Anonymous asked this question on 4/16/2000:

Before my mother died many years ago, I purposely distanced myself from her physically and psychologically because she made multiple suicide attempts and I couldn't handle it.

When she died, I was living in Atlanta and she was living in Chicago. She died in February and the last time that I had seen her was at my sister's wedding the previous August. We had been in touch by phone and mail, though.

I have felt guilty about distancing myself since her death, but at the time I made the decision to distance myself, I felt that I was doing it for my mental health. Was I wrong? I know that I can't undo what is already done, but I still feel bad about what I did.

AskNeisha gave this response on 4/17/2000:

No one can say you were wrong for distancing yourself when your mother was making suicide threats or attempts. Not even you. As you stated you did what you needed to do at the time to save yourself mentally. How could that possibly be wrong? It's so easy to look back upon the past after all the dust has settled and critique yourself but, that isn't a really fair way to assess it. You need to think about the situation and what you did in a logical manner because logic thinks clearly. Even if you could go back and to do it all over again, can you honestly say under the same circumstances you wouldn't make the same choice as you did back then? There's nothing wrong with that.There is something wrong if you let the guilt you seem to be feeling get out of control and blown out of proportion. You're right. Nothing can change our past after the fact. And making yourself feel guilty over it is not fair to your present. In the future you don't want to look back on this time and think you shouldn't have felt the guilt you do now, right? So, put it into perspective and move on so you won't carry the past to your future. Okay?

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