No regrets? Or too many to mention ?

anxiousgran I have just read your post and it made me sad to think of you feeling like this. Maybe you need to speak to someone. I am guessing a GransNetter with more experience of these things than me will post a reply on here and, hopefully, be able to give you some 'proper' helpful advice. Meanwhile I send you my best wishes and a {{hug}} xx

Obviously I regret being a drunk for 20 years, been sober for over 30; still castigate myself for the way my kids spent their childhood but when we discuss it they insist I was a great Mother and they were happy!

ANXIOUSGRAN i really feel for you, the mind is a powerful tool and somethings it just wont let us forget. I have thoughts which go round and round my head especially at night when i am trying to sleep. Is this our punishment for something done years ago???

Thanks Dannirae, also for thoughts from grannylyn and travelsafar. I think I'm meting out my own punishment, just don't know how to stop it. Perhaps guilt is part of the package of being a mother.

Anxiousgran - you say your children cannot remember the incidents. Could you apologise to them and say you wish you had been a (even) better mum when they were little. Also perhaps when you are by yourself write down the 'crimes' as you see them and burn them on the fire or in a tin in the garden to signify they are gone forever. If the thoughts recur try and think of something else. Could you be depressed? If things don't improve please see your GP.xx

There is no such thing as a perfect mum ( and don't we all know it!!)

Anxiousgran, have you considered going for counselling? It seems to me that if you are punishing yourself for things your children cannot even remember that your thoughts and behaviour have gone beyond the 'having regrets' stage. As mumofmadboys says, you may be suffering from depression. I would definitely go and talk to your GP. A short course of CBT may help.

ANXIOUSGRAN thank you for the flowers and I hope you can get some help for your feelings of guilt,though to me it sounds as though you have nothing to be guilty about.We all lose our patience with our children from time to time and say something we wished we hadn't and thankfully it does them no harm whatsoever.Sometimes we magnify problems and then they consume our every waking hour.Go see your GP about your feelings and I'll keep you in my thoughts until you let us know you're OK

Thanks all of you for putting the messages for me. I have apologised to my sons in the past and they have laughed and told me not to be silly. I think I'm getting too guilty to bring it up with them again.
I have been thinking of going to my GP as I'm too ashamed to actually put it into words to tell DH or friends. I'm not sure what my GP will make of me though. Perhaps I could find a help line somewhere so I don't have to face anyone.
Just typing this to gransnetters has helped a bit and I was relieved this morning when I read other people have such guilt.
Since writing it here has helped, I may well try your suggestion mumofmadboys

Annie, thanks for sharing too, my regret is that when I and my best friend were 19, I slept with her fiance, it was totally out of character for me, I was a virgin at the time, and he turned up at my house the night before the wedding, drunk, saying he didn't love my friend, I feel so ashamed about that. she never found out, but every opportunity he had, he'd try to see me. I eventually moved to another city, and my friend couldn't understand why I left, that was 30 years ago now. If she ever bumps into any of my family, she still asks after me. It eats away at me every day. I've heard that they divorced because of his infidelity about 10 years ago. I would never contact my friend to tell her what happened, I don't think it would do anything except cause pain, so I will keep that secret.

anxiousgran

Your sons don't remember so there is no need to feel guilty - unfortunately perhaps we do remember where we went wrong or what we could have done better. However, what you said or did could not have been that bad or else they would be filled with anger and resentment now.
They sound as if they love you - hold on to that thought.

Children do have the ability to make us exasperated and I am envious of anyone who has managed to bring up their DC without later having thoughts of what a better mother they could have been.

Any mother who tells you she got it all right is either a liar or delusional.

None of us gets it all right, but we do the best we can and cannot be expected to do more. Also what works for one child doesn't work for another.

anxiousgran you clearly have children who love and care for you. What more could you want? If they do not remember the events that so distress you, it means that they were really not important and count for nothing.

What you need to find out is why you are suffering from these obsessive thoughts. Go to your GP, I would be concerned that you seem to connect all these things with 'shame'. You have done nothing to be ashamed of.

The hardest person to forgive is yourself. I have so many regrets, over how badly I treated my wonderful wife, when we were young. Through my bad temper and alcoholism. When I finally cut out the drink, I became a better husband and father, but I will never be blue to overcome the regrets I have. I know, as I've been trying for years to do it. My wife is gone now and I'll never have the chance to tell her again, how much I love her and how sorry I am. My regrets will be with me to my grave. If your with someone you love, think twice before you give them, a harsh word. Every one of them, will haunt you for the rest of your life.

I have also been reminded that what you say or do and how others interprete it can be very different. anxiousgran, you have yourself said that your DC have no memory of all these wrong things you think you have done.

I have had very clear evidence of this the other way round. DD once turned to me and listed a whole lot of things I did or didn't do in her teenage years that I should or shouldn't have done. I was easily able to quote evidence to disprove one of the items she mentioned and when I discussed this with DH and DS they both disagreed with several of her comments, citing chapter and verse, and also commented that DD, at the time, refused to let me do some of the things she was now saying I failed to do.

Now, I am not setting myself up as the perfect mother. I wasn't, but it was an example of how imperfect memory and understanding, at the time and in retrospect can be.