Back to before

[SimonSays]

What if you could go back to before?
Before things changed.
And do it again.
Would you?

If you could choose any moment in your life and return to it, and go forward from there. Would you want to try?

Life wouldn't just automatically end up being the same. Nor would you get to go round and round like in ‘Groundhog Day’, learning to do it better after each time you fail. You’ll just start from there and see what happens. You just won't know you’d already done it before. Everything from that point on hasn't happened, so there would be no memory of having already done it.

How far back would you go? Which part of your life would you want to return to?

For those people with real lives, happy marriages, great kids, wonderful jobs, you probably wouldn't consider doing such a thing. But for those who don't have much of a life. We might.

When I was a kid, I used to imagine if an alien spacecraft ever landed in front of me and invited me to come on board, knowing I would never be able to come back, I would just go. Without even needing to think.

Or if God were to suddenly appear before me and say: come on, I have something for you to do. I would go. Without even needing to think about it.

And yet, as I sit here imagining which part of my life I would want to return to, I cannot decide on one particular bit. I wouldn't be who I am without having gone through what I have. So what do I let go of? Knowing my marriage failed, do I go back to before I met her? Or before I agreed to say I do? Do I give up being a dad, just because that didn't end well?

Life was a lot simpler for me back then. I was a lot simpler. Sometimes it's hard to remember who that was. But I have evidence of him, in my many writings, and sometimes, when I read them, and get reminded of what took place, I wonder what it would be like to be him again, to be able to do it again, have another go, and see if I would do it any better a second time round.

 

[Tom]

In my own life, no. There are individual things I wish I could undo or do, but in the aggregate it's been ok, and probably better then I could have reasonably hoped for. Plus at this point I am tired, don't have the motivation to do it all again and need my naps.

I had that same 'See the Galaxy with Aliens' thought many times when fairly young. I thought I would go too. Sometimes odd little things would trip the thought. Like walking home late at night in a deep snow and coming upon a street light making a strange buzzing noise. 'Is it talking to Them... '

 

[Nairobi]

What if you could go back to before?


When I was a kid, I used to imagine if an alien spacecraft ever landed in front of me and invited me to come on board, knowing I would never be able to come back, I would just go. Without even needing to think.

Or if God were to suddenly appear before me and say: come on, I have something for you to do. I would go. Without even needing to think about it.

Ditto. My biggest fantasy growing up was that I would find a portal into a different world. Instead I had to prop myself up with fantasy novels.

I would only go back if I could go back knowing a few things I know now - that I most likely an Aspie, and the knowledge shared about that by other female Aspies, and with my current faith. Then....I would love to have gone back to when I was a teenager. This is not to knock all of the things that have shaped me, but I endured a lot of awful things because of unwise choices coming from a place of ignorance or woundedness. I might even choose to go back to when I was a child, to respond to abuse differently, to avoid some abuse altogether because I now know better.

But to just go back and relive it all - not knowing what I know now....no way.

 

[Aspychata]

I would go back and not go out with my miserable man choices but it was due to huge insecurities which l no longer suffer from.

 

[SimonSays]

But to just go back and relive it all - not knowing what I know now....no way.

You could go back as the you of today, just without knowing what was to come as far as the world is concerned. But it could be tricky to be the you of today in a child's body though. For one, you would experience terrible restriction, no longer having the freedom that you know. It might be too frustrating to accept the years until you are old enough to be considered an adult again. Secondly, you would have to hide your wisdom and experience and appear to be a child, lest the others around you look at you very differently indeed!

Having said that though, it could be interesting to be an adult in a child's body, and for you, capable of dealing with or responding to abuse as an adult might. It would certainly be unexpected from an abuser's perspective.

Plus at this point I am tired, don't have the motivation to do it all again and need my naps.

Lol. Yes I get that. Of course though, you'd be experiencing the physicality of the age you had chosen to return to, so probably wouldn't need naps.

I would go back and not go out with my miserable man choices but it was due to huge insecurities which l no longer suffer from.

That would make a huge difference I imagine; making relationship choices without insecurities would undoubtedly take your life in a different direction. What age do you see yourself going back to?

 

[Tom]

Lol. Yes I get that. Of course though, you'd be experiencing the physicality of the age you had chosen to return to, so probably wouldn't need naps.


That would make a huge difference I imagine; making relationship choices without insecurities would undoubtedly take your life in a different direction. What age do you see yourself going back to?

Well, I think I would go back to the age I could start working legally and use my pre-knowledge (like when gold jumped up to 1k an oz in the 70's) to make a big pile of money and buy that castle I wanted to give my Mom. Then I would make sure I was in the right location and time to meet my wife again. She really is the only one for me. Then after buying stocks in Apple, Microsoft, Ebay, etc, we'd get our castle.

 

[Nairobi]

You could go back as the you of today, just without knowing what was to come as far as the world is concerned. But it could be tricky to be the you of today in a child's body though. For one, you would experience terrible restriction, no longer having the freedom that you know. It might be too frustrating to accept the years until you are old enough to be considered an adult again. Secondly, you would have to hide your wisdom and experience and appear to be a child, lest the others around you look at you very differently indeed!

I think I would jump. Maybe that's foolhardy, but I would have also jumped through a portal if given a chance, lol! I am working on letting to of the past - however, if given the chance, the chance to go back and love myself so much better than I had back then...I did not dislike or hate myself, but wow, I would have loved myself more tenaciously considering all that I was going through - and I think I would have withdrawn myself so much more from abusive situations, and I think I would have tried harder to bond with my mother (my mother passed away quite some time ago). I would not have made any of the dating decisions that I made - and I would have handled college very differently, and chosen a totally different major and different career. I am reading a book right now with various Aspie women's stories - and one is a recovering alcoholic, and she wrote that she thinks if she had known she was on the spectrum, she would have made very different choices/coping mechanisms other than alcohol and would not have had to have "endured" as much since she would have made different choices.

 

[Martha Ferris]

I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had not gone to the college I did. If I hadn't gone there I would never have met the person who became my husband and that would have made all the difference. He is a narcissistic monster. I would go back to my 17 year old self and make a different choice and hopefully it would have changed my life.

 

[jleeb05]

Ugh, this is always such a difficult question for me but one that sometimes crosses my mind. I hate the thought of having regrets. My personal motto is, "Life is not about the things you didn't do," so I typically try to live in a way that avoids wanting a do-over.

I do sometimes wish that I could go back to my childhood and re-live it. I think I would be much more popular, have more friends, and just handle it better. Still, a lot of the negative experiences I had were catalysts for growth. As painful as they were, many of them (though not all) resulted in something positive in the long term. So would I undo them? I don't know that I would.

Maybe I would go back and possibly re-do certain moments or periods of time and then return to my current life. You could not pay me to relive my entire childhood. It was simpler in some ways but to be honest, there are a lot of things about being a kid that suck.

 

[Wulven]

No. I don't want to relive the pain.

 

[Suzette]

In my own life, no. There are individual things I wish I could undo or do, but in the aggregate it's been ok, and probably better then I could have reasonably hoped for. Plus at this point I am tired, don't have the motivation to do it all again and need my naps.

I had that same 'See the Galaxy with Aliens' thought many times when fairly young. I thought I would go too. Sometimes odd little things would trip the thought. Like walking home late at night in a deep snow and coming upon a street light making a strange buzzing noise. 'Is it talking to Them... '

Oh yes, I recognize this! What a yearning! But then I would start to feel guilty for wanting to leave my family behind.
I still soothe myself before I sleep imagining what my spaceship would be like.

 

[Suzette]

I would go back to about age 10 and try to get a different adult, like a teacher, to see me. I needed a lot of help back then but I was invisible to my mother and others who knew me. If I could have gotten that help I might have bern able to disconect from my home life emotionally and just concentrated on finding out how to use my brain to my best advantage.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

The only thing in my profile that is balanced between NT and ND is relationship. I think that because of other deficits I could not have an intimate relationship and that really warped my view of myself. It impacted my performance in University, Grad School, and at my first research position. Looking back there were missed opportunities. I would go back for that. I don't think it would have changed the course of my life, but it would have led to a more confident, and perhaps more balanced, me. [edit] Thinking more about that, I did notice that guys in strong relationships seemed more centered, as if the relationship side of their life was so settled that they had energy set free to use in academic or research pursuits.

 

[SusanLR]

My re-do is much like @Tom replied.
Around age 23 I made some bad decisions concerning money.
And when you want a mansion in the woods for yourself and your parents, you need money.

I wanted a mansion because I wanted to make my own world and be isolated in the woods
not having to go out into the world for much of anything.
I would have all I wanted in my own house.
I even drew my own blue prints for this fantasy place and it would be called Cair Paravel.

I've ended up with a garden in the back yard with a concrete bench by a huge arborvitae tree
and flowers around a lamp post where I can sit and watch the birds. I call it Cair Paravel
in honour of the lampost in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Cair Paravel is located in the farthest east of Narnia. It symbolizes a 'holy' place. The prophecy claimed that the White Witch would be destroyed when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sat on four thrones at Cair Paravel. It is close to the sea, so it is close to the Emperor-of-the-Sea, a symbol for God.

 

[SimonSays]

@Tom
Well... according to the 'rules' of the OP, while you would know who you are, you would not know what would be coming. You would not have foreknowledge of the right stocks and shares to buy at the right time. If you go back, you go back for a certain experience or a certain person, perhaps put right what once went wrong, and go forward from there. It's not about making huge sums of money and winning the lottery. Not in this thought exercise anyway.

@SusanLR
You would be able to make a different decision about spending or not spending money, because when that moment arrives (if it ever does because remember you will not simply be repeating what has already happened) you could certainly act differently.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I would go back to about age 10 and try to get a different adult, like a teacher, to see me. I needed a lot of help back then but I was invisible to my mother and others who knew me. If I could have gotten that help I might have bern able to disconect from my home life emotionally and just concentrated on finding out how to use my brain to my best advantage.

So sad, @Suzette. The desire for help, when young, seems to be a theme for people diagnosed as adults. I think that so many could see my isolation, and did nothing. I think that because of that I want to throw up when Mr. Rogers would tell children to look for the helpers. But then, growing up in the 50s through the 70s there was little help afforded to people with ASD. Why was our society so willing to throw away our lives?

 

[Aspychata]

Go all the way back and chose different parents. The parents that wanted kids, that wanted a daughter.

My grandmother told me my mom wanted to put me up for adoption as a baby. My grandmother told my mom, she would take me.☹☺ If my mom went thru with adoption. I always felt unwanted. I try to deal with this, it does impact my life.

 

[Suzette]

@Gerald Wilgus
It is sad, I can't deny that. Yet, maybe there were positives too?

On an interview I heard with Temple Grandin she said that parents and children introduce themselves to her all the time and what they want to tell her about is their autisim. She said she would rather hear about the book they just read or the project they are interested in. She said she didn't think childrens lives should be about their autisim.

While understanding and specific to me education might have have helped me go further, it might have, unintentionally, created a world for me that was about my disability. We can never know for sure.

Another point I want to make is, I had quite a few challenges growing up. As an adult I floundered, lost in an abusive marriage and deep emotional pain. The scars are still there but I had a transformation from a passive, trusting, naive door mat, to me. The me I am may not have been possible without the challenges. I quite like myself now. I really don't want to give that up. But dang, if I could pair my mind with my 20 year old body, I might become an astronaut.

 

[Suzette]

Go all the way back and chose different parents. The parents that wanted kids, that wanted a daughter.

My grandmother told me my mom wanted to put me up for adoption as a baby. My grandmother told my mom, she would take me.☹☺ If my mom went thru with adoption. I always felt unwanted. I try to deal with this, it does impact my life.

Dang, yet another post "like" is not appropriate for.
I am so sorry you experience this.

 

[VictorR]

I believe that everything happens for a reason, and while my journey involved a lot of twists and turns, and some detours along the way, I learned a lot along the way. I'm okay with how things turned out. I subscribe to stoicism, so perhaps that's part of it.

That being said, if you said that I must go back in time, knowing what I know now, minus news of future events and such, and perhaps give myself one or two "directions", I'd like to go back to my college days. I was offered a job but turned it down as I was wishing to finish my degree. Knowing what I know now, I would have dropped out to take that job. My intent was to finish my studies then take the job, but then circumstances changed and the offer was no longer there.

While I wouldn't have known, it would have put me in a far better situation financially and likely for career growth as well. While I don't think I would have been ready for the job, knowing what I know now I would have been able to excel in it.

And there was a classmate whom I shared some interests with. I would like to have asked her out.