"How do I manage those feelings of guilt?"

This month, the advice columnist answers a question about what we owe to the people we leave behind - and to ourselves - when we walk away.  

I have very little to do with my Mum having decided to stop contact and block her, but I feel horrendous guilt at leaving my Dad behind. He's suffered as much as me but feels he can't leave as it's tricker for him to walk away. How do I manage those feelings of guilt? 

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Hi friend, 

Thanks so much for writing in. 

When I read your question, I remembered something from the lifeguarding classes I took as a teenager — the checklist they made us memorize for checking the overall safety of a scene: 

“No fires, no wires, no gas, no glass, no guns, no knives, no traffic.” 

Our instructors drilled it into us to do this checklist first, in any possible First Aid situation, even before calling 911 or checking for vitals. 

Check for hazards; if you find them, don’t get closer. Call for help from a safe distance. 

We were even told, when we took our exams, anyone who skipped the checklist or showed a willingness to put themself in a risky situation during their skills test would automatically fail and have to try again. 

Why was this so important? 

Why come back to this every single week and make us repeat it out loud, over and over, until we could do it without thinking, exhausted, distracted, startled, in a panic, under water, upside-down? 

Why, even when somebody might be seriously ill or injured and need our help, do we prioritize the safety checklist above all else? 

Simple: If we don’t, then we might get hurt too. 

Even firefighters, rescue divers or Search-and-Rescue teams — the people who run into burning buildings; haul shipwreck survivors out of freezing waters; rappel down steep mountainsides in the dark because someone needs their help — are trained never to work outside the boundary of their own skills, capacity and safety. 

We do not put ourselves in danger to try and rescue somebody else. 

Of course, managing the emotional side of these decisions — whether you are walking away from a family situation where you were suffering, or pulling firefighters back from a burn line because the heat is too intense or the air is unbreathable — isn’t as simple as memorizing a checklist. 

The guilt you’re feeling over leaving your Dad behind is a very human emotion. You love him. You care about him. You don’t want him to suffer. 

I wonder if there is also a version of ‘survivor’s guilt’ that you are navigating, too, even though no one has died — that sense of ‘why do I get to walk away from this? Why me, and not him?’ 

Sometimes, that guilt can express itself with thoughts like ‘What if there’s a chance I could help, after all? Maybe I should put my safety aside; walk into the hazard; put myself at risk. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.’ 

And this is why First Aid instructors harp on the safety checklist so intensely. 

Anything less, and you will have smart, well-trained, caring people — people who only want to help, and know what to do, and can see that shining perfect connection between ‘what someone needs’ and ‘what I can offer’ — follow their first instincts straight into harm’s way. 

Right now, when you talk about ending the relationship with your mom, I picture you standing on the street outside a burning building. You got out, flames at your heels, wheezing and gasping in the smoke, palms blistered from where you touched the doorknobs. 

You got out, and your dad is still inside. 

But he’s on the other side of a door you can’t open; he has the key, but you don’t. So you going back in there won’t save him. It won’t make the house be any less on fire. All it would do is put one more person in harm’s way. 

“No fire, no wire, no gas, no glass, no guns, no knives, no traffic.” 

If your dad is ever ready to unlock that door and follow you out of the burning building, you can be there — waiting at a safe distance — reaching out a hand to help him as soon as he is out of the flames. 

Remember, you deserve protection too.