[pegasus]

I really don't know which forum I'm supposed to put this in.

I keep thinking, If only......

If only things had been different I could have been 'someone' by now.

If I hadn't have been through all that crap as a child I could of been something great.

I could have gone to university and become a doctor, I could have been something good.

As it is, I'm 39, 6 yrs of therapy- probably forever. I'm not able to work full time. I have so many problems I have to live with. And I hide it all as best I can.

So I should be grateful I am alive, I have a lot more than some people but......I can't help thinking if only....

hey. i play 'if only' sometimes too. if only i had have had supportive parents then i'd be stronger and more resilient now. maybe i'd have gotten married already. have finished up uni already. have gotten a job.

it can be hard, huh. (((pegasus)))

[pegasus]

Yeah, I bish, bash this one out with my T over and over again and I always walk away from the therapy session thinking why do we keep talking about it so much, when I can't change it.

And T says, Oh! But you wouldn't be the person you are today if you hadn't been through all that. And that pisses me. Really pisses me off.

[Rapunzel]

You do need to mourn for the things that you would have liked to do and didn't get to do. Those are legitimate losses, and they do affect you.

On the other hand, why keep accepting that you can't start on the things you wanted to do now? You don't have to accept those limits. If it means enough to you, you can find a way.

I always wanted to be a psychologist, and I gave up on that career goal when I was 18 because a professor said in a lecture that they didn't want people like me. I wasted a lot of years thinking that I couldn't do it, and I told a lot of people that college was just a waste of time and money that never got me anywhere because my degree meant nothing to anybody. It hurts that I wasted all that time being depressed and thinking that I couldn't do it. I don't know if I'll ever get a phd, but I am going to be a counselor, so at least that is something.

I had all the thoughts like you, that I could have been someone by now, etc. That stinks to feel like you aren't someone. You are someone. But if you're not the someone that you want to be, make up your mind to become the someone you want to be, and not to be limited anymore. It's scary, but isn't it scarier not to?

I've done that too, pegasus. I call it the "what ifs."

But you need to look at what you HAVE done considering your past. If you start there and realize, hey, I didn't do so bad after all, it might help you.

It took me a long time to "get" that, but after T pounding it into my head, and me finally cutting myself some slack, I know she's right. I've done pretty good, all things considered.

So have you.

[pegasus]

Thank you Rapunzel and Petunia. I appreciate the replies.

I guess I'm just feeling particularly sad about the whole thing right now.

Only now at the age of 39 am I starting to make that effort to do what I could have started many years ago if only I had realised all the crap I was fed was just that- crap!

I'm doing therapeutic work with children, how lucky am I! But I never knew I was capable of that. I guess I am mourning, the loss of my childhood, the loss of self-esteem and realising how awful things really were.

[Shellbe]

Pegasus,
I know exactly how you feel. I wonder too. maybe icould have known how to be okay and not so stuck in my mind. maybe i could have enjoyed alot of my life instead of feeling sad. i don't know anymore.

[jacq10]

I read this quote in a book i once read, and i have to keep reminding myself of it whenever i get a case of the "what ifs" It's "Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone aught'a be." And by my saying that i'm not AT ALL implying you don't have a backbone, please dont think that. I just mean that there comes a point in life where you can't keep dwelling on what could have been, because you can't move forward and grow as a person by constantly living in the past. And i'm also not discounting what you've gone through in life ... but you can't discount what you have left a head of you. Think of all the good you have left in life, and try to embrace that. You said you're doing therapeutic work with children... think of those lives that you're touching, and think of how much potential you have to help those children.
Sending hugs
Jacq

[Perna]

39 is too young for what if thinking; I didn't get married until I was 39 :-) I just fulfilled my education dream from when I was 17 this year, at 57. Yeah, it might have been nice if we'd gotten ourselves together sooner, had a better background, etc. (we can't ever assume it would have worked out as we imagine though, things could actually have been worse, even with 110% love and support in our childhoods) but I don't think I want to regret what I imagine would have happened anymore. It didn't happen, couldn't have happened, and regretting what didn't happen is just as much a fantasy as any other we might make up now.

[pachyderm]

My grandfather did not win the Nobel Prize. In fact, he didn't win any prizes that I know of. He was a railway mail clerk in the days when they had those. Almost nobody now alive remembers him. When we die, no one will know he existed.

But he took us out in the country in the fall and we gathered black walnuts. Today, living in the city, I gather black walnuts where I can find the trees. Most people seeing me do it have no idea why I am picking them up, or even what they are. Many see them as nuisances.

I remember with much fondness my grandfather and the black walnuts and the whittling and the other simple things he did to make our childhoods better.

[Fuzzybear]

(((((((((((((( pegasus ))))))))))))))

[pegasus]

Thank you everyone for the replies, they are all helpful.

I guess I have got to try and stop beating myself up over this.

I was thinking about it earlier, if I had a fairly ok childhood I might have ended up being an uncaring snotty bank Manager. (No offence to bank Managers out there.) As it is I do have a lot of compassion, particularly for children, I'm trying desperately to be positive here.

I'll keep plodding away, my path in life hasn't finished yet. Ok, I can only work part-time at the moment (that may change.) and it seems I'm still glued to my T, it's not all bad, I have someone to talk to.

I'm going to keep trying...

[Perna]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
pachyderm said:
But he took us out in the country in the fall and we gathered black walnuts. Today, living in the city, I gather black walnuts where I can find the trees. Most people seeing me do it have no idea why I am picking them up, or even what they are. Many see them as nuisances.

I remember with much fondness my grandfather and the black walnuts and the whittling and the other simple things he did to make our childhoods better.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

That's beautiful Pachy. I wish I'd known you a couple years ago when I lived in Savage, Maryland, and had my very own 50+ foot black walnut tree (planted as a natural lightning rod 100+ years ago) over my driveway and had to worry lest we get bonked on the head with one of the dense, heavy nuts when they start falling in August :-) My property had belonged to my 90-something next door neighbor's mother and we had a lovely line of hemlock trees on either side of the walnut, which my neighbor remembered his father planting (the line of hemlocks) when my neighbor was 10. I loved the walnut tree and the little, miniature "pinecones" on the hemlocks. We had a pair of old holly too; the yard's wealth was wonderful around Christmas.