If You Could Go Back

[Flinty]

My young days (maybe a lot like yours)... The school spoke with my parents wanting to send me to a different school because I was the only one like me there... My parents decided no, (maybe because it would be a long drive everyday), and just labeled me as "bull headed stubborn."

So if there had of been earlier assistance, sure things might be more different than I can even grasp, but the reality of that was that didn't happen. However, I might have grown dependent on the "system" and may have never developed into what I did... Though it sucked, maybe it wasn't as bad as it could have been...
I don't guess I will ever know, nor should I worry over what I cant possibly change. : )

Oh, I wasn't clear. If I had been sent to another school, there would have been no commuting. I would have ended up a minimum of 2:15 away, to live. That's a minimum; it might have been 6 or 8 hours...

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.

Nah. I try to live my life with no regrets.

 

[OkRad]

I wouldn't have wasted my whole life waiting to find friends and to find someone to love, erroneously assuming that I had just as much chance of getting both as anyone else.

I would have been expecting to be bullied and mistreated and it wouldn't have come as such a shock when that's what happened for the umpteenth time. I wouldn't have promised myself "I won't let it happen to me again" because I would have known that of course it was going to happen again. I wouldn't have been so willing to trust other people who turned out to wish me harm.

I would have told my teachers to go to hell when they let the other kids tease me and beat me up and then sent reports home with me saying that it was all my fault I didn't get along with the other children. I wouldn't have bothered going to university because I would have known that I had no chance of having a meaningful career no matter how many degrees I earned.

I probably wouldn't be any happier, but at least I would have been forewarned that my whole life was going to be a piece of crap.

Meh, maybe it would have been better. I have no idea. I just know that I didn't get the chances that I deserved and that everyone else got, and I'm not convinced that an earlier diagnosis of having something wrong with my brain would have helped me in my academic career. Now that I have my diagnosis, my mom won't listen to me any more because she says I'm "deficient" and therefore none of my opinions are valid. Not that she listened to me very well before, but at least she pretended to try.

This post really struck me. I really like the way you would be so proactive , but not to change anything but to be PREPARED!! I am going to think about this as I go forward. The way you stated you would not have even tried to make friends, knowing you did not have the same chances......

Now I do not know you but for me, this is SO TRUE! And yet, I keep thinking, "Oh so and so will like me! I am not that different.." and then I catch myself in a bizarre situation related to my ASD and realize.....yeah. I am that different.

I am going to try to remind myself, "OKRAD, you have no chance. Give it up." In a way, that helps me move on to things that matter!!!

 

[Squished Crab]

just labeled me as "bull headed stubborn."

I mistakenly thought this only happened to girls on the spectrum. I am sorry that it happens to us, we don't deserve it.

I have a happy life now, but I have had to exclude certain family members from my life. Or rather, they excluded me and I will not seek them out again, in order to hold on to my peace. I wish I could go back and cut them out earlier, I think my blood pressure would certainly be lower.

 

[Chance]

I mistakenly thought this only happened to girls on the spectrum. I am sorry that it happens to us, we don't deserve it.

I have a happy life now, but I have had to exclude certain family members from my life. Or rather, they excluded me and I will not seek them out again, in order to hold on to my peace. I wish I could go back and cut them out earlier, I think my blood pressure would certainly be lower.

Well the "Cure" for my young undiagnosed hand flapping, ear pulling, non-talking "Stubbornness" was to beat it out of me... 2 times to the point of unconscious... It's a great CURE... Really enjoyed it... Then they gave up on me, and Mom left and dad just kind of shuffled me around with people who would keep me...

They were going to put me in a boys home... I was actually praying that would happen, but the Boys home wouldn't take me because I wasn't remotely like the boys in there who were in deep trouble with the law, all sorts of stuff, so it's probably best how it worked out... It doesn't matter it's over and forgotten as best as possible...

 

[OrSomething]

Well, I was already diagnosed at age 10. But if I could go back, I would be braver and speak up for myself more.

 

[wight]

10 would be too late for me to change anything. Maybe 4 or 5. Age 7, I was already realizing that the world was mostly BS ( church, school, arbitrary rules, etc.)

Anyway, I'm kind of Chance's wavelength on this... if I changed something I wouldn't be the person I am now, or know what I know now.

 

[Adora]

If say I was diagnosed when I was a teenager it will probably help me deal with feeling different and i would probably even focus more on my drawings since it was a huge interest of mine and I have also gotten back into drawing not long ago,I also probably be more at peace with myself for being quiet and also be more forgiving of myself aswell,but on the flip side I grew with a abusive family and my dad who was a alcoholic if say he knew might of used it against me as something else to abuse me about because he use to give me grief about my interests and how involved I was with them and he would call me a geek or a nerd and also berated me for liking JRR Tolkien books and movies,I do wish sometimes I knew earlier regardless of outcome because maybe I could got more help and maybe somehow avoid some of the struggles I have dealt with growing up.

 

[SusanLR]

I wouldn't have wasted my whole life waiting to find friends and to find someone to love, erroneously assuming that I had just as much chance of getting both as anyone else.

I would have been expecting to be bullied and mistreated and it wouldn't have come as such a shock when that's what happened for the umpteenth time. I wouldn't have promised myself "I won't let it happen to me again" because I would have known that of course it was going to happen again. I wouldn't have been so willing to trust other people who turned out to wish me harm.

I would have told my teachers to go to hell when they let the other kids tease me and beat me up and then sent reports home with me saying that it was all my fault I didn't get along with the other children. I wouldn't have bothered going to university because I would have known that I had no chance of having a meaningful career no matter how many degrees I earned.

I probably wouldn't be any happier, but at least I would have been forewarned that my whole life was going to be a piece of crap.

Meh, maybe it would have been better. I have no idea. I just know that I didn't get the chances that I deserved and that everyone else got, and I'm not convinced that an earlier diagnosis of having something wrong with my brain would have helped me in my academic career. Now that I have my diagnosis, my mom won't listen to me any more because she says I'm "deficient" and therefore none of my opinions are valid. Not that she listened to me very well before, but at least she pretended to try.

Another one here that agrees.
Except for the last paragraph. It isn't my parents that consider me deficient now that I have my diagnosis, they are deceased and would have accepted it. It is the person I am currently living with who seems to enjoy trying to make me feel that I am lesser and some type of idiot that doesn't know things he thinks I should know and makes fun of my speech. Always saying he can't follow what I say. Says it doesn't make sense and gets angry. I hear, " I don't know what the H*ll you're talking about" so much I'm sick of hearing it.

I wouldn't have changed anything had I known earlier except for financial planning. Instead of just working at something that interested me and giving most of my earnings to my parents because they needed it, I would have started planning for my older years. Perhaps investments so I wouldn't be broke now that I am older and disabled. The reason I put up with whom I live with.
Not much other choices for now anyway.

 

[Mathalamus]

age of ten? that far back? i would do nothing. its just too far into the past for me to make any changes that wont result in a completely alternate timeline. probably a much worse one.

 

[ksheehan88]

I'd like to think things would have been easier for me growing up had I known, but I don't think things would've been any different.

And even if it were, there would be things in my life that I do love now that I wouldn't have.

 

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

I was diagnosed since the age of seven and even before that had a diagnosis of PDD. It made no difference whatsoever. We lived in such a rural town with lazy teachers who didn't care and a school board that cared even less. I was always begging my parents to move but they refused. By the time we did move it was too late and it was just to another crappy hellhole hick town. If we did move to the city and I did get "help", I doubt it would have been actual help and would have just been ABA-esque normalization "therapy". I'm FAR more happy as an adult because I can say finally say no to things that make me uncomfortable or just seem wrong.

 

[FreeDiver]

Would I go back and change anything? That's a tough one because that presents a real enigma here. I can think of a lot of things in my life I would like to go back and change. But how would I know if that change would make things anything better? What if it makes things worse? What if all it does is just makes things different?

 

[OlLiE]

would'a, should'a, could'a
if you can't change it, don't worry about it

 

[Chance]

After re-thinking this... My monk thing (I always mention) would be a very likely alternative if I could turn back time, or make it happen in real time...

Or maybe just become a hermit up in the mountains. Maybe some of us just aren't "wired" to interact with this "reality," and lots of the people who rule it. Or maybe we have to harness it, and let it know that it is supposed to be working for us.

I see LIFE or "reality" as very different, something that isn't near as concrete as the people around me see it...

I need "reality" to quit being a divergence showing only the difficulties in my LIFE... I need it to stop telling me what I cant do, and show me what I can do, so I can build from my past, a future that looks NOTHING like it.

It works for others, so I cant sit here and say it cant work for me.

 

[Chance]

Would I go back and change anything? That's a tough one because that presents a real enigma here. I can think of a lot of things in my life I would like to go back and change. But how would I know if that change would make things anything better? What if it makes things worse? What if all it does is just makes things different?

Maybe we get to keep our present knowledge to take back with us as a blue print, and we reconstruct from that narrative... Not sure, because this is just wishful thinking unless someone has a time machine hid in a phone booth somewhere... : )

 

[Panthro]

I would go back in time and invent Google, Facebook, Pokemon Go, and the ipod!

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

. It is the

I would go back in time and invent Google, Facebook, Pokemon Go, and the ipod!

Good idea. I'm going back to steal your ideas.

 

[OlLiE]

After re-thinking this... My monk thing (I always mention) would be a very likely alternative if I could turn back time, or make it happen in real time...

Or maybe just become a hermit up in the mountains. Maybe some of us just aren't "wired" to interact with this "reality," and lots of the people who rule it. Or maybe we have to harness it, and let it know that it is supposed to be working for us.

I see LIFE or "reality" as very different, something that isn't near as concrete as the people around me see it...

I need "reality" to quit being a divergence showing only the difficulties in my LIFE... I need it to stop telling me what I cant do, and show me what I can do, so I can build from my past, a future that looks NOTHING like it.

It works for others, so I cant sit here and say it cant work for me.

there was actually a job ad for a 'mountain hermit' in the mountains of switzerland,
the previous inhabitant retired

 

[FreeDiver]

Maybe we get to keep our present knowledge to take back with us as a blue print, and we reconstruct from that narrative... Not sure, because this is just wishful thinking unless someone has a time machine hid in a phone booth somewhere... : )

This brings up another interesting paradoxical issue. What if you could go back in time to fix your past? OK, so you go back in time and fix your past. There's only one problem. Now that your past is fix? You will no longer need to go back in time in the first place, and if you don't go back in time, how can you fix your past? catch 22 chicken and egg issue.