ADHD memes

"I blame only myself though, ultimately, because a little foresight and mental strength could have spared me a lot of trouble."

My gut instinct here is to say that it sounds like you're holding yourself to too high a standard. Perhaps there were things you could have done differently, but were they really things that you could have reasonably foreseen and enacted while you were in the moment?

I know that for me, better paths that I can see now through hindsight were often ones that were either invisible to me at the time, or things I had considered, but felt utterly incapable of actually enacting; there were many better paths available to me that I would've only been able to go down if I had been at "full health", so to speak. And so looking back, all I can do is lament the circumstances that led me to be in a situation where the strength and wisdom required of me was more than I could muster in my exhausted state.

It's a common instinct of those who have experienced trauma — to look back on what we experienced and agonise over what we could have done differently. I think the reason for this is that for as varied as trauma and its causes are, at the heart of most of it is a loss of control or personal agency. That's the factor that seems to elevate distress into capital T Trauma.

It can be reassuring, in an odd way, to blame oneself for the events that caused the trauma, because it allows us to construct a narrative in which we had more control than we actually did in that situation, which can create a sense of safety in the aftermath. But unfortunately, not everything is a scenario that can be learned from and prevented in future — sometimes awful things happen that we couldn't have reasonably prevented or handled much better than we did. Sometimes simply surviving the ordeal is an impressive achievement, which sucks to have to admit. Certainly, the thought makes me feel quite vulnerable.

However, the sense of safety that one gets from blaming oneself for past events is a fragile kind of safety that can impede long term healing. You'll never be the same person you were before the events that led you to this point, but it is possible to heal enough to build new futures — whilst also grieving all the possible futures you lost. I also want to emphasise here that whilst I might sound like I have my shit together in this respect, it's an ongoing journey for me too, and if there's anything I've learned, it's that recovery is a slow and non-linear process. A lot of the wisdom in this comment is stuff that I spend a lot of time trying to properly internalise and incorporate into my own life.

Though I do concede that, given that I know nothing of the events that caused you so much so strife, it's entirely possible that there are things you could've reasonably done at the time, even without the benefit of hindsight. Even so, I don't think it's useful to actively blame yourself for what happened. What has happened has already happened, and you're already suffering for it through the consequences of that period. Beating yourself up about it is effectively like giving yourself double the punishment than you would rightfully "deserve" (and "deserve" is in quotes because I still think it's likely that you're not nearly to blame as you think you are). And looking at this pragmatically, if "the beatings will continue to morale improves" was going to help you get your shit together, it probably would have worked by now.

Whether it was past you to blame, or circumstances beyond your control, effectively, the situation you're now in is that your capacity checking account is running low, and you have a huge backlog of "bills" to pay. It is possible to come back from that kind of situation, but you'll never be able to get back the time or resources that were lost to this extended ordeal. That sucks, and it's unfair, but to ruminate on things you could've done differently is just throwing more time onto the pyre.

If therapy is something that's potentially accessible for you, then I'd strongly recommend it, as healing is much easier with professional help. If that isn't an option for you (and I know it isn't for many — it certainly isn't for me), then at the very least try to forgive yourself for what happened. You can't change what's in the past, but you do deserve a future that's better than your present. Even if you were 100% to blame for what happened, I would still believe this to be true.