A Life Not Coloured by Regret

Those of you who are on an automatic feed of my blog may have read my post “The Greatest Remedy is to Live Well”. It was up for an evening and I took it down the next morning. I did that because of a comment that I got from a reader:

Thank you for sharing your painful past and your ways of dealing with it on your blog; that is very brave of you.
If I were you, I would def. be putting more of the blame on your mother than the man she brought into your lives. In fact, if she were my mother I would hate her very much.
Do you have a relationship with her? Has she acknoweldged [sic] the pain she inflicted on your life via her love life? What a shame. Sure, it brought you to today, but still, what a shame your mother did that to you. She sacrificed you. That's not cool.
How could any mother allow a man to stop her from loving and taking care of her wonderful daughter? Your mother does not sound like a good person.
God only knows what she suffered from her parents in her youth. The cycle of betrayal.

I took the post down for a couple of days because I wanted to reflect on the comment and the questions. I didn’t want others feeling the same way as this reader did, and blame my childhood on my mom. I certainly wouldn’t blame it on her – although there were times in the past that I did fault her for introducing a monster into our midst.

In order to understand how she could have put up with it all, you have to understand the nature, motives, and tactics of a sociopath. I would urge you to read the link here. This is the person who stole my dreams and irreparably harmed my sisters.

He manipulated and twisted my mom the same way, and even more than, he did the children under his supposed care. Though she may have had a lot to answer for in terms of the damage that he did to us, I believe that she was as helpless as we were in understanding that there were viable and safe escape routes. And she suffered greatly for it.

Blaming mom would be tantamount to blaming an abused woman for staying in a relationship. And, thankfully, we have learned where to squarely place the blame in those situations. It is the man who is the abuser and it is the man – and the man solely – who shall take the blame.

I don’t blame my mom, although I would hold her accountable for taking the path of least resistance and, on many occasions, exercising wilful blindness to the catastrophic measures that the resident sociopath was using to destroy her life and the lives of her children. Accountability is different than blame. Accountability calls for an individual to be well aware of the consequences of their choices, and to recognize and acknowledge those consequences. Blame is more centred on notions of perpetrator and victim. I choose not to hide behind a shield of victim, so why would I want to wield a sword of blame?

The reader asks if I have a relationship with my mom. I don’t now but that is only because she passed away nine years ago. I had a wonderful relationship with her for the prior twenty years and before she died, we were firmly at peace with each other. Although mom was not really good at acknowledging faults (a trait I inherited!), it was clear that she regretted many choices that she had made in her life. Though she could not undo the past, she could – and did – make sure the present was filled with joy, love, and safety. She became my biggest and best cheerleader as I recaptured the stolen dreams of my youth.

I wanted to let the reader know that I appreciate the comment and questions. I especially appreciate that the comments made me pause a bit and re-assess the post. I am careful about being too raw and open in my writing. At the same time I want to be honest enough to share my life with others – a journey that many seem to enjoy.

I also want to go deep enough so that others might identify with my thoughts or circumstances. Another reader who commented certainly did identify, having had some childhood issues herself that have deeply affected her. She also offered that a therapist had told her that it takes twice as long to heal as it took for the originating events to unfold, although in my reader’s experience it can take longer. However, sticking with the twice-as-long proposition, I find it coincidental and yet cathartic that the moment of healing for me would have been in the year leading up to my mother’s death. At no other time in my life was I as close to my mother as I was in that year.

With that knowledge, I am affirmed in my philosophy that one should not live a life coloured by regrets. Instead, I am grateful that I have the strength, support, and stamina to plan my own biography.