Humans may be the only animal to experience regret. Bad choices and harmful actions are just a couple of the sources for regret in our lives. There’s nothing positive that comes along with it. You can experience the opposite of regret, with pride and celebration. However, regret is a negative emotion or feeling and is likely a sub-emotion of remorse or even more deep-down, evolving.

As a recovering narcissist I’ve learned remorse is tricky to navigate. Most people who grew up without emotional attachment with their parents, such as myself, are strong candidates for narcissism. And if you’re just getting off the boat, narcissism isn’t about “self obsession” or “admiring yourself in your own reflection”. It’s actually quite the opposite. Those who have the worst self loathing imaginable are likely in this category of mental state. Lacking that connection you typically experience from birth when your mind is still a blank slate will shape you toward living a life incapable of emotion, or more prominently empathy. Mostly this means not sharing others’ emotional states in times of crisis. This doesn’t mean having a heart made of iron steel. Far from it. I have a wide emotional bandwidth, just no moral compass. It’s just as easy for me to feel hate and love, as it is to not feel sad or happy, whenever the situation calls for it. Meaning, I have to try harder at the smaller emotions than most people.

Once you realize who you are and why you’ve been the way you have, it’s so much easier to control and improve upon yourself. In addition to lacking a loving connection when I was growing up, I also lacked guidance. Most of what I learned was trial by fire. Literally, if I wasn’t burned by something, I wouldn’t know how hot shit can get. I had to make mistakes, and keep making mistakes or I wasn’t going to mature. We are definitely creatures that learn from our mistakes. But even more important was the lesson of how and why something we did was a mistake, and not intentional and warranted. Knowing why the fire burning your hand is bad, is just as important as feeling pain from being burned. Otherwise, you’re going to keep cooking until you simply can’t tolerate the pain. As the saying goes, whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. This strength is critical at every stage of human growth.

In my previous post I detailed how I suffer from social phobia. One of the toughest social situations for me is public intoxication. Whenever I’m with a band of coworkers or friends and start drinking I have to seriously focus on how much I’ve been drinking or I easily get carried away. Normally I handle this by simply not drinking. But, I’m also not that boring. I occasionally like the social test that drinking with others provides. I’ve been around and of drinking age for long enough, I should truly know my limits and how to control myself. But this last Friday I was meeting a critical social threshold and didn’t prepare myself as I usually do. In the past I’ve really been carried away with blacking out and being my obnoxious default state when getting drunk. Last week was yet another prime example. And, I really fucking regret doing it.

However, this post isn’t about getting carried away with alcohol. In fact, if you don’t get carried away while drinking you’re doing it wrong. No, this post is about my biggest regret in this situation: the post “last call” trip to Denny’s restaurant. Against my better judgement, which is all but evaporated after the 6 or 7 Jack and Cokes I had, I went to Denny’s. I ordered a western omelet while coworkers I thought were friends watched me do it. And, worst of all, I consumed it and all that the plate carried as if my life depended on it. After paying the bill and continuing home all that was left was to feel disgusted and pathetic.

It had been years since I last did a Denny’s run after drinking all night. And, here I was again, getting burned (intestinal mind you) as if I was 17 again. I mean, I was 21, yeah. Shit, I may have more mistakes I need to come clean with. Uh…until next time, remember this: Friends don’t let friends eat at Denny’s.