Permission to feel: Regret

Transforming Regret into Wisdom: A Personal Story

The sun is out and I feel like writing about joy or love or hope, but goddamnit, I wrote down a schedule in January and I’m sticking to it to keep me on track.

So today, I regret to inform you that I am writing about…regret.

Regret…ooh, I’m getting that semantic satiation thing going on with the word now. Anyway, regret is when we believe the outcome was caused by our decisions or actions.

I think part of my flapping about above before I get onto the subject of regret is because, whilst my story concerning this feeling does come with wisdom, I don’t think it will ever stop being tinged with sorrow.

Just to prepare you, this newsletter details the fallout of suicide and the effect of trauma.

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I wrote this week’s poem on the 20th anniversary of my friend’s suicide. I was the last person to be with her.

I want to howl my heart today.

I want to howl my 'houch' away.

My heart that’s heavy,

My heart that’s sore;

That’s left me howling, like before.

I want to unlearn lessons taught,

Rewind the clock.

I wish I’d fought…

I want to have stayed with you that night 

And, like I promised, make it right.

I want you to have cried “I’m not ok!”

When I suggested ‘one more day…’,

But you just smiled and said, ‘Sure’,

And that left me howling on the floor.

I want us to be talking now,

Of that near miss when you worked out how

Your life (your life!) was worth holding onto still;

Not cut short by some deadly pill.

We were 20, in Spain as part of our year abroad for our university course.  It was January and I had just returned back to Oviedo after Christmas. Oviedo is now described by the Lonely Planet as a ‘fun, sophisticated city’.

It has changed a lot since we were there 🥴.

I had had dreams of going to Spain for sun kissed days and sangria kissed nights, but I was met with a place that reminded me of…

Wrexham.

As soon as I landed that cold January day I dumped my bag at my apartment I went to see Bella¹. She had just got back that day too, to an empty apartment which she normally shared with two English girls who had yet to return.

I rented a room within an apartment owned by Spanish nurse called Mercedes. My room was poky, with barely enough space to fit the bed and condensation running down the walls. It was very cheap, which at the time was very important to me. It was the height of the recession and affordability trumped suitability.

When I arrived at Bella’s place she seemed pretty low. She had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and returned with bottles of anti-depressants. 

What I understood about depression and mania at the time was that some people are just born with a chemical imbalance in the brain. Recent research shows that this theory is unfounded. What we now know, with evidence to back it up thanks to MRI scans, is that trauma restructures our neural network. It affects things like planning, memory, and emotional regulation. 

Bella had had significant trauma in her life. When we are traumatised we are in a constant state of feeling unsafe, so we adapt with coping behaviours. Some of these may be flight behaviours such as mania or addictive behaviours. Some may be fight, such as rage, and others have a freeze response, such as depression.

The antidote is to kick your parasympathetic nervous system into touch, through connection. Imagine though, (as many people are) you are labelled with a disorder, a condition that is down to ‘just the way you are’. This labelling differentiates you, stigmatises you and can make it harder for you to connect. Thus your trauma response gets impacted and exacerbated. 

The night before she died I sat with Bella as she talked about not wanting to disappoint her family by dropping out of uni. She just couldn’t see a way through. I talked about the sun rising and having hope and God knows what. I suggested that I stayed with her, but as the night went on she seemed to cheer up and I asked if she would be ok if I went home. I wanted to unpack and, if honest, was worried about appeasing my landlady. Mercedes was lovely, it was an unfounded worry, but I just felt like I should go back and say hello. My appeasement pull was strong.

Bella smiled, said sure and reassured me she’d be ok. So after a couple hours more chat I went back to my digs.

The next morning the phone rang. I can’t recall who called me. Somehow though, message got to me that Bella was in hospital, having taken an overdose. It never occurred to me that she would actually be successful in completing suicide that day. I remember being on a packed bus which took me up to the hospital, chastising Bella in my head for being so silly. Things didn’t need to get THAT bad!

All I remember about being told about Bella is the doctor trying to soften the blow by saying the words (amongst many) ‘se fallecío’. It means ‘she passed away’ in Spanish. As the doctor said those words I wracked my brains trying to remember what they meant. Then one of my A level spelling tests came to mind and I remember conjugating fallecerese and, more importantly, what it meant.

A confounding combination of the mundane and the profound happening at the same time.

I don’t remember being particularly emotional. I went into crisis mode, which for me meant shut down emotions and getting waaaaay into my head with planning and organising. I knew that Bella’s dad was on a plane to come over and my mind immediately went to what he would be confronted with upon his arrival.

I felt enormously responsible. If I had just stayed with her. If I had just managed to say the right thing or take my guttural concerns seriously. I threw that sense of responsibility into sorting everything out over the next couple of days. Death certificate, coroners report, repatriation arrangements. Within a week, we were all packed up and bringing Bella home. I didn’t return to Oviedo.

I was told though, following her funeral, that if I didn’t return to Spain to complete my course I would fail it. I put my foot down and said that there was no way I could return to Oviedo and the university managed to find me a placement in Murcia. Within about three weeks I was back in Spain, my baggage heavier with the traumatic memories of what had just happened. 

No therapy, no concern about that impact on me. In fact, I had one of the lecturers in tears on the phone to me about how it had impacted them.

I had known that Bella was low, but I never asked the explicit question about whether she was suicidal or not. I spent many years plagued with ‘what ifs’. What if I had asked her, stayed with her that night, said something different?

I have found some peace in knowing that I gave her as much understanding and love as I could that night and that her decision to do what she did was hers to take.

Was the outcome caused by my decision and action? Whilst I spent many moments questioning that, I can’t change anything. She, ultimately, made that decision which lead to that devastating outcome.

What I can do is channel her memory and essence through the way that I show up in the world. I’ll never know what positive influence I’ve had because, well, it’s not ever easy to see, but it seems like a good legacy to try to continue, in memory of her wonderful spirit. 

It informs the work I do today, how I am ALWAYS advocating for the story behind the label. In my experience with clients, there has always been a story.

I’m certain that this experience lead me to jump at the chance of organising Mindfest this year. I am so delighted about the speakers who have shown up for us and said yes. I will channel that regret into doing what I can to spread a message of care and understanding and hope to those who cannot see beyond their ‘brokenness’.

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Someone else who has a similar motivation is Julia Warren. Julia is a mother, yoga teacher, writer and recovering addict. In September 2021, she lost her husband Doug when he relapsed and died of a drug overdose.

In this podcast episode, Julia shares her own writing, documenting her thoughts and feelings as she grieves her husband.

We talked about what's helpful and unhelpful when someone is grieving. What the shittiest things are about grief, and how through fully surrendering to our grief, it's possible to find joy, and hope.

Human connection is about not turning our faces away when the going gets tough. It's about sitting with our own sense of inadequacies that may surface when we are faced with a situation that we don't know how to deal with. Saying 'I don't know, but I'm here and I'm staying here' is a really simple, but profound thing that we can offer to someone, anyone when they are going through a difficult time.

I hope that through talking with Julia, we have given you courage, if you need it, to not turn away from the difficulties in life and face them. Yes, maybe with fear and uncertainty but the way to get through is to continue in spite of that fear, because it's the path to human connection.²

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This week I am sure it feels like heavy reading, and whilst I regret that, I dearly believe it’s necessary reading.

I do hope that you can help me in spreading the word about Mindfest. Tickets are now on sale and I need help in getting the word out to as many people as possible.

I hope to see you there.

Please pass this email on to 5 people to spread the word.

That’s it for now,

‘Til next time,

Jacky x

1. I’ve changed her name. There is something that feels exposing to her if I use her real name whilst sharing her story.

2. Available resources dealing with addiction and suicide for the UK:

https://www.ataloss.org/faqs/bereaved-by-an-addiction

https://www.changegrowlive.org/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

For Punjabi communities: https://www.nomorepretending.co.uk/about

gov.uk/browse/benefits/bereavement

https://www.drugfam.co.uk/

https://www.papyrus-uk.org/

For families of addicts:

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://www.al-anonuk.org.uk/

Specifically for children:

https://www.childline.org.uk

https://www.hopeagain.org.uk