Orestes - Carrying the weight of impossible choices

Orestes - Carrying the weight of impossible choices

His father, Agamemnon, was murdered - not by an enemy, but by Orestes’ own mother, Clytemnestra.

And Orestes was faced with an impossible choice:
Let the crime go…
or kill the woman who gave him life.

He chose vengeance.
He killed his mother.

And the gods, instead of granting peace or praise, sent the Furies - spirits of guilt and torment - to follow him.

They did not care about his reasons.
Only that blood was repaid with blood.

Orestes became a symbol - not of justice, but of internal war🧠⚔️🫀.
Not because he made the wrong choice…
But because he made it alone.

Many of us live like Orestes.

We’re not killing anyone.
But we’re carrying pain that came from impossible decisions - moments where we had to pick between two things that mattered.

Telling the truth vs. keeping the peace.
Protecting someone vs. protecting ourselves.
Staying in the family vs. saving our sanity 🎭.

And when we choose, there’s no parade.
Only guilt.
Rumination.

A quiet torment that feels like Furies still whispering in our ears.

Psychologically, this is called moral injury - when your actions violate your own deepest values.

Not because you’re evil.
But because your options were impossible.

And here's what makes it worse:
Most people carry that injury in silence.

They overthink.
They numb.

They obsess over making perfect choices in the future -
because the weight of one past decision was too heavy to bear alone.