If you would wipe out a piece of your life so it never affected you what would it be?

[WhatAMum01]

I'd never have fell for a much older guy when I was a teenager, we had a relationship if you can call it that ,but now on reflection as an adult makes my skin crawl ,he took advantage.cant believe how naive I was.it affects me to this day 25 years later.i know I'd be a different person if it hadn't happened.

Name changed again.

I would wipe out the last few years I’ve suffered from cancer. It has broken me physically, emotionally and mentally (yet everyone comments on how “amazing” I’m looking/doing and how “strong” I am - just shut up). My body and mind will be never be the same - it sucks - and if I could turn back time I would not have had any treatment and would enjoy my time without knowing what was wrong. Unfortunately you can’t turn back time nor ask for an extension.

I had alot of trauma throughout my childhood so there is alot that I would love to get rid off. If I had to pick one though funnily enough it's a toss up between two things that weren't as traumatic as others but have had a life long effect on me. One was regularly being hit and physically attacked by my mother whilst she said awful things to me. That feeling of "if my own mother can do this to me, I must be unlovable" still permeates through me. The other would be being bullied in school for six years from 9 - 15, especially by boys who told me no one would ever want me, I'd be hopeless in bed, I was an embarrassment to any guy etc and much much worse (ie a group of them holding me down and lifting my skirt up so they could do a "period inspection", horrible sexual comments, urinating on my belongings etc). Because of those years I genuinely assumed that no one would ever want me and, after having only one relationship ever with an emotionally abusive man, I'm 35 with no children and very very single and lonely. I'm tempted to say I'd eradicate the bullying because if I could have let love in and believed someone could love me I might have healed alot more of the childhood trauma and had my own little family instead of this empty, lonely feeling I'm trapped with.

Its daft to have let hideous little 12 year old boys rule my life the way I have. I wish I could undo it all.

My exh. But i'd keep my dcs

Eating disorders.

Hmm. Not something that did happen, but something that didn't.

I think my sister would say different mum, because our mum had numerous awful life experiences resulting in MH difficulties that made life difficult for us.

But I have achieved a lot based on the coping skills I learned from that. I live a lot easier life because my boundaries are great. Half the melodramas on MN brush over me as entirely inconsequential.

What I feel like was missing was guidance in my teens for career paths. I was and am highly academic across the spectrum, and I'm not exaggerating to say that a huge number of careers would have been available to me.

But because I could clearly do anything, nobody bothered giving me much guidance about what sort of work I liked, enjoyed, earnings, associated lifestyle etc.

In some ways nothing as where I've arrived is perfect (perfect daughter, and if anything had changed I'd risk never having met her so fuck it all else really).

But discounting that...

I would have got on a train from Venice to Florence when I was 19 with a man I'd just met. I'd like to know what could have happened there if I'd taken a chance when I had nothing else to lose. Just found out he got married last year, so thinking about him a lot at the moment and wondering what might have been.

Or...

I'd have done a different subject at university (or even for A-levels). I wish I'd done something more practical and applied so I could feel like a proper expert in something - did arts and humanities subjects for three degreees, and still feel like I'm winging it and don't know any more than most people could figure out most days.

Senior school. All of it. I was horribly left out and alone. It's really affected my life.

@NameChange84

One particular event that happened when I was 18 that has and will affect me in many ways for years.

I'd have gone to uni and dumped the boyfriend, rather than stayed home to please him. All that happened in thay relationship (being abused, controlled, gaslighted, cheated on and made to have an abortion) can also piss off.

I might have misbehaved a bit more as a teen, sometimes I think I was far too sensible

There are a few things I'd like to erase, many of them caused by my being so quiet and shy with no courage to stick up for myself.

An emotionally abusive and bullying father must have set all this in motion. Looking back I've been bullied all my life, Dad, sister, PE teacher and a few colleagues in various jobs. In middle age I've gained confidence and seem not to be such an easy target anymore.

All those years wasted, feeling scared, being under the thumb, I've never really achieved my potential.

I would never have started drinking in parks. EVER.
Also would never have had 2 relationships with much other lads. One i was 13 and he introduced me to self harm. The other, when I was 15-19, was a complete abuser who took everything from my personality to my money away from me.

Just realised it was supposed to be things you'd erase, not things you'd do differently...

Losing my mum the way I did recently. Horrible for her and has utterly changed me and really damaged me in ways I don't know if I'll ever get over. I wish more than anything that she was still here.

Secondary school. I hated it and ended up severely depressed and self-harming by the age of 13. All the counselling/support I received was focused on making me attend school and do homework. The idea that it was the environment and not me that was the problem never seemed to be considered. It baffles me today. Had I been an adult employee, I'd have been signed off sick and probably advised to try a completely different sort of workplace. Under 16? No, you have to keep going back to the place that makes you utterly miserable, and refusing to is 'bad behaviour'.

I still sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I'd had access to some kind of alternate educational provision, or just people who thought that my mental health was more important than 'being normal' and doing what they thought people my age should be. I probably wouldn't have spent a decade hating myself and thinking I was a failure.

OP I had a similar experience in my teens, it developed into a mutually obsessive affair and lasted a few years. It still affects me, but the real scars came from my DFs reaction - he made it very clear that he saw me and my reputation as his possession and that virginity was the be-all and end-all for women.
Both now dead so I guess I've moved on, but both really affected my attitude to relationships negatively.

my Mother marrying my StepFather when I was 3 years old.

Different Dad, then also my teenage years 15-18. I was in a similar situation to you OP and it makes me sick to think of it now.

My mother.

I know a lot of people draw on their bad experiences because they made them who they are today, but all she did was cause me pain and hurt from before I even knew it. So I may have grown up a different person without the serious neglect she made me suffer, but I don't think i would have grown up a worse person, and I would not have suffered in the process.

I'd have a different mother. Mine just chopped me off at the knees, for all my life until she died. I have such poor self esteem because she undermined me over and over. Any other mother would have been better - her influence caused me to make so many wrong decisions over the years.

Our fertility issues. We never get any clarity about who or what the problem actually is despite lots of tests, procedure etc. I seemed so much happier before we started trying and the whole thing has been a waste of time. All the while making me feel shit physically (stupid medication and IVF) and mentally

An afternoon school run back in 2012. I was speaking to someone 10 miles to the dozen and I now know this is what triggered a massive panic attack. I spiraled quickly and now still 7 years later I still can't do every day things like go to the supermarket alone or catch a bus. School runs are dreadful but currently managing
If I could wipe something it would be that afternoon school run

Yes @SpinsterOfArts!

Absolutely this. I got bullied at the Junior school my father moved me to after being at a happy nursery and infant school where I was popular and my father would not let me leave, saying that I would run away all my life and that basically the problem lay with me being "too nice" and unable to defend myself rather than seeing it as a toxic environment. He made me stay for three years and only let me leave when I was left unable to walk for a month due to injuries sustained at school and without anyone to speak to at lunch, break etc. When I was finally moved to a new school and started getting bullied the minute I arrived by friends of my bullies at the old school, I was too afraid to tell anyone as my Dad and teachers at the old school had reinforced that the problem was with me. I considered taking my own life as I had no one to tell. Eventually a teacher witnessed what was happening but when she passed it on to the pastoral leads they too said it was a problem with me because I had low self esteem and that I needed to sort out my behaviour and learn how to ignore it rather than stop it. On the day five boys held me down and exposed my underwear and sanitary towel to the rest of the class, the teacher walked into the room, saw what was happening and said "For God's Sake NameChange, get up off the floor and stop messing around." It was never the fault of the boys in the teachers eyes and the unofficial school motto was "bullying is character building".

I went through a phase of not attending school due to depression and like you say, the focus was always on getting me back into an environment that was harming me instead of getting me into a safer place. A medical professional even wrote to my parents and the school that it was the school that was making me ill. Parents, the school, GPs and paediatrics all kept forcing me back.

It was only this year that I realised the problem was not me and that if I had a child there was no way I'd insist on them returning day after day to such a damaging environment.

It's insane what we socially expect from victims of bullying at school. What's the point of getting good qualifications, if you even manage that, if your self esteem is so through the floor that you have no confidence and self esteem left and essentially leave school and go out into the adult world broken.

My Narcissistic mother. I can trace a lot of my problems (weight, anxiety, inapproprite relationships,etc) back to my relationship with her

Oh God, things I could control or things out of my control?

I'm pretty happy with a the life choices I've made.

Losing my sister in my teens and losing my (now) husbands mum in our early 20's had massive impacts on our lives. I often think about how different things would be for our families if those two losses never happened.