AIBU to grieve the life I feel I might have had?

Of course other people have, adverse childhood experiences are sadly hugely common. You're not doing yourself any favours to think you have had it worse than most, and that 'if only if only' you'd have gone on to achieve XYZ. All that does is disempower you, and keep you feeling better than others but hard done by.

@OnceMoreIntoTheBreachDearFriends - "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” (Robin Williams)

What you’re feeling has a name that’s very close to your post’s title. Grieving the unlived life is a recognised psychological experience, particularly common in people who had a difficult start or a relationship that derailed them. The reason all that therapy hasn’t shifted this feeling could be that sometimes this grief doesn’t respond to being understood or reframed. It’s based on something genuinely true. The path was there. It was taken from you.

What it does respond to is being carried differently, meaning it stops running your life and starts sitting alongside it instead. Reading everything you’ve written, you’ve actually been doing that your whole life already. What might be different now is that things are finally stable enough to ask what you actually want, rather than just getting through. That’s a harder question than it sounds, but a better one than mourning what’s behind you.

If you haven’t tried Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, it’s worth looking into. Unlike CBT it doesn’t try to challenge painful thoughts, which feels fake when those thoughts are actually accurate. It builds flexibility around the grief rather than trying to fix it.

Your hysterectomy was only last year. Surgical menopause can quietly affect mood and how you process the past even when it feels well managed. Worth a mention to whoever looks after that.

On work, being the competent one in an incompetent team leads nowhere good. It might be worth discussing that directly to your manager rather than just absorbing it.

I don’t think you have missed the boat. You’ve spent most of your life just trying to get to the harbour.

Except that by comparing yourself to others, as in your first post, you have made it a competition? Between what you think they have and what you think you could have had?

And I am afraid you are being naive if you think other people have not had the issues you had in your childhood. Mine was pretty harrowing, as was my half siblings. We’re all autistic with side helping of ADHD, dyslexia, EuPD etc. Many people I meet have had similar or even worse starts, so I know I am not special.

I’m sorry to say that many many people have shitty starts in life and go on to be what you and others perceive as ‘successful’, just as people who have had golden childhoods can just as easily fail to achieve anything significant.

People are different. We play the hand we’re dealt. No point longing for the cards you THINK other people are holding, as many are bluffing and you are simply falling for it.

😂💜

If it’s any consolation I think you’ve done better than me OP 😂

Yes. I could feel the same. But is it worth it? I have a lovely life with gorgeous children.

I'm a chronic underachiever (turns out due to ADHD and overly cautious parents) with a high IQ - mum made me join Mensa so she could tell her friends. Played an instrument to a very high level. But to many I have achieved a lot. Got to Oxbridge for my PG. Whoop whoop.

Not worth stressing about. I have 4 gorgeous well balanced adult children, a loving husband and enough financial security for me to have a decent quality of life. I'm very very lucky. Enjoy what you have.

and please stop with the hyperbole that most people in the world don’t have food or water.

Actually I think it is one in four, so you are right, not most, but still a large percentage, and if you add in your luck with intelligence, health etc, I'd put you firmly in the lucky half.

Could not agree more with much of this post.

It is easy to envy aspects of people's lives and imagine they have everything easy, yet if you really saw those lives unveiled, warts and all, it is much less likely you would step into any of those lives wholesale - leaving behind what you love from your own. No-one has a perfect life, but it's the bits we treasure that make them ours.

I’m sorry but this is so incredibly ignorant.

You live in England and have access to clean water and food. Most people in the world are struggling for both these things.

I’m a victim of CSA by my adopted father after being removed from my homeless addict parents care and separated from my siblings.

You know what? Every single person I know has an awful heartbreaking story. Everyone.

And if we’re lucky enough to be born in the developed world we are already luckier than most.

You are still alive and you can still change your life to a life you are content with.

I’ve been unluckier than some, and luckier than most.

My life at 48 though? It’s pretty darn amazing. Wouldn’t change it for the world.

I know this is going to sound dismissive, and without any wish to diminish the awful experiences you had as a child, I’d say the majority of people could have had a better life than the one they ended up living had their circumstances been more favourable. People who have untapped potential or talents they could not fully develop due to being from working class backgrounds, having families to care for, etc. There’s a reason why some professions and universities are full of people from advantaged backgrounds. You could drive yourself mad thinking about this all the time, or pride yourself on being so smart, successful and brilliant despite your earlier life - many people who haven’t had half of the challenges you’ve had, would love to achieve as much as you have. You’re not alone, is what I’m trying to say, you’ve overcome a lot and achieved so much to be proud of.

You talk as if life is over but you are only 40!
Nothing is holding you back.
I also have a late autism diagnosis and am late sixties now. Every single decade got progressively better than the previous one, although I think I've peaked now!

Why on earth do you think you've seen the best of it at 40?
I only got married at 53 for goodness' sake. Single mother at 43. I could go on but you get the drift.

Take a fresh look at it and aim for whatever it is you decide you want.

Thing is, you are mourning an entirely fictitious life that you could have had. You might have been encouraged to apply to Oxbridge. But that doesn't mean you would have definitely got in. If you had, you might not have done well in that environment. Say you came out with a first. That still doesn't mean you would have been successful. Life still happens. Bad luck. Bad choices. Some you can control; some you can't. But at this stage, you need to try and move on from the past and try and focus on the present and things that make you happy. Especially if you are adamant there is absolutely nothing you can do to improve you current situation or your future.

Nah. Life’s always greener on the other side. RG and oxbridge educated couple here, DH has a 7figure salary, I’m completing a PhD. Lux flat in London, 7 bed surrey mansion etc. You get the picture. But both our kids are AuDHD and the eldest has significant comorbid issues that have led to suicidal ideation, self harming and we fear she may never live independently - or live to see her 30th birthday really. Every landmark birthday is a sigh of relief and a continuation of the stress and fear.. We have spent much of the past 10 years in tears, therapy and on medication trying to navigate this. We’d exchange every single penny, every asset for a happy well-balanced child. The money means we can plan for her future, especially after we’re gone, and hopefully protect our youngest from the burden of her care - or the guilt of living their life fully - but would we swap what we have for the shitty council flat I grew up in, free school meals, and a happy healthy child?

In a heartbeat.

Thing is, nearly every person we know who seems to have ‘made it’ carries a shit load of baggage not unlike us. Behind those gilded front doors there are harrowing stories that money and success don’t compensate for. It is easy to envy, rather than appreciate exactly what you have right now.

Can recommend doing the 3 gifts exercise daily - it helps you focus on what is positive in your life right now, rather than yearning for a fantasy life you think you might have had. Because it is a fantasy. Most people’s life are at best a bit mundane and, at worst, a minefield.

Not to late to start over again!
I left my abusive relationship at 41 (after nearly 20 years of hell). Thought life was over and that I'd missed my chance if a family etc. He also stifled my career and prevented progression. I wanted to retrain in law or finance but he refused to support me through this so I prodded along to appease him.
Had to start again financially and pay him off with buying him out of the house. Was going to be mortgage free at 45 but now I'll have to wait until im 63 for that to happen....
Anyway, random chance of events I met my now husband age 42 and had our baby at 43!
Yes I'll have to work bloody hard until I'm about 70 but im so lucky how life has given me a second chance.

Sounds to me like you have done really well actually @OnceMoreIntoTheBreachDearFriends
I have - on paper - an epic education.. yet I have hardly any career at all 😂
Own a cheap house. Have a nice lifestyle but not because I necessarily ‘earn’ it but because DH earns well and I do a huge amount of up cycling of everything. Even my pets are rescue 😂 and I don’t spend frivolously. Honestly I think you are massively underestimating what you’ve achieved despite crappy circumstances.
be kinder to yourself! You might have done the things you’ve mentioned, and had a breakdown/drug issue/ met a wanker / had four kids and had health issues in family or disability / had an accident etc etc - you just don’t know what would have been. But you are comfortable, enjoying life. Take the win! Xo

My birth mum was a heroin addict and I was born three months prematurely as a result, weaned off heroin weighing the same as a bag of sugar at 2lb. I had the last NICU bed at King's College hospital, and I often think of the alternatives if I'd not got it

My life was a fight literally from the start, so i was extremely fortunate to be adopted by ny amazing parents. I had a privileged and happy upbringing.

I've been so lucky and it could quite easily have been so much worse. I was fortunate to "only" have high frequency hearing loss as a result of my prematurity, so my health problems now from a head injury (see upthread) make me feel grateful for the years of good health I had.

Often, we need to try and find the good in the awful situations, even the ones we think are terrible.

I think at the age of 40, it’s time to stop looking back and start looking forward. You potentially have more years ahead than behind, how can you make them count.

i had lots of potential, but a lack of opportunities and a poor step-dad situation meant I left home early and lived half my life on the back foot. My dad left when I was very young and lived abroad. I saw him 4 times since the age of 10. I grew up poor and I too was bullied, but it made me stronger and I stayed away from shitty men.

where you are might be in part to things outside of your control, but where you go now you have as much control as you could: but the very last thing you should be doing is comparing yourself to 1/1000 people whose parents pay for private schools and a flat in London.

Thats all you are doing wrong. You’re fine otherwise, untap any potential you may have. Hobbies, exercise whatever. No one has a perfect life, you just have to make the best of what you have.

By the way the most miserable people I know where handed everything and their whole lives since have been a crushing disappointment. I would not swap places for all the world.

I have omitted many things I have been through and even am not born here...but here me is, taking life by the horns as it comes. My dad was also disabled due to driving under alcohol. But he was not a drunkard, just had the bad luck to drink once, got upset with mum and disappeared in the car and off he came in a wheelchair.

You're on holiday. Somewhere nice. Today is a good day 😘

You are very strong and grieving what you did not get in life is valid feeling. I am okeish in all areas but still grieve when I have to. Then move on.

My faith in God has been the majour most powerfull pull towards my future in difficult times and boy, I had hard times - boarding school, emotionally unavailable father, not being able to finish my degree due to emotional heartbreak, severe social anxiety which I thought is autism, moving abroad with 0 money or anyone in a safety net. And here I am, married, with offspring, owning property in the SE

I give thanks for today's daily bread, and move on. We create our thought ambiance per how we decide to think.

My life could have been so much better, too, but at this point I'm just glad it wasn't worse.

We get dealt our hand in life, and then we have to make the most of it. You could have been born into slavery in Mauritania. You could have suddenly lost your sight one day.