Dear Roselea:

I thought about your thread, your share, early this morning before turning on the computer and wanted to re-visit it, to add to my first reply to you. I hope more members reply as well.

The tragic events you listed are: your mother becoming terminally ill in 2013 and dying two months later, leaving your 12 year career so to care for her, your dog dying, quitting final year in university because of the death of your dog, a relationship with a man ending painfully,  your father dying, losing all your friends.

Some of these tragic events were out of your control, that is, none of your choosing: the illness and the death of your mother, your dog, and your father. Other events were of your choosing: leaving your career of 12 years and quitting university. The other events were partly your choosing: the ending of your relationship with the man and with your friends.

It is important to make the distinction between events we chose, partly chose and those that we had no choosing in. In your second post you wrote that you are “often struggling to come to terms with the past or control the future”- you can control only what you have a choice about. This is why it is important to make the distinction between events we choose  and events we have no choice about.

The serenity prayer states: “god, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.

The difference is knowing what events of those you listed you couldn’t have changed, had no choosing and no control over and what events you could have changed, controlled to some degree or another, had choice about.

Also, your mother dying meant a lot more to you than your father, whom you wrote that you didn’t really know. About your mother you wrote: “I used to cry every time she left me for 5 minutes! Even as I grew up I couldn’t bare to leave her.

Notice that when you were a child you already felt loss whenever your mother left you for five minutes. it was a five minute-or-so tragedy over and over again, whenever she left, correct?

You wrote “Sometimes I think she loved me too much and needed me to love her too much”- would you like to elaborate on this powerful statement?

anita