The weight of guilt

I suddenly had an epiphany yesterday and realised that I have been feeling guilty for probably most of my life. You may wonder why I would feel guilty as a child but then again you never met my mother! I never knew my natural father, he wasn't spoken of and I was raised by my mum and my uncle. Initially I was actually led to believe my uncle was my dad and I assumed it was normal for your parents to have separate rooms and never hug or show affection. My mum would have reasoned with me that this was done to protect me but all it did was make me feel we had a big guilty secret that was never talked about. I didn't have friends round as I didn't want them to see my room (I shared with my mum) and I worried about people knowing that we were not a normal family. Nowadays there is nothing shameful about having an illegitimate child but I was made to feel that it was wrong and therefore I was wrong so it had to be hidden. I can also remember an old friend of my mums saying in my hearing that it must be hard when I looked so much like HIM. That added to my guilt.

As I grew older and reached my teens, my mum would make me feel guilty about wanting independence. This even continued after I married when she would actually count how many times we had visited the ex's mum to check if it was more than we had seen her. So my guilt at not being the daughter she wanted was fairly constant!

In the end we lived the other side of London from her and even now I feel guilty that she died alone in hospital as I had no babysitter and couldn't get there every day. She took two weeks to die and I was only able to visit  twice.

I don't think I felt guilty throughout my marriage particularly but boy, did I feel guilty at the breakdown, even though it was him that cheated! I remember reading an article saying that most men don't leave their wife and thinking well, mine did so what did I do wrong? Of course, the guilt about the breakdown effecting the children was all-consuming!!

Finally, we come to Rebecca and her learning difficulties. She has been under assessment for one thing or another for about four years. Every time I was told it was developmental, I'd think what did I do wrong and question whether it was something I did while pregnant. When I read that extreme stress during pregnancy can ;possibly cause developmental delays, the guilt nearly flattened me. It is typical that I blamed myself when the stress was caused by finding out about the ex cheating!

I even realised yesterday that I feel guilty about the ex being such a weak person and the fact that I didn't choose a better man to be my daughters' dad.

Anyway, the point to all this rambling back history of guilt is that I have decided to try and forgive myself. I accept the fact that I disappointed my mother in many ways and will no longer beat myself up for not giving into her control freak ways. I will focus on the positives things from my marriage break up. I am very close to my girls and we have an extremely strong bond. I will accept that their dad will never probably be the perfect father that I wanted for them but realise that he does love them. I can not carry the guilt for his failings, I can only try to be the best mum that I am capable of being.

It sounds cliched but I actually do feel like a weight has been lifted from me. Thanks you for bearing with me through such a rambling post. Bye for now

love Riki xxx