; don’t take all the blame onto yourself, she is to blame as well. Passive aggressive has to be one of the worst things to deal with, I have said it on many Q’s.

Thank you for your empathy and kindness. I did see a counsellor about my inability to get mad one time (I didn’t tell him about my childhood). He said that he would be very mad if he was in my situation (I was in a bad relationship with a woman that treated me like a door mat). The counsellor told me to run away as fast as I could, which I did. I’ve been married to my wife for 24 years and I have never raised my voice to her or had any kind of a verbal or nonverbal fight. She has yelled at me a few times for sure. HA! I’m a hugger not a slugger.

Anyway back my early years my Mom, Sisters and I were definitely an unhappy group (not really a family). We survived the best we could and it was pretty much everyone for themselves. I remember being staved for attention, guidance and discipline. And the best way to get attention was to do something bad. I would do about anything to get someone to stop pretending that I did not exist. So I’d raise a ruckus to try to get someone to look at me, talk to me or even take a swat at me. One time when I was in kindergarten my Mom gave me a hug. I thought “Where did that come from?” I hugged her back and she pushed me away. Also I never got along well with my two older Sisters who were always one step ahead of me. They were always quick to ridicule me for my actions and especially my speech. Also I sometimes “talked too much”. I couldn’t match whits with them. It was always them vs me and I always lost. But I don’t think that or anything else justified my terrible behavior. I was out of control a lot of the time. I knew that it was wrong but I didn’t care. (FYI: Everything has been cool with my Sisters and me since we became adults. No hard feelings remain).

My Mother died in 1995 from sideroblastic anemia. The last thing that I told her a couple days before she died was that I’m sorry for all the bad things that I did and also that I would miss her and I kissed her goodbye. Again she said nothing to me but she did slightly smile. I took care of all the funeral arrangements over the phone to have her remains buried next to my Father.

Early in life I charged up a huge debt for a valuable lesson. A debt that I have never been able to repay no matter how hard I tried to buy my Mother’s love and approval. Doing good and being successful was never enough.

gondwanalon The behavior you describe is exactly the behavior that any child shows when they are neglected and not loved. All you were trying to do is survive, and I can’t think of anything more painful than what you went through. Can you forgive yourself?

^^ “But I don’t think that or anything else justified my terrible behavior.”

It did. Would you expect your own child to behave after treating them like that?!

@gondwanalon You did what every child would do—seek attention. Attention when we are children is not just some selfish thing, it is physically and emotionally necessary. It is like eating and sleeping. You probably know that babies need to be held a certain amount or they have serious problems. Young children need a certain amount of physical touch and emotional attention too. Even adults show positive health responses to touch or even having a pet to pet. Our blood pressure goes down, our heart rate gets better. Being in isolation is a mental torture practically for all ages, it really can make some people insane. As a child we need emotional attention from adults who nurture us. Severe neglect is considered abuse. I’m not saying you were severely neglected, but certainly you were trying to get what the human body needs to be healthy. Just like when a baby cries when they are hungry, because they can’t talk yet, you were trying to figure out how to behave to get what you needed with your 6 year old capabilities.

So, it sounds like you went from being the bad kid to being the extremely good kid, and both are just the flip sides of the same thing.

Were you the youngest child?

I also have a warning, if you never raise your voice and you avoid conflict, just make sure you are not passive aggressive also, I am not assuming you are, you might work out things very well with your spouse and others, but I just thought I would mention it.

@longgone Nope. I’d expect them to behave exactly as @gondwanalon did, and most every other kid in the world has done before him.

Good point @JLeslie. Passive aggressive behavior is often a trait of people who don’t like conflict.

@snowberry Yes, we agree. I wasn’t directing my comment at you, I think the ^^ may have confused you :)

You all are right. It would be a good idea for me to stop beating myself up.

@JLeslie Yes I’m the the baby, gotta love me! Also I would never stoop so low as to use passive aggression on anyone. I workout hard physically for at least an hours every day plus I have a stressful and exhausting job with long hours (I worked two 12 hour shifts this weekend) so I’m pretty beat-up by the end of the day. Maybe I’m just too tired to get mad. HA! But not too tired for having fun!

Well, I want to say one more thing about regret, because I think other people on the Q might be interested, specifically childhood regret, and the OP maybe can decide if it is not related enough, or the mod can delete it. I don’t understand why this is no longer the OP’s thread?

@gondwanalon I see the younger child do this shit to themselves all the time. You were 6 when your siblings were older. If they behaved better, it is because they were in a different stage of mental growth. It has everything to do with your age and not you as an individual. A similar example is I see girl siblings all the time where the younger girl feels less pretty as a young girl comared to her older sister, and then her entire life, but it is actually a function of birth order. The older girl is styling her hair, wearing make-up, wearing more mature clothing “first” because she is older.

[mod says] Although you can post PMs that you have sent to another user, posting a PM sent by another user is not permitted on Fluther under any circumstances.

This question is in the Social section, which means that it is okay for the conversation to flow naturally. However, let’s try to keep the OPs original question in mind as well, okay?