Dear Dr. Meg,

I am 24 years old. I am a single mom to a beautiful four-year-old girl named Grace. She is a joy and blessing to me and yet I am truly and utterly sad. Her dad and I met when I was 19 and I quickly got pregnant after that. It was a very unhealthy relationship full of physical and emotional abuse. He has changed quite a bit since our daughter was born and since we split when she was one. He is a part of her life and we share custody. He has grown up a lot, is in a healthy relationship that has been since our split, and is truly happy. The incidents that had occurred from going through a pregnancy alone to be a single mom have scarred me so deeply and I am having a hard time believing I will ever be happy. I have been in counseling, multiple times, and tried everything imaginable to heal and nothing seems to be working. I live my life in a state of guilt from a belief that I’m depriving my daughter of what she deserves from me as her mother. I have gone to God more times…