Dear Sherry:

I re-read your posts on this thread, looking for the origin of your self-blame, figuring that you were in the habit of blaming yourself long before your diabetes-2 diagnosis at 25.

You shared that you suffered from disordered eating and “severe depression” since you were a young teenager, “for most of my teenage… life“, you wrote.

“I’m just really regretting not taking it more seriously or not doing enough“- origin of regret: not having done enough for your parents, not having done enough to make them happy… happy with you being in their lives, being their daughter?

“A lot of my day goes to thinking how my life could’ve been different if I had done things differently” – how different your life would have been if you made your parents happy with you? If you have made them happy, you would have allowed yourself to “go on a date or been kissed or traveled as much as (you) wanted“?

“I’m just not sure how to live in the present when I’m regretting so much of the past” – you are stuck in your original regret, the painful and depressing regret of not living up to your parents’ expectations, or not living up to what they needed you to be?

“I haven’t thought so much about why the depression started. I know it started when I was younger… comparisons with family members” – maybe your parents compared you unfavorably to a sibling or to cousins who unlike you… made their parents happy or proud?

I am asking questions, but I am not expecting you to answer because if I am on the right track then I am touching your pain, irritating it. People most often withdraw when painful issues are brought up, or they get aggressive.

You expressed empathy for me, apologize for venting, and you said that you don’t have anyone to talk to… I am guessing that you have had lots and lots of empathy for your parents, but they did not express empathy for you, and as a consequence, you have little to no empathy for yourself. Maybe sometimes you feel sorry for yourself, but your dominant feeling is that you are at fault, that you are to blame…?

anita