The Confessions

"I once made a significant error that cost my company a major contract. I managed to shift the narrative so that the blame landed on my team rather than on me. They never found out. I received a formal apology from my manager on their behalf. I said thank you."

"I applied for a job my colleague had told me about in confidence, one she was about to apply for herself. I got it. She found out. She said she understood. She did not speak to me voluntarily for a year."

"I told my ex that I did not blame them for how things ended. I did blame them. I blamed them for years. I only stopped when I finally admitted to myself how much of it was my fault too."

"I feel a complicated relief when people I once envied go through difficult times. I recognise it immediately and I am ashamed of it immediately. But it is there. I think it is the shadow side of comparison and I have not yet worked out how to stop comparing."

"I have judged people silently and harshly for things I have since done myself. The hypocrisy is not lost on me. I am trying to be slower to judge now. But the memory of my earlier certainty about other people is its own source of shame."

"I ended a three year relationship by text because I was too cowardly to do it in person. She had done nothing wrong. I was just bored and too afraid of her tears to face her. I have never forgiven myself for that."

"My father worked two jobs my entire childhood so I could have opportunities he never had. I took those opportunities completely for granted and never once thanked him properly. He died of a heart attack at sixty two. I never got to say what I should have said every single day."

"Six months ago I confessed here about the years I lost to drinking. Today I am celebrating three years without a drink. I do not know if confessing here was the turning point but it was part of the turning. Thank you to everyone who sent karma. You helped more than you know."

"I pretended not to receive a message from someone who loved me because I did not know how to tell them I did not feel the same. I left them wondering for weeks. That was cruel and I knew it was cruel when I was doing it."

"I split a bill unevenly at a dinner once, in my own favour, knowing my friend had not been paying attention. It was only twelve pounds. I do not know why I did it. We have had hundreds of dinners since and I have always been scrupulously fair. That one time still bothers me."