Mourning for the life you never had

[Orwell20]

Do you ever feel sad when you think what life might have been? My life from 8 or 9 to my late 30s was destroyed by fear and shame. But what would have happened if all that fear and shame had been removed? I often imagine a sort of parallel me, living a ghostly version of what my life should have been.

[Dougella]

Occasionally. But reading accounts of other people's lives and things they've been through helps me realise that I'm not the only one who missed out on things in life for various reasons.

[limey123]

^ I don't and can't understand people who just go through life seemingly with little or zero self-reflection, and also no consideration of the bigger picture. I know someone like that.

I did miss out on many experiences in my youth and early adulthood, but I probably more than made up for them later. I wish I'd had more fun when I was young, when it was more acceptable to do so, but it is what it is as the saying goes. I don't spend much time dwelling on it, things happened the way they did and it's better to keep in mind the power is always in the present. And the thoughts in the present are what shape our future. The past is the past and only has power over you if you let it.

On the subject of loss (or perhaps more accurately, failure to meaningfully "self-realise"), Philip Larkin had lots of interesting thoughts on that.

[Dougella]

^ What constitutes a life of value?

[limey123]

Originally Posted by The Devil, Probably.

I'm not sure what that even means in practise. The past makes us who we are today, to a huge degree, so it has a lot more power over us than that which we simply allow.

The past may have a huge influence on our present, but we can still choose how we will think and act right now. That in turn helps shape what happens going forward. We don't have to be trapped by our past, if we decide not to be, is the theory. There are plenty examples in human history of people rising above humble beginnings or difficult childhoods, etc. But I totally get it if you disagree.

I'm not saying it's easy, because it bloody isn't, but it can be done.

[twosocks]

Short answer. Yes.

I wonder how many parallel versions of myself there are and what they're doing. I like to think of the ones that are happy and don't have my regrets. I often wonder how those alternative choices/decisions would have panned out and how my life would be now if things had been different.

*Apart from parallel me that's into marmite. They can be disowned.

[MissKatie]

I don't.
I don't see the point personally.
If things were different then who knows what else would be different.

Yes I might be happier and rich or I might be dead in a ditch after an overdose, or hit by a car.

That's why I don't dwell on things that have happened anymore. I can't change them and even if somehow I could, I'm not sure I would.

That doesn't dismiss people who feel the opposite, it's just for me, my life is just happening and I'm just along for the ride.

[SpectralOwls]

Yeah. I often wish I could redo those years of my life. Just hate that I "wasted" that time hating myself and trying to be something I'm not. If I understood myself better I could have been happier and progressed farther in my life. My key to my success and happyness is living life for myself.

[anxiouslondoner]

If you spent the time instead thinking about the things you could be doing with the opportunities you have available to you, you'd probably have a better time of it.
There's a lot to be said for just getting on with life.

[Moksha]

Yes, I think I have sort of mourned. Women sometimes go through a kind of mourning for the child they never had, and mourning for lost youth is part of the midlife crisis. Maybe it's common.

Last year I completed a socially demanding training course. I knew my SA had improved, but that course proved to me I'm now almost free of it. Unfortunately, it's too late. I'm a single, childless man in his 40s, filled with unbearable shame and regret for the life I've lived (or, rather, not lived). I was so full of shame in my teens and 20s I could hardly look myself in the mirror. And yet whenever I tried to do something about it, the fear, and lack of social skills, paralyzed me. So time zipped by, and my youth was over before I knew what had happened. I'd have given anything to break free of that shame and fear prison while I was still young.

But I try to be philosophical about it. Let's say I had broken free at 18 and gone away to university. I could now be trapped in a hellish marriage to someone I don't love, or to someone I do love, but who doesn't love me. I might have had a child, but then lost her in a car crash, or to cancer. I might have set up a business, only to lose everything and wind up in debt. Why assume that our countless 'parallel lives' would be happier? Some would be better, some worse, most just dreary and sh*t, like this life. Plenty of people are strong, confident, extroverted, popular, etc, yet deeply unhappy.

[Dougella]

^ It's never too late. Particularly if you are now much improved with your SA you can do many things! Lots of people start jobs in their forties, meet a partner, get married, have children, buy a house, move, travel etc. You can't get your previous years back but you can certainly use the time you have now.

[anxiouslondoner]

^^^ practically everyone has some opportunity to do something they enjoy, even a little bit. It might not be the same opportunities that some or even most people have, but hey if you prefer to spend your time wallowing in regret then knock yourself out.

[Dougella]

^ I do think that some people can get stuck in the past and carry on letting things that have happened negatively affect them in the present.

Now, it can take some considerable processing and a lot of times the help of mental health professionals to be able to overcome and move past things that have happened to people, so it can't be seen as an easy thing at all! But it is often necessary in order to start making progress.

[MissKatie]

Originally Posted by The*Crafty*Elf

But what about the people who don't have any opportunities and never will have any? The only thing they Can do is look back with sadness

I'm not going to be the "things will get better" person because as we all know it's patronising and often BS.

But when people say they won't have any, you can't be certain of that. Or anything.

That helped me a lot, that as crap as things were, it didn't necessarily mean things would get better but it meant that it could, yes it could also mean things could get worse or stay the same but it doesn't indefinitely mean things will never change.

Trying not to preach as I hate that myself

[Sunrise]

I can't imagine my life being any different to how it actually is. I don't really get "what if?" thoughts. I've never thought I was destined for greatness but had it cruelly snatched away from me. I don't think I've failed to live up to my potential because I never had any in the first place. If anything I've overachieved by managing to survive for so long.

I was never going to find a cure for cancer or write the next Stairway to Heaven. The fact I've been able to hold down a job for so long makes me feel like I'm punching well above my weight at the moment. I might not have lived a "normal" life but there's no point me regretting not doing things I would never have been capable of. Maybe a complete fantasy fictional version of me might have been able to but that person would be so far removed from the real me I wouldn't be able to identify with them one bit.

[Amara 94]

I’m not thinking of this at the moment. I actually feel optimistic things can improve.

But yesterday at work a guy I work with who is in his 50s, an immigrant and quiet like me came to work slightly drunk. I could smell the alcohol in his breath. Also because he has been made a manager, there are lots of managers in the team, I felt the label got to his head. As he was late to work, I had told him what another manager had told me about the job to do and he got angry and said I should only do what he says. He got angry when I didn’t polish some cutlery straight away that he told me to as I was polishing a glass when he told me.

The last month or department has been quiet. We work with different departments in the hotel a lot. Apparently this is normal for our department at this time of year.

Me, I’m idealistically hopeful that routine gym and finding a counsellor, therapist or support group, the right ones though who actually would listen and emphasise, can help me. And though I feel like others judge me, they don’t know where I come from and aren’t perfect their selves.

When he came in drunk yesterday. I was thinking to not allow this job or my life to break me. But then I’m in my late 20’s. I think as you get older you can improve your life but it starts to feel harder as you aren’t in your peak and if you haven’t experienced the best life your experience feels more set and like it can’t change.

It’s like the work environment and life is getting to my colleague but then he is in his 50s, doesn’t have good English. I think he might be artistic in some way but no colleagues acknowledge his strengths so he probably doesn’t and feels doomed.

[Marco]

I’m with Moksha on this. Just because people are much more confident and ‘successful’, doesn’t mean they’re happier or feel more fulfilled, so we should be careful what we wish for. In any case, I don’t think any of us should beat ourselves up about our past and what we did or didn’t do because I believe we really had little choice. How we think and behave at any given moment is probably largely beyond our control. It’s how we can effect change in ourselves over the long term by learning from past experiences that I think we may have some say in.

[Aelwyn]

Originally Posted by The Devil, Probably.

We are all just worm food in waiting

This would look great on a T shirt.

[choirgirl]

I can imagine worse parallel lives, so I'm happy I'm not living one of those. There's always a relief that things could be worse.

I have massive regrets, and I personally find it very difficult to move on. It's very hard when things in your life happen in the wrong order! Or don't happen, or (seemingly) can't happen. I know what I should be working on now (earning more, getting back in shape, looking after my teeth better, therapy, project get laid) but am I able to concentrate on these for more than a few weeks? No, I am not. I have been unusually unable to motivate myself since hitting my 40s because I always felt I was getting somewhere when I was making progress before, that I was going to get to my life eventually, and now I've missed it. And it's very, very hard. I have been in a state of heart crushing grief over the last few days. I am deeply depressed. I'm sure I'll be a little better when I do get things together and finally get to start adulthood part 2, but still.

It would certainly have been easier to know what I wanted out of life if I'd been a little more normal. And I did need to be very focused and methodical on jobs and managing anxiety (it's a life-ruining beast) and saving money. But when I forever aloned and no childed myself (I was more upset about the foreveralone part at the time), if anything my motivation went down, even though my diary was clear for everything else. I needed to become a person and live my life for a bit (maybe date if possible, do my duty by society, gather resources) and still have time to at least consider a baby. Cake and eat it, you get the drill. The only thing that makes me feel better is that chances are, the baby would have had a shitty life. But it still hard. Even though it was the plan, the expectation, it was always a question mark from a very young age (I used to have intimations of not having children when I was around other people's houses) and my circumstances have always been terrible and I know some of us have to take one for the team, it is still hard. Also, I regret not dating girls when I had my best chance when I was young. Chances are, other things wouldn't have worked out, but still it would have been something important. I also feel I let down young me who did try to balance academic and social and did want to make something of her life, even if she wasn't sure what. Otoh, I made terrible career choices from day one. I don't think I thought things through very logically. I got so terribly stuck because of a combination of issues. I certainly never had any potential, that's for sure! I also regret the time spent trying to be something I'm not!

What I'm finding hard at the moment is finding a thing to move towards that causes me joy. I know I need to walk a narrow path between too much peopling (like living with other people) versus too little, and too much stress from work versus too much stress from penury, but what to actually do, that's the thing.

[That guy]

Yes, I do.

Sometimes I also ponder what if I would change, get rid of my anxiety and other mental health problems, start enjoying life, but what if I would regret my past even more, seeing how life could have been, but I wasted it.

[gregarious_introvert]

I can't mourn something which never existed. My life could have taken many paths, but (as Moksha alludes to above) there is no way of knowing whether any of those paths would have led to happiness - all I do know is that they would have led to a different set of circumstances. Life is about millions of decisions which we take without even realising that they are decisions (eg. whether to stay in bed another ten minutes or get up and put the washing in the machine), some of which are inconsequential and others which can change lives, either ours or someone else's; many times, we have no way of knowing which is which. It seems to me that the only way forward is to deal with the situation we have and move forward from there.

I am one of the luckier ones: I've lived with autism all my life and suffered from excessive anxiety for most of it, known extended bouts of severe depression and agoraphobia, but among the constant social rejection and procession of short-term, low-level jobs (each of which I managed to find rewarding in some way), I've somehow had relationships and moments of joy, so it hasn't all been without hope; those years have also made me the person I am today, which is someone I am happy to be, so I can't believe that they were wasted or inconsequential. Things could have been very different if I had been diagnosed earlier in life (I was 54 when it finally happened), if there had been the right kind of support, or even if I hadn't made so many wrong decisions - but that wasn't the world I lived in back then and even if it were, I have no idea where those paths may have led.

Some people have said to me recently that I am "living the dream"; I wouldn't go that far, but I am living a life which is much closer to the one I would have envisaged for myself than the one I lived for the first half-century of my life. In the last six years, I have found Great Love (of a kind I thought I would never experience), even though this has not been without its own pitfalls, and travelled more extensively than my teenage dreaming self ever thought would be possible (back then, travel was expensive and much of the world was far less available than now). Agoraphobia and anxiety aren't gone, but both are under control (and I hope, staying that way), whilst depression hasn't visited me for more than six years now. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes unhappy and my "new life" has brought with it a different set of difficulties to be overcome, but I am far more fulfilled and optimistic - even at 60, I think my best years may be ahead of me. I also believe that the perspective I have now means that I appreciate far more what I have than if I had been having these experiences in my twenties or thirties. I may not be living my best life, but I am close to it and getting closer every day; it's so refreshing to wake up every morning (well, most mornings anyway) excited about what the day will bring, rather than apprehensive.

I have nothing to mourn. Of course, I am only human and there are rare occasions when I think "what if?" and wonder what my life may have been if circumstances were different, but I am grateful that these are only passing fancies. Every life has sorrow and joy, sadness and happiness and I am just thankful that, finally, my life has a greater proportion of positive emotions than negative ones; the years preceding the present were a preparation and now I am able to build on that preparation for a future which will, I hope, be rewarding for as long as my health allows (which I hope will be decades).

[MissKatie]

Originally Posted by gregarious_introvert

I can't mourn something which never existed. My life could have taken many paths, but (as Moksha alludes to above) there is no way of knowing whether any of those paths would have led to happiness - all I do know is that they would have led to a different set of circumstances.

Exactly, you got it.
Who knows what could've happened.
Maybe life would be better or worse.

Life happens and we have to just get on with it as we go along
There's a sextillion different changes we could make every second that could eventually lead to life altering changes, buts that's another life, another universe perhaps
All we can do for now, if try to make the best of what we have, even as hard as that can be sometimes

[Hayman]

It does happen, I have to admit. Whilst I'm currently at what I describe as an 'at peace' state in my life, I went through practically the whole of my 20's (the late 20's notably so) and into my very early 30's in quite a bad place in this respect.

A phrase I've often used in the past is that my life pretty much stalled when I got to around 16/17 years old - and never got going again. It used to really upset and frustrate me but again, I've got to a point in my life where it doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as it used to. I know I'll never be able to 'catch up' and therefore it's something which, whilst still on my mind, doesn't feel as 'important' to me as it once did.

I can't see whatever positives lie ahead for me in life will take away the pain, misery and embarassment I've faced in the past. I know I'll never get one, but I've always felt a resolution for what happened 'before' needs to come first. I need to try and teach myself to not think that way but so far I've been unsuccessful unfortunately. It's pretty much engraned into me at this point.