What if ....it is a trap.

What if ....it is a trap.
Sawyer49

Sawyer49

Registrant
So many times I fantasize the what it's some of my what if's:
What if parents were able to read what was going on?
What if it had never happened?
What if my parents had stayed separated and it continued?

But it happened ....and now
What if I had fought harder?
What if they made a pill that would wipe these memories of them, their voices, their smell, their taste.

This sort of what if thinking keeps me from the here and now. My wife, my kids.
No more what ifs it is what was but not what is now.
 
It is a reasonable question without an answer. I actually think it could be a helpful technique for your brain to try and get your head around the inconceivability of our abuse. But I can also see how the what ifs could get us stuck in an endless loop. I am working on mindfulness, which to your point, might be one way to live in the here and now.
 
I think the problem with "what ifs" is that we tend to imagine the best possible outcome would have been ours if the abuse hadn't happened. There's no way to know what would have been if we hadn't been abused; maybe our lives would have been better, maybe they would have been the same or worse. That hindsight will never be there to guide us on the "what ifs". I'm fairly new to this, but I'm finding it more productive to me to say "what can be", to focus more on the now and the future. Because that is what is in my control now, not the past.
 
Sawyer49 said:
What if they made a pill that would wipe these memories of them, their voices, their smell, their taste.
Click to expand...
Not remembering CSA is it's own unique hell which I suffered through for almost 50 years. I knew something was wrong, no therapist could figure it out either, PTSD is remembered by the body, even when the mind forgets.
 
I cant claim to be the best read man on the plant but doubting it happened is by all accounts a common phenomena
 
Yup. I've been caught in the "What If' trap many, many times myself.

It's hard to balance how much is the right amount of time to give to thoughts of regret, to appropriately honor the injured child, and how much is too much because it interferes with the progress to be made. Sometimes I get things balanced right and sometimes not.
 
What If I had told my parents after the bad doctor touched me at age 6 to 9. Would they have believed me? Or what if I told my parents about the rape at age 9 1/2 by the baby sitter BF, would life changed for me. What if I complained in the Boy Scouts about the scoutmaster and quit the scouts. Would have my legal problems later in life not been there or how much of my personality would be different today. What if's are dangerous by themselves. Thou it would be nice to dream with out nightmare, be able to sleep better at night. It would be nice not to be stuck in life now. What if?
 
Yeah the "what-if" trap is closely related to the "Should" trap. I should do this I should do that. I should be this person. I should be doing this action. Should is toxic because it compares your current situation with an idyllic, unrealistic reality and then subconsciously you hold yourself responsible for not attaining that unrealistic reality. It's toxic and it's pervasive, and it's unfair to you. The person in all the "should" scenarios is the same person in all the "what-if" scenarios. They're not real people. You're real and you're a survivor. And the person in the "what-ifs" and the "shoulds" cannot have accomplished what you have, because they're not real.

But it's a lot easier to say than do. I have so many what-ifs myself. But I'm trying to give myself some grace and some forgiveness and trying to reframe things with the knowledge that no one has a crystal ball that can predict the future and no one has a time machine to go and change the past. Not yet anyways. But technology being what it is.... maybe tomorrow.
 
Dolphin42 said:
Not remembering CSA is it's own unique hell which I suffered through for almost 50 years. I knew something was wrong, no therapist could figure it out either, PTSD is remembered by the body, even when the mind forgets.
Click to expand...
I'm starting to understand the fallacy of wishing I could not remember. There are still some things that don't make sense to me and I often wonder if something happened earlier.
 
I quit the 'what it's....they will consume you. So I went with 'that's the way is is' and am I going to move on.
 
I agree What Ifs are a dead end cycle. But they can also be revealing. It's in those fantasies that I connect with my pain.

A prominent one I have is that the man who raped me, rescued me from the kidnapper, helped my father speak to me, had me live with him on weekends and taught me to lift weights. The guy was a psycho, that never would have happened! But the fantasy helps me identify the deep pain I felt from my father's inability to form any type of bond with me.

I just have to be careful not to play it over and over. It's not medicine. It's poison.
 
I can relate to that my friends dad was more accepting at times then my own of course I know now the reason I was paid attention to from him.
 
Sawyer49 said:
I'm starting to understand the fallacy of wishing I could not remember. There are still some things that don't make sense to me and I often wonder if something happened earlier.
Click to expand...
I'm sure there is a lot more that happened that I don't remember. But I remembered enough to understand what trajectory my life was launched in to with the CSA that was eventually remembered. Let's hope we can all remember enough of the important parts. Hidden memories or not, the abuse and immediate aftermath of family shame took a huge toll on me, still does. Awareness is power for me now. When I was completely unaware of what happened to me, within a few years after the events, the alternate fantasy reality of denial of sexual abuse created a blind spot directly over my weakest area, my disrupted sexual development. I missed out on being me.
 
What ifs are pretty common for me in my life, in general, so it makes sense to do it for this. I've wondered would I be the same man today if it never happened (the good parts and bad parts)?
 
We are who we are basiced on all the good and all the bad that happens to us. You take out the good or bad or both and we become a very different person.
 
When I saw the topic line, my mind went back in a different direction. 2001, NYC at the World Economic Forum protest. My friend Blue and I were old hand streetmedics (for/with the protesters) shepherding a gaggle of youngers into their first time. 10s of thousands of people were in the streets and the NYPD had the road lined with barricades that off in the distance we could see because a choke point completely owned and operated by the cops. Blue was looking at the ensuing root and said over his shoulder in an offhand voice, “hey look, a trap. Let’s go.” And we walked calmly and without hesitation into it. We had nothing to fear because the fear was a chemically induced response wrapped in emotional distress. Emotions are human constructs, mental games. Strip away the emotion and all that’s left is raw power for dynamic action. We embraced our fear, used it to walk into valley of darkness and we spread calm. Then we walked out the other side. No time for the “what if” game. We had played that on out drive from Columbus. Now I’ll grant you that nothing changed, overall, as a result of all of the commotion. But we were able to stare calmly into the eyes of the Beast and do what needed doing.
Doesn’t exactly apply but it kind of does
 
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