The Rat At 3 AM

[Pinkie]

I have been having a philosophical summer, almost as if I were 19 again and trying to figure out what I think about myself and the world all over again. I feel more lost now, at 59, than I did 40 years ago. One of my questions, which I cannot answer, is whether to forgive myself and if so, how to do so.

I'm not evil, and never have been, but in my life (like I suppose in most lives as long as mine), I have been careless or stupid or self-indulgent in ways that have had unintended but dreadful consequences for other people. I could tell this to a priest, to a therapist, to a dear friend, but the truth is I have done all those things in the past and the telling of it has not lightened me even one moment -- and has, no doubt, caused the listener some pain (even if only the injury of knowing).

So I have decided to tell you. Not all of it -- I think that's preposterous. Who in their right mind would want to hear every sin I've condemned myself for? But I'll tell you the very short version of one such, and I invite you to care, not about me (as I don't think such is truly possible on the net), but about the question.

If you were me, could you forgive yourself?

Okay, here's what I did: I was careless and foolish, and played a big role in allowing a predator into a business sector I was a frontline regulator for. It was liability insurance for school sports programs, and when the schools had filed enough claims, the business evaporated and left people in the most dire straits. There were dozens of kids made quadreplic from breaking their necks in football or swimming, and so on. The insurance should have paid for their care for their entire lives and that promise was totally and completely broken. This was a deliberate fraud and took all of 18 months to complete, and made the fraudster a multi-millionaire.

Anyway, after the collapse of this business, I hunted the fraudster who had designed it and profited from it. I wasn't alone in my hunt, and I wasn't the most talented member of the team chasing him, but I was probably the most determined. I was the one who not only wanted the money, so we could pay at least part of what the injured kids were owed, I wanted the fraudster to go to prison.

He figured out what I intended and he knew I might succeed, so to escape, he murdered a man and then threw his body from a plane to fake his own death, as if he had died in a sky-diving mishap. Three years later, he was found -- with the money and in a country with no extradition treaty. He never was punished, by me or anyone else, and there never was any repayment of what was owed, to the kids or anyone else. So I failed to get anyone justice, and my zeal cost yet another person their life.

I can honestly say I didn't expect the murder -- and yet I knew on the day I was told he had died that he had faked his death and killed someone to do it. I obviously should have known. A sociopath who would plan to impoverish kids who were paralyzed -- kids who never would have played sports at schools who couldn't get insurance and thus, would still have been healthy -- someone who would plan such a crime is clearly capable of murder.

It's been over 20 years since all this happened, and I can't forgive myself. I don't think I'm a bad person. I can argue my own case -- I was totally inexperienced, I was up against a world-class criminal, I wasn't alone in not preventing this, blah, blah, blah. Yet I know I was careless and foolish and I am responsible for the part I played in all that misery and suffering. I also feel I had met so many depraved, evil people before this that I should have recognized this fraudster before he was let loose on the business sector I was (partially) responsible for, and that I am (in my failure) responsible for all the injured kids as well. (It would take me awhile to explain all the ins and outs of this regulatory stuff, and it's not really germane to my question.)

I don't care if you are religious or not. I don't care if you struggle with similar issues or just find the question interesting. I'm not looking for absolution or comfort. I'm not unhinged about this -- I've made what peace I can with it. Not that I can make much, but enough so I can get up in the morning, get on with my life, etc.

This isn't coloring my whole life -- but it's one of the rats that gnawes on me at 3 am, if you know what I mean.

I think most adults have at least one such 3 am rat, so I am asking:

If you were me, could you forgive yourself? And if so, how would you do that?

When it's impossible to ever begin to undo the harm you have done, how do you forgive?

 

[American]

I can't see what you allowed to happen, or what role you played in failing to stop him. Seems you did your best, but he still escaped. Doesn't this happen quite often? I think you should consider it a learning experience, and that's all.

 

[Pinkie]

I can't see what you allowed to happen, or what role you played in failing to stop him. Seems you did your best, but he still escaped. Doesn't this happen quite often? I think you should consider it a learning experience, and that's all.

I could explain and maybe I will -- but I'll take one more shot at being brief. I hope you will trust me enough to accept that I am being fair to myself when I say I have some responsibility, American. (I am willing to go into why I say that, if you prefer.)

My question in the Op really just is: when you have a serious grievance on your conscience and cannot make amends, what do you do?

 

[Superfly]

Have you talked to a therapist? You kind of have to figure out a way to make amends, or it's going to eat away at you from now on. You are smart - you already know this, but stress can affect many different aspects of your life, and can greatly affect your health.

 

[Tucker Case]

I would echo superfly's recommendation that you talk to a counselor/therapist, Pinkie. What you are dealing with is not uncommon, even if the circumstances for it are unique.

 

[lizzie]

Having been one who battled with severe depression, off and on over a 12 year period of time, I learned that you must accept your moles and warts, in order to move on past the things that are holding you hostage. Until you resolve that, you will remain frozen in time. It doesn't matter how much someone else loves and forgives you. It doesn't matter if you believe God itself forgives you. You have to forgive yourself and find your self-worth.

 

[grip]

If you can't forgive yourself for not being perfect how can you ever forgive anyone else?

Throw away your judges robe and join the rest of us flawed people.

 

[MaggieD]

Did you help get this guy get the business with malice in your heart? Were you getting kickbacks?

If the answer to these two questions is, "No," then you are obsessive and in need of medication and/or therapy.

If you can't accept the fact that you did the best you could do at the time, that you were duped along with everyone else, then you are obsessive and in need of medication and/or therapy.

I cannot even fathom why you would feel guilt in this situation.

The right place for all the blame lies with your state's insurance regulators.

 

[Gardener]

The key to me here is that you feel true remorse, which will result in any good people forgiving you even if you have a difficult time forgiving yourself. Far too many people in your situation would rationalize. They would concoct elaborate excuses in their head as to why they bore little or no responsibility and then concoct even more as they tried to run from it. Still, it would eat at them and they would eventually have to come to grips or they would be a sociopath incapable of such.

If you are to derive anything helpful from others for this, it should be that THEY forgive you and that it is your taking true responsibility for your role that allows them such -- however great or small the role, itself. I have found over the years that my ability to understand the full ethical implication of a matter depends upon the degree of my involvement. The more immersed I am in the little things, the less I see the big sometimes, and it is far too easy to get entangled in something incrementally and through our connections to others. By the time we realize our actual role, we are in too deep.

You do need to forgive yourself, Pinky. I think the fact that you are still struggling with it is what will lead you towards the true forgiveness. You are not washing your hands of it, you are not rationalizing it and you are not putting it on a shelf unwilling to deal with it, so that forgiveness will come. If you can take any solace from anything, it should be that you would not be struggling as you are UNLESS you were a good person. Draw from that for your strength.

 

[Pinkie]

Did you help get this guy get the business with malice in your heart? Were you getting kickbacks?

No, of course not -- but if I hadn't been so busy feeding my ego and had paid attention as I was being paid to do, I'd have had a chance at seeing what harm might come. And I was the real decision-maker; this scheme never got a thoughtful look-see at a level above mine and I knew that this was the case at the time.

If the answer to these two questions is, "No," then you are obsessive and in need of medication and/or therapy.

I really do appreciate the concern, but I don't need this sort of reply. I need something more philosophical from y'all.

Let me ask it this way. In my view, one huge difference between a normal human and a sociopath is a conscience and the capacity to feel guilt. I therefore think guilt is a healthy emotion, if it's in proportion to an act that should be avoided, like committing a fraud. I bet most all of us agree about this.

But after the act has been completed, and the harm is so massive and cannot be undone, is guilt still of any value? If I say "well, there's nothing I can do to change what happened" and forget it, truly forget these people I harmed, is that healthy? Is it ethical?

I am not suffering some pathology because of this guilt -- but it's part of the reason I don't believe God interferes in our lives no matter what, either. I did make an act of confession many years ago, to see if I'd feel any differently, and I found the whole business very very repulsive. I can have a hand in the suffering of dozens and even the murder of a man, then say a few Hail Marys and it's as if it never happened for me? WTH kind of person could do such a thing? Isn't that almost as sociopathic as the lack of a conscience to begin with?

I'm not sure if waking up raking over the details of all this once or twice a year at 3 am is a suitable punishment for me, or even if I "deserve" to be punished. But without being able to say why, I think I'd be less of a person if I had no 3 am rats to chew on my conscience occassionally at my age.

THIS is what I wonder -- am I alone in thinking that we should have some grief all our lives if we cause great harm that can never be undone?

If you can't accept the fact that you did the best you could do at the time, that you were duped along with everyone else, then you are obsessive and in need of medication and/or therapy.

Absolutely I was duped. I have always given myself "credit" for that. However, if I had taken a moment (or a week) to pause and reflect, I might not have been too busy defending my turf and committing other petty vanities to notice that a murdering ****whit was about to destroy families on my watch. The one thing I will give myself, always, is that I never in my life imagined that a rich man in a suit with a very comfortable income could be capable of such depravity. I had had very little experience with the rich and sorta rich, and I was justifiable naive. And I was cured of it, fast.

Yanno, I think about others in positions of power like I was who have allowed horrors to happen. The SEC regulators and lawyers -- especially the guys who received warning after warning about Madoff and did not act. Do they suffer (if that is what I do) because of their malfeasance?

Do you think they should feel guilty? Do you think, if they don't, they are healthier than I am?

I cannot even fathom why you would feel guilt in this situation.

If you are asking how I was in position to stop this before it happened, let me shock you by saying, this is the rule, not the exception. At the state level, the regulatory lawyers are little better equipped for their jobs than a public defender may be, and they behave almost the same way, passing along 90% of what they see with no more than a rubber stamp. I was appalled by this, and still am. I do not give a flying you-know-what how much a job pays; if you agree to accept the responsibilities that job description includes, then by God you best do it if people are depending on you.

As for the regulators, 90% of the ones I knew were pet poodles of some lobbyist or another, waiting for the buffet of benefits to be served daily. There are a few great ones and things are a little better at the federal level but in general, the general public is deluded as to who's watching the store. Maybe it's always been that way, and I guess we limp along nonetheless. But we could do so much better.

The right place for all the blame lies with your state's insurance regulators.

****, Mags, the "right place" for the blame is on the ****whit who got away with murder. But I was hired and paid to keep people like him out, and I failed, and then -- do I say whoops and a Hail Mary and all's right in my world again?

Part of me would like to -- but I am unable to convince myself I'd still be a decent human being if I did.

 

[Pinkie]

I would echo superfly's recommendation that you talk to a counselor/therapist, Pinkie. What you are dealing with is not uncommon, even if the circumstances for it are unique.

So, you see this emotion of guilt, after the fact, as being a deficit that I should be "cured" of, somehow?

Don't you think those of us who unwittingly enable the evil-doers of this world through vanity or some other veniality deserve and benefit in some way from guilt after it happens?

I'm not arguing yes or no -- I'm asking. You honestly believe it's unhealthy to feel guilty about the wrongs you've done?

 

[Pinkie]

Having been one who battled with severe depression, off and on over a 12 year period of time, I learned that you must accept your moles and warts, in order to move on past the things that are holding you hostage. Until you resolve that, you will remain frozen in time. It doesn't matter how much someone else loves and forgives you. It doesn't matter if you believe God itself forgives you. You have to forgive yourself and find your self-worth.

Oddly, a (relatively minor) part of my self-worth is based on the fact that I still grieve for those I injured so long ago, lizzie. Am I an oddball about this?

 

[Pinkie]

If you can't forgive yourself for not being perfect how can you ever forgive anyone else?

Throw away your judges robe and join the rest of us flawed people.

I do think my question is one most people must ask themselves, at some point in their lives. The harm you caused may be minor compared to mine, and perhaps "caused" is the wrong word. But surely most of us have driven a car and crashed it and caused real sorrow through being negligent or some such sin over the years.

 

[lizzie]

So, you see this emotion of guilt, after the fact, as being a deficit that I should be "cured" of, somehow?

Don't you think those of us who unwittingly enable the evil-doers of this world through vanity or some other veniality deserve and benefit in some way from guilt after it happens?

I'm not arguing yes or no -- I'm asking. You honestly believe it's unhealthy to feel guilty about the wrongs you've done?

There is guilt and remorse, then there is pathological guilt and remorse, in which people obsess and cannot put into perspective the actual value of that guilt. It is consuming, and it becomes a subconscious reason for rejecting a content life. The important thing is not to feel guilt endlessly, but to learn the consequences of our actions, and improve ourselves based on those life lessons. There are things that many of us do, for which we feel great remorse, but guilt and remorse are tyrannical when they become your masters. The goal is positive change, not living in misery. You can't undo the past, but you can keep it in perspective and understand that it taught you something valuable.

 

[lizzie]

Oddly, a (relatively minor) part of my self-worth is based on the fact that I still grieve for those I injured so long ago, lizzie. Am I an oddball about this?

I have no idea if you are an oddball or not. I do know that you are apparently having a difficult time resolving this conflict in your life.

 

[Pinkie]

The key to me here is that you feel true remorse, which will result in any good people forgiving you even if you have a difficult time forgiving yourself. Far too many people in your situation would rationalize. They would concoct elaborate excuses in their head as to why they bore little or no responsibility and then concoct even more as they tried to run from it. Still, it would eat at them and they would eventually have to come to grips or they would be a sociopath incapable of such.

If you are to derive anything helpful from others for this, it should be that THEY forgive you and that it is your taking true responsibility for your role that allows them such -- however great or small the role, itself. I have found over the years that my ability to understand the full ethical implication of a matter depends upon the degree of my involvement. The more immersed I am in the little things, the less I see the big sometimes, and it is far too easy to get entangled in something incrementally and through our connections to others. By the time we realize our actual role, we are in too deep.

You do need to forgive yourself, Pinky. I think the fact that you are still struggling with it is what will lead you towards the true forgiveness. You are not washing your hands of it, you are not rationalizing it and you are not putting it on a shelf unwilling to deal with it, so that forgiveness will come. If you can take any solace from anything, it should be that you would not be struggling as you are UNLESS you were a good person. Draw from that for your strength.

I have forgiven myself to a degree, in that I really believe I could not have done better under the circumstances as they were at that time. Another person could have, I could have and did, later on in my career, but this was almost my first case (approving the scheme, I mean; by the time I was chasing this evil man, I was well along in my education about the vile things some wealthy people are capable of doing for more money). It's impossible for me to say I'm innocent, I did my best. Obviously, even with all my deficits I could have done better -- but I was even then moral and vigorous almost all the time in my professional life. I just wasn't some sort of genius that can see evil in other people at 100 paces, and I wasn't paying the closest attention I could have.

But does any of that mean I am unhealthy ever to awake at 3 am, thinking of the murder victim's family, or wondering how old those paralyzed kids are now? I kinda think it would be unhealthy to forget them completely -- but I am not sure what value my raking it over once or twice a year has to me or anyone else.

Most of you seem to think I have some sort of guilt-induced illness. But is guilt like this unhealthy?

 

[Daktoria]

I get the impression this is a scene from a book. It doesn't seem plausible; too melodramatic.

If it is real, you're not guilty. If anything, you're vain for believing you didn't do enough when you went above and beyond.

Do you want someone to spank you for something that's not your fault?

 

[MaggieD]

I've made plenty of mistakes in my life. Some of them quite serious. When I think about those things? My head goes to, "You did the best you could at the time." If your ego was your failing in that particular situation long ago? Guess what? You're human. Did you learn from it? I assume you gained greater insight into yourself and have learned never to put ego ahead of duty. Failure to do one's due diligence and then becoming an advocate for a scam artist is no small failing. And maybe it is healthy for you to pick the scab off once in a while.

If I were you, I would tend to say to myself, "Just live through this. It'll pass." Because you say it always does. Is guilt a healthy emotion? As long as you don't beat yourself up daily about it, yes, I think it is. That's how we strive to do better.

My biggest moral failing was being an advocate for a guy who ran a Ponzi Scheme in Hinsdale, Illinois. Of course, I didn't know it at the time; but I should have. He fleeced about $5 million from investors before he flew out of town. Disappeared in Florida. Hopefully, he was the stand-in who got thrown out of the plane.

 

[lizzie]

Most of you seem to think I have some sort of guilt-induced illness. But is guilt like this unhealthy?

If it's causing you to spend much time feeling bad, keeping you awake at night, and inspiring you to start a thread about it on a discussion forum, I'd say yes- it's unhealthy.

 

[Fruityfact]

I could explain and maybe I will -- but I'll take one more shot at being brief. I hope you will trust me enough to accept that I am being fair to myself when I say I have some responsibility, American. (I am willing to go into why I say that, if you prefer.)

My question in the Op really just is: when you have a serious grievance on your conscience and cannot make amends, what do you do?

Write a book about it-i'm serious
and it seems like a story anyways...

 

[Gardener]

I have forgiven myself to a degree, in that I really believe I could not have done better under the circumstances as they were at that time. Another person could have, I could have and did, later on in my career, but this was almost my first case (approving the scheme, I mean; by the time I was chasing this evil man, I was well along in my education about the vile things some wealthy people are capable of doing for more money). It's impossible for me to say I'm innocent, I did my best. Obviously, even with all my deficits I could have done better -- but I was even then moral and vigorous almost all the time in my professional life. I just wasn't some sort of genius that can see evil in other people at 100 paces, and I wasn't paying the closest attention I could have.

But does any of that mean I am unhealthy ever to awake at 3 am, thinking of the murder victim's family, or wondering how old those paralyzed kids are now? I kinda think it would be unhealthy to forget them completely -- but I am not sure what value my raking it over once or twice a year has to me or anyone else.

Most of you seem to think I have some sort of guilt-induced illness. But is guilt like this unhealthy?

I don't think you have a guilt-induced illness, Pinky. I think you have a conscience.

In today's world, the two are often confused.

 

[Pinkie]

I don't think you have a guilt-induced illness, Pinky. I think you have a conscience.

In today's world, the two are often confused.

I tend to agree with you, Gardener -- and remember, I have been debating this with myself for over 20 years. I look at the SEC lawyers and regulators who now seem to feel nothing about their role in allowing his fraud to continue long after they should have known, and I think, what sort of freak of nature does something like that?

I guess nobody wants to see themselves as sick, and maybe I'm in denial, but I honestly don't think my occassional guilt-trip down memory lane is anything like clinical depression.

Maybe I am out of fashion, but I don't happen to think that every time we (healthy, normal, well-adjusted adults) are unhappy we need a goddamned therapist to make it stop. Don't healthy, adult humans need to feel loneliness or grief or anxiety or regret or any other unpleasant emotion from time to time, just as much as they need to feel joy or security or all the other good stuff? HTH do you even know that you are happy if you have never been sad? I have always believed that any person's capacity for joy is exactly as big as the depth of pain and sorrow they have known.

As for those of you who have committed some sin against another person, through negligence or on purpose, and say you have "put the guilt behind you", I am asking you: how did you do that? Was it some religious belief? Was it an act of will -- did you just use some mental muscle to expung it? I'm honestly not ridiculing -- I'm even a little jealous.

How did you do this magical thing I cannot do?

 

[lizzie]

I guess nobody wants to see themselves as sick, and maybe I'm in denial, but I honestly don't think my occassional guilt-trip down memory lane is anything like clinical depression.

Then don't worry about it.

Maybe I am out of fashion, but I don't happen to think that every time we (healthy, normal, well-adjusted adults) are unhappy we need a goddamned therapist to make it stop.

Neither do I. I think we hold onto it until we don't need it any more.

 

[grip]

I do think my question is one most people must ask themselves, at some point in their lives. The harm you caused may be minor compared to mine, and perhaps "caused" is the wrong word. But surely most of us have driven a car and crashed it and caused real sorrow through being negligent or some such sin over the years.

I've done many shameful things over the years and if I dwelled on them I'd be racked with guilt. At some point you've got to "let it go" and know that somehow you're actually a better person for having lived through it.

I told my father at his death bed I regretted all the mistakes I had made and harm I caused, and he said, "I don't or you wouldn't be the person you are now". Part of learning humility is in knowing we're all equal through our imperfections. Who you are today is more important than all the compiled mistakes of your past.

 

[Pinkie]

Then don't worry about it.

I'm not worried -- how could I be? There can never be any act I take in future to change the suffering of others in any way. I worry about such things as whether my daughter is as happy as I hoped she would be. Occasionally I indulge in a worryfest about our country's future. But I don't worry about the lives of people I harmed -- or better said, allowed someone else to harm. I just regret, very deeply, that I wasn't better, smarter, faster, etc. and did not stop it.

Neither do I. I think we hold onto it until we don't need it any more.

I think we always need it, lizzie. I'm not saying any of us, even me, deserves to spend years in hair shirt sleeping on nails, but don't healthy people have a fairly accurate view of themselves?

I guess I do think guilt after the fact serves a purpose, even if I can't say exactly what that is for me.