I need Help! Childhood regret need to get this off my chest.

Hi everyone, I hope all of you are having a great day! I need advice.. It's very hard to talk about this, I came from a very rough background, a family tragedy and a heavy divorce in my childhood.. I grew up without a father figure. I am now 22 I live alone and have a wonderful job.. The reason why I am here today is because of an issue I am having regarding guilt and anxiety.. During my puberty years around 13 I was very curious.. I grew up with a cousin she is 2 years younger than me.. We would always spend a lot of time together. Her mother(my aunt) was very bad at parenting her and her sister.. She left them unattended and with little to no guidance on life.. Around when I was 13 my cousin and I would play "Doctor" a lot and one day we ended up kissing and "dry humping" each other... Our relationship grew closer and we did more stuff along the way any time that we could... (Which was only about 5 times) This went on from the time that I was 13-17 we never had actual intercourse.. Except we tried "oral" but failed. We didn't see eachother for a while after me turning 17... During that time she started doing pretty bad in high school.. Her parents (my aunt) & uncle got a divorce during that time which led to them basically struggling a lot financially. When I turned 20 my uncle got married and the entire family took a vacation we met again.. And could not resist.. She ended up giving me a HJ but nothing else.. After that I moved out of state.. and its been about 2 1/2 years now she tried to contact me about a year ago and actually told me that she wants to have full intercourse if she ever visits me and I honestly was past it so I moved on.. Recently I found out that she got pregnant with her now boyfriend who (fortunately) is sticking by her side and helping her. She is only 19 and she dropped out of HS due to her pregnancy. But I'm guessing she will enroll again to finish. It's very hard for me to talk about this because I am very concerned of things, because I care for her as my family.. I'm extremely paranoid of the fact that she is going to face hard times ahead, and what if she accuses me of something? I'm truly frightened of just thinking of all the things that could go wrong.. I feel as if I contributed to her actions and feel extreme guilt over all this.. I'm having trouble focusing on my life.. I truly regret my actions during my teenage years.. And I feel worthless to the point that I'm complentating suicide. Please note that the times we did things were always consensual and playful, I just hate that she took this path in life.. And constantly blaming myself for something unknown.. How can I deal with everything I am feeling which is tearing me apart.. I'm afraid of the entire family falling apart... I feel like I won't be able to live a normal life and have feelings of suicide..

hello there....

I'm the moderator that happened to approve your post. As you see, this has been moved to Remorse. Not sure that's actually the place for it, either...

I'm not sure how her life choices relate to you, mijo.

Do you think that if you'd seen her again, then she wouldn't have hooked up with her current b/f and be in the situation she's in? I ask that, because that's the way my own mind works. Always have a tendency to put blame on myself in odd, roundabout ways, as if I were responsible for something another person does.

Is the remorse because you feel as if your childhood experimentation affected her, somehow?

You've said it was consensual, and she apparently continued to have an interest... look, that's normal for kids- and they do it with whoever's handy, in my opinion. With some of us, it was cousins; with others, friends; with some, siblings... most of the time, I wager, it means nothing- it's considered normal for kids to get a little experimental as they approach/go thru puberty. If that's the focus of your regret, then I really think it's unwarranted.

From your post, it sounds as if what was normal childhood experimentation, went on to an almost-relationship? Again, if you felt remorse at 'turning her away', THAT... I could understand, because that's where my mind would naturally wander.

Personally, I don't think you've done anything wrong. The young years are well accounted for as being kids messing around, and if you were not interested in having a relationship with her in later years (which is legal, btw, in some US states), then you're not interested, end of story- and you have the right to live your own life, and what she does with her life, isn't something you're responsible for.