Changing one's past, changing one's self
Mar. 9th, 2004 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wispfoxPeople seem to like posing questions about what they might do differently, if they had the choice to go back in time and change things in their lives.
The funny thing about this is that, _even during my worst moments_, there has never been a time I wanted to go back and change things.
This is partly because I always think of it in terms of knowing what I knew then, were there other choices for me to make, and _not_ with the knowledge I have gained since then. And partly because everything I have done, been, and gone through has made me who I am now. And I like who I am, even with my various flaws and things I want to work on.
Some (most?) of the stuff that sucked was effectively life giving me a slap upside the head to teach me something that it'd been trying to teach me for years. In all cases, I eventually got the point - it just took a lot, sometimes. And often took other people's perspectives, since I'm pretty bad at figuring out what general concept belongs with a bunch of specific examples.
Some of the stuff that sucked was simply a part of growing up in the family I grew up in. There was nothing I could have done differently without also being someone other than myself.
So, now, I find myself wondering. Those of you reading this post - how do you answer the original question? Would you change things in your past? Either way, why?
A similar question would be whether or not one would change stuff that is integral to themselves. In my case, the one thing which I would most want to change is the seasonal affective disorder.
However, I think that I would not. It has taught me quite a lot. It has also made me much stronger, and much better at handling emotional distress and irrationality.
Although, it would be nice to not have to fix up my sentence structure so other people can read it! *shrug* Not sure if I'd change it, though, because I don't know what other effects on my brain changing that would have...
The funny thing about this is that, _even during my worst moments_, there has never been a time I wanted to go back and change things.
This is partly because I always think of it in terms of knowing what I knew then, were there other choices for me to make, and _not_ with the knowledge I have gained since then. And partly because everything I have done, been, and gone through has made me who I am now. And I like who I am, even with my various flaws and things I want to work on.
Some (most?) of the stuff that sucked was effectively life giving me a slap upside the head to teach me something that it'd been trying to teach me for years. In all cases, I eventually got the point - it just took a lot, sometimes. And often took other people's perspectives, since I'm pretty bad at figuring out what general concept belongs with a bunch of specific examples.
Some of the stuff that sucked was simply a part of growing up in the family I grew up in. There was nothing I could have done differently without also being someone other than myself.
So, now, I find myself wondering. Those of you reading this post - how do you answer the original question? Would you change things in your past? Either way, why?
A similar question would be whether or not one would change stuff that is integral to themselves. In my case, the one thing which I would most want to change is the seasonal affective disorder.
However, I think that I would not. It has taught me quite a lot. It has also made me much stronger, and much better at handling emotional distress and irrationality.
Although, it would be nice to not have to fix up my sentence structure so other people can read it! *shrug* Not sure if I'd change it, though, because I don't know what other effects on my brain changing that would have...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 09:23 am (UTC)i've been abused
i've been raped
i've been overdosed against my will
i almost died of peritonitis and it may well have sparked 15+ years of chronic pain and fatigue since then
i lost the person then-closest to me to suicide
i lost a bunch of lovers and circle-mates and friends to aids.
god, would i change any of that? that's all before age 18, i'm 33 now - clearly who i am is heavily molded by those things. but what a huge price to pay.
and of course my choices play into those things happening - i could have chosen to go with my instincts and not trust the guy who abused me when i was 11, i could have chosen to not be out on my own the night i was raped, i could have chosen not to do drugs to begin with, i could have chosen to go to the hospital earlier. i'm sure i could have chosen differently and jossuin would still be alive, or at least not have died then. aids? even i can't find a way to take responsibility for that one.
if i could actually change any of that? i would have gone to the hospital earlier (like, before my appendix burst rather than three days later). the possible impact on my quality of life now is so high that i would risk whatever bad consequences there would be for that.
and yeah - if i got to change aids? even at the level of "you magically know you need to be using latex for that" for all my friends? yeah.
those are the easy ones. the others are harder, even the abuse and the rape, because important good things came out of those as well. (which makes me hatefully angry to even think about much. ugh.) and joss's suicide? who am i to change that, as desperately as i might want to? His suicide, the abuse, the rape - those were other people's choices. huge parts of who i am come out of other people's awful choices.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 10:57 am (UTC)huge parts of who i am come out of other people's awful choices.
Yes. Which is why it always surprises me when I realize that I wouldn't change things.
But the thing is, as stated above, it feels wrong to me to be thinking of what I would do if I knew what I do now, because there's no way I could.
Instead, I think about what else I could have done, being who I was at the time. And... I certainly couldn't have escaped the possible (not certain) abuse as a child (how does one escape one's family, when one has no idea of what else ought to be happening?).
And... the rape that I went through would only have been something I would not have had happen if I already was listening to my instincts about people consistently. Which, well, I think that was a distinctly upfront lesson in...
So... yeah. I dunno.
If I _did_ somehow have the ability to know the things I do now, then, I still would not change things. Because I like me. But it's _so_ much more difficult to stay with what I had happen to me, that way.
And I _don't_ have any physical manifestations of any of the crap that has happened to me (no physical ailments that are something I haven't had as long as I can remember; no one I've known well and loved has died much too early). So I can certainly see how it'd be difficult to know...
Interesting mental excercise...
no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 01:54 pm (UTC)i was assuming that anyone who would ask this sort of question is someone who had NOT had awful rape or abuse stuff in their life. To me it's an intensely painful train of thought to go through, because of those things.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-10 05:45 pm (UTC)And... the rape (by someone I knew, and not by a random stranger) was horrible, in that it thoroughly destroyed my willingness to trust anyone for a _long_ time.
But... it bothers me more to ignore memories, and let them eat at me. Also, I appear to have finally managed to get through my head that the rape _was not my fault_. Which makes it much less painful to handle, although it'll never be a _good_ or _easy_ memory.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-11 09:12 am (UTC)