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

It comes across that you are focusing a lot on any outside forces or circumstances that held you back rather than what you specifically could have done differently. I am sure there are a lot of things that you would change if you really thought about it.

If you focus on “I made this choice and therefore I am where I am now because of my choice” rather than “this was done to me and therefore I lost out” would that help?

Rather than feeling hard done by, it gives you more power?

I mean this kindly….we are all told we are going on to great things in primary school. Most people who are ‘over achievers’ a term I hate because there are many ways to achieve than getting good exam results go on to have average paying jobs. I know people who has awful life experiences who went on to do amazing things. A combination of things have led to where you are and you also have to accept that some of that is choice. If you see life as a thing that is done to you rather than you control you will never be content.

Yabu. I used to feel the same way and made myself very unhappy for wanting what I thought would be a better life. One day I was moaning again about this and was advised by someone very wise that if things had not gone the way they have my life would be different but not necessarily better. Grow up. Want what you have, not yearn for what you think you deserve but did not get. You will be happier for it.

Bertolt Brecht: "Everything Changes"

Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.
But what has happened has happened. And the water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again.

What has happened has happened. The water
You once poured into the wine cannot be
Drained off again, but
Everything changes. You can make
A fresh start with your final breath.

Many children who are very intelligent and do well in education don't go on to so something as spectacular as being the prime minister or a brain surgeon. Middle management in the NHS is probably pretty standard for those types of people.

Who's to say your life would be any better in different circumstances? Maybe with a great home life you wouldn't have cared as much about education, it was probably an escapism and a safe space due to a chaotic home life.
Maybe without your mental health difficulties you wouldn't have developed some of the skills you will have. Maybe a relationship with a nice man would have bored you to distraction and you could have been out having affairs or hopping from one relationship to the next.
No one knows, there isn't some clear formula to work out what someone's life will be if they don't face adversity.

Being told in childhood that you’re gifted is not always a good thing. There’s so much else apart from general intelligence that determines success, as you have discovered, but this message from early on that you “should” be able to do “great things” encourages you to hold shame when life turns out differently.

Bad relationships and especially with parents certainly has a huge impact. So does autism or any difficulty with social skills. Honestly I think part of it is a mental reframe, you should be proud of everything you’ve achieved despite adversity. And part of it is to take risks now. Doesn’t have to be big or expensive, it’s about proving to yourself that you’re not completely stuck and you do have agency and you’re allowed to take up space in the world. Wear something unusual. Take a walk in a new part of town. There’s a trick to noticing what you internally decide you’re not allowed to do and then going ahead and doing it anyway.

I empathize with the regret and the what might have been rumination. It’s not going to help you. You did the best you could at the time with the tools you had. That’s it. And now you’re going to do the best you can going forward.

The people you met probably make more than 100k a year. With 70k there is no way to live anywhere near Chelsea.

OP, I get this. My life has some lovely aspects to it but I do feel that career wise, I could have achieved far more but I lacked the confidence to push for higher. I’d have much more money and a different way of life (and I’m really not poor). The thing that helps is reminding myself that comparison is the thief of joy and if I must compare, look at people who have less than me. Would I really want to swap lives?

In your shoes, I’d make a list of things I wanted to do - maybe join a reading club, a choir, a rowing club - anything that is sociable. I’d volunteer for a cause that matters to me.

Lastly, I’d look at therapy to help me deal with the issues/feelings I have and invest in myself this way.

You matter. Look after yourself in every way you can.

YANBU to think it, I’m similar and definitely think it at times but I try to make the best of the life I have made for myself. You are doing well in your career, you have a home that is secure and can take decent holidays. Don’t let what happened in your past ruin the future for you

I find this interesting. I had an awful start too. And so did lots of my friends. I got a well earned degree from The Open University (which a lot of people can be snobbish about) and I’m mega proud of myself. I worked hard. Didn’t have anyone hold my hand. Excellent grades—could I have gone to Oxford? I could have passed, but you do live your life and make your choices.
join a new group. Be thankful for what you have, before the bitterness eats you. Most people would kill for a uni education and to be drinking in an upmarket restaurant.

I agree.

Whoever told you that you had the potential to be a brain surgeon or prime minister is still living rent free in your head telling you that you are not good enough. It's a snotty stupid label to have hung around a child's neck.
It also just sounds like parental boasting... "My" child is destined to be a very high achiever, I hope you are all jealous... Child you haven't lived up to my expectations and therefore I can't have the joy of people being jealous of me. How dare you!

All that crap has very very little to do with assisting you to flourish and caring about your well being as you were growing up.

I'm guessing it was one of the people who made your childhood very difficult and therefore made it difficult for you to flourish in the way you want to and the "targets" they set are making you feel like you haven't achieved, whereas I think it sounds like you've made a success of your life despite the difficulties you've experienced.

Yes. Brain Surgeon is a very worthwhile job largely because its seen as something that provides help to people... I'm sure you have already helped people or improved the lives of others, Brain surgery is not the only way to do it.

Prime Minister - not sure that actually is the best job in the world. You'd need a big ego to run for office, lots of "connections" and a highly competitive nature and a skin as thick as a rhino... Is that really something to aspire to.. there are better jobs in the world. I'm not knocking any particular prime minister, but I did know a politician who once said every political job eventually ends in death or failure. And even so called "Successful" people are sometimes in the situation of worrying that their next project may fail and be humiliating. The grass really is always greener.

The fact is you have overcome the obstacles of difficult childhood, abusive relationships, you have a good job, your own home, both of which are a freedom and independence that many would envy and are thinking about all this whilst on what sounds like a lovely holiday. If you weren't trying to meet these unrealistic demands set by someone else without any consideration of your actual and very real talents or real potential - would you still feel bad... ?

Also. The 20 somethings were quite happy to hang out with you... so you clearly have an ability to get on with people and were not too shy to converse with them. But you can't compare yourself with people 20 years younger. 40 is NOT the end of the road. With your financial security and independence you are in a great position. You still have many productive and fulfilling years ahead of you and the ability and intelligence to develop and improve your life in the way that suits YOU, regardless of the judgement of other people. I hope that this pause for thought you are having gives you some great ideas and wish you all the very best with your journey.

I second the advice of people who have said get some advice/therapy to help you look at all these worries from a slightly different perspective. It would maybe help you find your own definition of success, not be trapped by some nonsense trotted out unthinkingly and unhelpfully by a judgemental adult to a child.

These comments are ridiculously harsh. Childhood trauma can really colour your whole life. I sometimes feel like you do and am trying to rethink things but it’s hard. I hope you feel better soon OP

So much wisdom in this post but the line I loved most was:

I have handled it with grace.

The vast majority of people handle misfortune with far more destructive attitudes and grace is actually seen by many as a kind of weakness, when it really isn't.

I think making sure you do better for your dc must be one of the most healing things there is for people with childhood trauma.

But perhaps the wisest bit of this post is the recognition that while it is tempting to envisage missed opportunities as the loss of certain success, some of those paths would have been dead ends or even worse than the path we did take.

Start by being grateful for everything you do have, a job, your own home, nice holidays etc. You don’t know other peoples situations, they might be up to their ears in debt, just look at everything you do have, you are the only person that can make yourself happy and if something isn’t right you are in a position to change it. Try volunteering it often helps ground you.

@OnceMoreIntoTheBreachDearFriends Civil Service and law conversion are two options people take in their 40s. You might need lifestyle change to do either past a certain point. But could look into it?

A small rental income is better than nothing, if you leave your own place for a while. Temporarily sharing with other neurodivergent folk in a larger house, or a place with reasonably selfcontained bedsits and a couple of communal areas, might be bearable? There is a lot more understanding now than there used to be.

Good luck. And you are not being silly.

Chelsea isn't really affordable for anyone in their late 20's unless they have help from wealthy parents.

I'm not sure your holiday is bringing you much joy op. Do you have interests you can pursue closer to home? If you gave up the expensive holidays could you give up one of the jobs which might give you time to focus on excellence in your other job? You are autistic and may not want an active social life but do you have anything you want to do for yourself? Something to learn? Feeling like you do isn't pleasant but it is really a part of you saying 'listen to me'. I suggest you get a notepad and a pen and write. Write every day about how you are feeling, how things could change for the better. And as others have said. Start your writing with gratitude - write something about your life you are grateful for. Feeling like you do isn't a bad thing. It's a step towards a more satisfying life if you embrace your difficult feelings instead of trying to escape them.

It really doesn't these days.

If anything it can count against you.

I love this post. What a brilliant mental image: all the windows and doors open! Acknowledging it and not holding on to it.

I'm glad you have done so well with mastering your regret and wish you much happiness ahead.

The thing is, you might have been actively encouraged to apply because you were bright, but you may STILL not have gotten in. They didn’t used to only want booksmart kids (no idea now). They used to like confident, outspoken people with lots of extra curricular hobbies. Maybe that was you, maybe it wasn’t.

Maybe you’d have got through the interview and wowed them all, maybe you feared the rejection that was coming your way.

By deciding it was yours for the taking and you didn’t take it, you’re picking the passive option which gives you control. You chose no, not them.

That was years ago and now you’re full of regrets. So if it’s important to you to know whether or not you’d have gotten in there, why not apply for a postgraduate study now?

I think your problem in all aspects of life sounds a bit like you didn’t want to be rejected so you hid. Understandable given you had a tough childhood.

But that doesn’t feel good either.

So now is the time to try?

Or you could stay as you are. It really is up to you.

@OnceMoreIntoTheBreachDearFriends I have read all your posts, but not necessarily the whole thread of everyone else's input.

What stands out to me are some of the positives you don't seem to recognise as positives. Sure, you appear to have been dealt a hand (maybe several hands) that haven't enable you to play strongly, but you have the tenacity to work two jobs to give you the things you need / want. Many don't do that. You don't appear to have let your autism hold you back. It shouldn't. Many people have it. You appear to recognise it, and just get on anyway. Oddly, I am a dog trainer, and people with autism make fantastic dog trainers as they understand the need for detail, consistency and understanding. If only everyone else did.

It is very easy to compare up. Every time that happens, it should be balanced by comparing down too. Yes, there are shitloads of people who earn more, have nicer houses, families etc. Reality is often different though. Also, there are many people worse off. People who live in war zones, poverty etc. Life doesn't have to be a 1 or a 6. It can be a 3 or a 4.

I do sometimes wander down the path of what would have happened if I'd turned left instead of right at whatever juncture I was at, but a) that is irrelevant as I didn't and b) I wouldn't have experienced the things I did.

I can't offer you anything other than a hug from a total stranger out here in the ether. Look for the good things in your life, smell the roses, look at the sunsets. Many don't get to even do that. Even recently in the news a young man had his life cut short. Life is full of tragedy as well as people who appear to have been born with the Midas touch. If all else fails, just think of Elon Musk. All that money, and he is still a c**t.

I am not sure yet more therapy will help

therepy and the idea that you need it may be allowing you to revisit and wallow rather than move forward

it’s your life and your choices now that matter not what’s been and gone

Eh? Very few people have faced your adversity? First of all you are an employed, educated home owner in a developed western country. Don’t be ridiculous.

Secondly, you don’t know what other people have faced. It’s not a competition. Being comparative is holding you back and has got you into this funk. Let go of it.

You're not being unreasonable to grieve this. What you're describing isn't petty comparison-itis, it's a pretty coherent picture: a childhood that gave you every reason to expect more, real talent and ability that other people recognized in you from early on, and then a series of things that weren't your fault, an abusive father, an abusive partner, undiagnosed autism that probably made bullying and burnout more likely, that knocked you off the track you were clearly capable of being on. Grieving a life you could plausibly have had, with real evidence for it, is different from grieving a fantasy. It makes sense that sitting with a group of confident twenty-somethings who got the easier version of the path you were aimed at would bring it up sharply.
A few things that might help you carry this rather than just trying to "get over it":
The achievements you do have weren't handed to you. Two jobs, your own home, a master's degree, all while dealing with the aftermath of an abusive childhood and an abusive relationship and an undiagnosed disability, is not a small life. It's just a harder-won and less glamorous one than brain surgeon or PM, and those comparisons were always going to be unfair benchmarks set by people who didn't know what they were asking a child to carry later in life.
It's worth separating two different griefs that are probably tangled together here: grief for the specific outcomes (the City job, the Oxbridge cohort, the flat in Chelsea), and grief for the sense of agency you lost when other people's harm shaped your choices for you. The second one is the heavier one, and it doesn't actually require you to want their specific life. You can fully believe you'd have ended up somewhere impressive and still not want their 60-hour-week, no-kids-either, twenty-eight-and-already-burnt-out version of "made it." Letting go of the specific imagined CV is easier than letting go of the feeling that you should have gotten to choose.
The "too late" framing is doing a lot of work in your message, and I'd gently question it rather than accept it outright. You're 40, not 70. Career pivots, further study, new directions, these aren't closed off, they're just harder and slower than they would have been at 25, which is a real loss worth grieving, but not the same as the door being shut.
You mention this is something you've been managing for a while and you're looking for a way to process it. Given everything you've come through, especially the abuse and the late autism diagnosis, it might be worth finding a therapist who has specific experience with both complex/childhood trauma and autistic adults, since grief like this often loosens with someone trained in untangling "what happened to me" from "who I am as a result," rather than through willpower alone. That's not a sign you're failing at managing it, it's a fairly specialised mix and most generalist counselling doesn't dig into both well.

Some harsh and unsympathetic responses on this thread

I think you've done really well to triumph over adversity. Perhaps some counselling / therapy would help, to learn to (1) be grateful for what you have (2) come to terms with what you don't have

I think it's common to feel flat when we come to terms with our dreams not materialising. I had a notion to work in New York for a while. Thought it would be a big adventure. But it didn't happen. I'm OK with that now, but I remember feeling a bit sad / deflated when I realised that it definitely wouldn't happen