My New Year's Resolution: Not to rely on a chair for support!
Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians 1:13
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Although it was not me who chose to spend that period of my life, from before I was 13 until I was 16, in the company of Men who used and abused my body, grown Men, adult Men, Men I looked up to and respected and to whom I gave my trust; though it was them who groomed me, exploited me, used their position of authority and power over me, to make me a living sex doll for their own pleasures; despite that, I still feel some guilt that I allowed it, that I went along with it, that I permitted it to happen.
     That isn't logical and, in all the counselling and support I received afterwards, it was explained to me that I was an innocent and vulnerable child who should never have been used in those ways, and that the guilt – though never proved in a Court of Law – belonged to the Men who made use of me. But I still felt it.
     Like the person who blames themselves for walking home along a quiet street and getting mugged.
     Like the person who hasn't triple-locked their home and fitted burglar alarms and installed a guard dog to give burglars a short, sharp, shock.
     Like the person who falls for the glib and charming voice on the telephone and trust it to be the voice of the bank and gives them the information that enables the criminals to empty their bank account and abscond with their life saving.
     Like the person who jostles, in the crowded pub, the elbow of a stranger who, having spilt some of their beer, decides to punish you by ramming the broken glass of their pint into your face, causing life changing injuries and the loss of an eye.
     Or the person who survived the Holocaust but lost their entire family and six million of their Faith and ever afterwards wonders why they were spared and feels that they did not deserve this and others should have survived in their place.
     Or the child who survives the motor-way pile-up which took the lives of her mother and baby sister and feels guilty for being chosen to live in their place.

We know it doesn't make sense for people to blame themselves for the actions of criminals, murderers, and those twists of fate which put them in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong epoch, yet condemns them to carry this feeling of guilt for years after.
     This is one of the reasons I became a Counsellor myself – to try to make up for what I had been through, by helping others to find their own solutions for the difficulties they have encountered, often through addictions. Because we can become addicted to self-reproach, and to negative self-talk, which encourages us to thoughts and beliefs which are every bit as much a form of self-harm as cutting or drinking or taking drugs or forming abusive relationships. We deserve better from ourselves. We need to be kinder towards ourselves. We need to be our own Best Friend Forever. I have always – well maybe not quite always, but certainly frequently - found myself giving others the benefit of the doubt, but failing to allow myself that. I have been able to see beyond a person's behaviour and understand that there are issues and circumstances which have influenced them and made them the person they are and behave in the ways that they do. Every action is the result of something which preceded it, and we may not know what that was, because being human we do not have that all-seeing gift of Gods. So we try to make allowances. Well I do. For others, not always for myself.
So, if I have any regrets today,
I suppose what I feel I ought to say, is:
Miss Teri Regrets that she has blamed herself, too harshly, for too long, for what was none of her fault at all, and has resolved to be far more forgiving of her own mistakes, just as she is quick to forgive others for theirs.