What It Means to Have No Regrets

The other night I watched a video of a man who had two weeks left to live—a successful lawyer who had finally reached the pinnacle of his career, having just recently been chosen as senior partner of his firm. Yet there he sat at the edge of his bed, tubes in his nose, full of sorrow and regret, confessing that the title he had once worshiped now felt hollow. The wealth, prestige, and status he had accumulated seemed totally irrelevant. He had spent his entire adult life climbing, competing, proving—only to arrive at the summit and realize there was nothing there. His greatest regret was that he had never truly lived, having sacrificed his family and rarely spending time with his wife and daughter.

I turned off the screen and sat for a while. His despair and anguish were palpable, poignant, and heartbreaking, and I felt deep sadness and sympathy for him. At the same time, I felt a strange calmness, an inner peace almost. I have spent over a decade excavating my past, gathering the fragments of memory and pain, and shaping them into something coherent and meaningful: a legacy memoir born of truth-telling, self-discovery, and healing. In completing it, I feel as though I have traced the arc not only of my own journey but also of my ancestors'—their disconnection, emotional pain, and scars that never healed.

Through writing, I have done what generations before me could not: I have named their unspoken grief, turned shame and stigma into language, and chosen to stop passing it down. That, to me, is legacy and a healing that ripples across time. My work may never make me famous, but it may help someone feel seen, less alone, more understood.

So when I think, If I were to die tomorrow, would I have regrets? the answer is a clear no. Because I have loved and lived fully, and gave it all I had to make my life experiences useful for others. I have created something that can outlast me and, more importantly, bring light where once there was darkness. That is enough for me to be able to say I have no regrets.

Hermeneutical Injustice of CPTSD

Just recently, I learned a fancy new philosophical term: hermeneutical injustice. It means that when society lacks the shared interpretive framework to discuss and understand a certain condition or phenomenon, the issue gets dismissed and invalidated as unimportant.

A good example of this is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After the First World War, many returning soldiers experienced flashbacks, nightmares, and hypervigilance—then called "shell shock." Later, in the Vietnam War era, the same symptoms were called "combat fatigue." It was not until 1980 that PTSD was officially recognized and added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). In short, it took sixty years of struggle for PTSD to gain legitimacy.

Other conditions have followed a similar trajectory toward recognition. For instance, traumatic brain injury (often seen in professional football players), sexual harassment, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and, most recently, Long Covid have followed a comparable path. All of these became more widely understood and taken seriously only after those affected spoke up and shed light on what had previously been misunderstood or overlooked. By providing the frameworks and language for their experiences, they helped create shared understanding, which is both powerful and crucial for raising awareness and educating the public.

It's worth noting that complex PTSD (or complex trauma), which results from prolonged or repeated traumatic experiences—often beginning in childhood—is now classified as a separate category from classic PTSD in the International Classification of Diseases. However, it hasn't yet been fully adopted into the DSM-5, the diagnostic system commonly used in America. This shows why giving voice to these overlooked and invisible wounds, and continuing to strive for wider recognition, remains so vital for fostering our collective understanding.

As I reflected on this idea, the first thing that came to mind was the phenomenon of hikikomori in Japan. This refers to a severe form of social withdrawal that affects an estimated 1.5 million people—about 2% of the Japanese population. Most are working-age men between 20 and 60, many of whom continue to live with their parents. Because of the heavy stigma attached to mental health issues, combined with a culture of shame, many prefer to hide away while being cared for by aging parents. In such a shame-based culture, it's not just the hikikomori who are marginalized—the entire family withdraws and lives in the shadow of society. The Japanese government has struggled to address this serious social and demographic problem.

Multiple studies link hikikomori to complex trauma (C-PTSD), often rooted in adverse childhood experiences such as family dysfunction, emotional neglect, or bullying, which resonates with me personally. I cannot turn a blind eye to this crisis, as I can empathize deeply with their experience. When early trauma combines with social pressures and rigid cultural expectations or judgment, it is not hard to see how it can create a perfect storm that drives someone to withdraw completely from society.

Because trauma appears to be a significant risk factor in many such cases, I hope my work can help address the hermeneutical injustice surrounding hikikomori and similar struggles with invisible wounds—by naming the unnamable and giving voice to the type of trauma that is too often overlooked, dismissed, and left unhealed.