To ask of your 'If I could go back in time' moments

[MissionItsPossible]

Thread title doesn't explain it properly but I mean those moments looking back, no matter how soon or long ago, you wish you could have said/did/acted differently looking back in hindsight.

My most regretful one was when I was aged 8 in 1994 and I had gone to my friends house and his dad said "I've got no problem with your lot, it's the paki's I can't stand" and ugh, I remember feeling pleased he had no problem with my skin colour but looking back what an ignorant and horrible statement to make especially to a child and looking back, as an adult, wish I could have said something back to him.

Another one was when an old boss told me I was useless and pointless. Wish I'd told him exactly how useless and pointless that he was in running a business when all the staff hated him but I was 15 and didn't have the confidence and just accepted it meekly.

Yours?

Sometimes I wish I'd never opened the Pandora's box that is my bio family.

I spent a long time wishing that I didn't know about my bio parents, siblings and circumstances of my birth.
In the end it made me appreciate my adopted family so much more and I've at least broken the cycle in regards to my DC.

But meeting my bio mother. I cannot put into words how bad a decision that was.

I would have stood up when Dale took me by the hand, and gone with him.

I would have gone through with breaking up with M even though he cried.

I would have kissed D properly.

But then I might not be with DP, the best person I've ever met, so it's all fine.

Nothing. The Butterfly Effect.

All the bad, horrible, wrong and embarrassing things mixed with all the happy, proud and wonderful things have got me where I am today.

The only 2 real things I would have done differently would both be when I was young.
I'd tell my very little self to tell my mum about the sexually abuse I was suffering.
And I'd track down my 12 year old self and smack the cigarette right out of her mouth. It took me 20 years, thousands and thousands of dollars, and much grief to slay that dragon.

I would have never accepted a drink from the guy I met through friends who went on to become husband ( now ex thankfully) I lost nearly 10 years of my life 2 teeth and suffered innumerable times at his fists and attitude. I tried to take my own life just to escape as I couldn't see a way out.....in the end I lost my beautiful home ( that I had when we met) and most of my possessions, I sadly also lost all contact with my 7 step grandchildren....and at 48 live in a bedsit and suffer with terrible anxiety

However I'm alive and I have my wonderful daughter (25) and a very caring loving kind man who I adore in my life and I vow everyday that I will enjoy my life and do one act of kindness everyday to help me feel good about the world

I was a rather shy child/teen/young adult and was very wary of anyone who wanted to spend time with me (clearly some sort of defence mechanism). I think my life could have been more interesting if I'd taken a few more chances on letting people in. Specific moments are:

• When I was about 13 and being mocked by a group of boys on the way home a girl from another school stepped in to tell them to get lost and walked home with me. She asked if I wanted to meet up sometimes (nowadays I suspect she'd have said 'hang out'). I was so shocked I didn't answer so she mumbled something like 'that;s OK, I know you've probably got friends already' and that was that. I think if I had believed that she was just another lonely teen I would have felt less isolated.

• Several occasions in my late teens/early teens when perfectly pleasant, sober, attractive men asked me out but I assumed they were either secretly odd and unpleasant or having a laugh at my expense. If I'd said yes to them I probably wouldn't have wasted time chasing after men who treated me badly. I did eventually work out that saying yes to someone who seems nice but may turn out to be odd was better than going out with someone who didn't even seem very nice, but it took a while!

@pinksparklypussycat you can still term him now. Sit quietly and " tune in " to him, then tell him all you need to
Someone encouraged me to do this, and it changed my life for the better

Not gone out that night a week before my 18th birthday when I had my drink spiked and was raped which totally wrecked my self esteem and mental health and allowed me to end up with controlling xp who was mentally and physically abusive for 5 years.
However I met my now DH through the business xp started so perhaps I had to put up with it all

I would have suggested starting TTC for our second child a few weeks earlier, so my Dad could have met her.

I would also have taken that year in Dublin when it was on offer.

I was about 15, at school and being endlessly bullied by a girl named Jenna. I accidentally knocked a ceramic pot off the side in an art class, and found out later it was Jenna's. she cornered me in a changing room later and totally humiliated me in front of everyone else there. I can see it as if it were yesterday. She asked me, "don't you think I deserve an apology?", and I wish I had stood up for myself and said something like, "yes, but only when you start treating me with some respect" or something like it. It took me years to build up my self-esteem and put the bullies behind me.

If I could have one jaunt to the past to change anything I'd delay my cousin from taking a trip that would kill him as a teenager. Had he been with just one person instead of rushing ahead in eagerness of a promised brilliant day he would have survived.

His death tore us all to pieces and some of us are still in pieces almost 15 years later

Everything else good or bad I can chalk up to experience but I'd love to have been able to spare those I love that pain.

I would have left my husband when he cheated on me- with hindsight I would have been fine without him. I didn't think I would ever meet anyone else- I was young and beautiful with a good career and I could have moved on. Now I'm old and have a chronic illness and need him in a practical way. But then I wouldn't have my gorgeous DD2....

I would go back to the day we booked a holiday. I had panic attack on the flight. My life hasn't been the same since

So I'd go back and not book that holiday!!!

I would have chosen the man who really loved me who I "friend zoned" 15 years ago. Instead I chose someone who I spent 10 years being unhappy with.
my friend went on to meet someone else and is in a functioning but not happy relationship which he doesn't feel he can leave due to kids.

But I love him, I was just young and had no awareness of what it was liked to be truly loved, and he did truly love me. I have distanced myself from him because it all hurts too much.
I think we both regret the choices we made all those years ago.
I don't know if i will ever find someone now.

Silly thing.
Wished I never accepted a job at a bar. Lasted 2 weeks. Wasn't trained properly and treated horrifically. But made me fell pathetic, and keep over thinking it. But I will get over it, just one minor bump in the long road.

Fuck. So much I'd say. So much I'd do. So much I wouldn't say and wouldn't do. Can't think much beyond that or I'd get very depressed.

This is such a sad & heartbreaking thread for me as I came to the conclusion that I would change so many thinge. But maybe today I'm too tired & things are not going exactly right in my life so I have a tendency for drama just now