I am a believer in whatever happens in life is as it should be.

Mr. Ed

Mr. Ed

Be what you is not what you what you ain’t
Location
Central NY
Is it ridiculous to wonder what could have, would have happened if circumstances growing up were different? I don't know any life experiences outside of my own. Without mental illness where would I be? What if my family had been different and I actually had a positive relationship with my dad? It doesn't matter who or what I am, life is precious.
 

However knowing or recognizing what happened that you had no control over can help you determine some of the reasons you are the way you are now. With that knowledge you can choose to change the way you are.

Also when one looks back at the choices one has made in the past they can learn from them and choose to try to make different decisions in the future.

I don't think that anything is as it is "supposed to be" but it is what it is and you can only move forward from there.
 

asp3 said:
However knowing or recognizing what happened that you had no control over can help you determine some of the reasons you are the way you are now. With that knowledge you can choose to change the way you are.

Also when one looks back at the choices one has made in the past they can learn from them and choose to try to make different decisions in the future.

I don't think that anything is as it is "supposed to be" but it is what it is and you can only move forward from there.
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...and advise younger people who are faced with similar choices or circumstances.

Experience is the best teacher.
 
While I agree that life is precious, I cannot agree that whatever happens in life is as it should be. People who have not had a good time in life would generally agree with me. For example, while growing up in New York I became acquainted with several people who survived Hitler's death camps. In discussing their unhappy fates most of them said their ordeals had been so bad and their memories so haunting that they wish they had not survived what they went through.

As for me, I survived years of tortious child abuse at the hands of my alcoholic and neurotic mother. To this day I still cannot understand how I survived my childhood. About a year before she died I told her how lucky she was that she could commit all those crimes against me at a time when child abuse laws were not enforced. I told her that with today's legal standards, if I had children and abused them half as badly as she did to me, I'd be in jail on a charge of attempted murder. I won't be more specific about my childhood ordeal but can assure you that it was worse than anything you can imagine.

While everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, you'll never get me to believe that everything that happens in life is as it should be. No offense intended but had you gone through Hitler's death camps or a tortured childhood you would dismiss such a thought as nothing more than idealistic delusionalism.
 
oldiebutgoody said:
While I agree that life is precious, I cannot agree that whatever happens in life is as it should be. People who have not had a good time in life would generally agree with me. For example, while growing up in New York I became acquainted with several people who survived Hitler's death camps. In discussing their unhappy fates most of them said their ordeals had been so bad and their memories so haunting that they wish they had not survived what they went through.

As for me, I survived years of tortious child abuse at the hands of my alcoholic and neurotic mother. To this day I still cannot understand how I survived my childhood. About a year before she died I told her how lucky she was that she could commit all those crimes against me at a time when child abuse laws were not enforced. I told her that with today's legal standards, if I had children and abused them half as badly as she did to me, I'd be in jail on a charge of attempted murder. I won't be more specific about my childhood ordeal but can assure you that it was worse than anything you can imagine.

While everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, you'll never get me to believe that everything that happens in life is as it should be. No offense intended but had you gone through Hitler's death camps or a tortured childhood you would dismiss such a thought as nothing more than idealistic delusionalism.
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Get to know people here, and you might be surprised that you are not alone in having an abusive childhood.

I don't know that things happen as they should or not because I am in it just as I doubt a fish thinks about water while in it, not designing life or able to step completely out of it and observe it from outside looking in. So I suppose we each choose to believe what works for us. In other words, I can't agree or disagree with the viewpoints on that expressed here - I simply can't know what I don't know.

Though I personally knew people who went through Hitler's death camps and have the numbers tattooed on their forearm, I never got the sense that they had any idea as to whether these things happened as they should be or not. That never came up and I honestly have no idea if they spent time ruminating on that aspect of their experience.

Anyway, this is an interesting thread to read...

Tony
 
tbeltrans said:
I suppose we each choose to believe what works for us. In other words, I can't agree or disagree with the viewpoints on that expressed here - I simply can't know what I don't know.
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Exactly. I've worked with conscripts who were drafted into the armed forces during Vietnam and who hated the experience as it caused them irreparable harm. Not one ever accepted the notion that whatever happens in life is as it should be. As always, it all boils down to one's experiences in life.
 
oldiebutgoody said:
While I agree that life is precious, I cannot agree that whatever happens in life is as it should be. People who have not had a good time in life would generally agree with me. For example, while growing up in New York I became acquainted with several people who survived Hitler's death camps. In discussing their unhappy fates most of them said their ordeals had been so bad and their memories so haunting that they wish they had not survived what they went through.

As for me, I survived years of tortious child abuse at the hands of my alcoholic and neurotic mother. To this day I still cannot understand how I survived my childhood. About a year before she died I told her how lucky she was that she could commit all those crimes against me at a time when child abuse laws were not enforced. I told her that with today's legal standards, if I had children and abused them half as badly as she did to me, I'd be in jail on a charge of attempted murder. I won't be more specific about my childhood ordeal but can assure you that it was worse than anything you can imagine.
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As Tony said, and as any long term member of this forum will tell you, I too, as did others have a terribly violent childhood... mine also sounded very much like yours except that it was my father who was the instigator and who meted out all the ''punishments'' in the main...... I have had the same thoughts at times as your survivor friends..in that I ask myself why did I survive.. only to have to live with those memories and mental scars all my life.. :unsure:

My only answer is the same every time, and that is to bring into this world the wonderful woman that I'm proud to call my daughter... to me there can be no other reason.. had it not been for having to be here in the world for her, I would have taken my own life many years ago...
 
oldiebutgoody said:
While I agree that life is precious, I cannot agree that whatever happens in life is as it should be. People who have not had a good time in life would generally agree with me. For example, while growing up in New York I became acquainted with several people who survived Hitler's death camps. In discussing their unhappy fates most of them said their ordeals had been so bad and their memories so haunting that they wish they had not survived what they went through.

As for me, I survived years of tortious child abuse at the hands of my alcoholic and neurotic mother. To this day I still cannot understand how I survived my childhood. About a year before she died I told her how lucky she was that she could commit all those crimes against me at a time when child abuse laws were not enforced. I told her that with today's legal standards, if I had children and abused them half as badly as she did to me, I'd be in jail on a charge of attempted murder. I won't be more specific about my childhood ordeal but can assure you that it was worse than anything you can imagine.

While everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, you'll never get me to believe that everything that happens in life is as it should be. No offense intended but had you gone through Hitler's death camps or a tortured childhood you would dismiss such a thought as nothing more than idealistic delusionalism.
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Yes she would certainly be in jail today and your eventual survival of this shocking childhood is testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. And 'things do not happen for a reason' as many people seem to believe. There is absolutely no possible reason why this should have happened to you.
 
mellowyellow said:
Yes she would certainly be in jail today and your eventual survival of this shocking childhood is testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. And 'things do not happen for a reason' as many people seem to believe. There is absolutely no possible reason why this should have happened to you.
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Agree 100%.

Some believe that pain or sorrow is volitional. That whatever happens to you in life results is a matter of choice, that is of your choice. That if an anvil drops on your head that's because you chose to let it or to cause it to happen. That if some maniac shoots a gun and you die it is because you put yourself into the path of the bullet. Don't know where these crazy notions come from but it sure is true that things do not always happen for a reason as some believe.
 
oldiebutgoody said:
While I agree that life is precious, I cannot agree that whatever happens in life is as it should be. People who have not had a good time in life would generally agree with me. For example, while growing up in New York I became acquainted with several people who survived Hitler's death camps. In discussing their unhappy fates most of them said their ordeals had been so bad and their memories so haunting that they wish they had not survived what they went through.

As for me, I survived years of tortious child abuse at the hands of my alcoholic and neurotic mother. To this day I still cannot understand how I survived my childhood. About a year before she died I told her how lucky she was that she could commit all those crimes against me at a time when child abuse laws were not enforced. I told her that with today's legal standards, if I had children and abused them half as badly as she did to me, I'd be in jail on a charge of attempted murder. I won't be more specific about my childhood ordeal but can assure you that it was worse than anything you can imagine.

While everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, you'll never get me to believe that everything that happens in life is as it should be. No offense intended but had you gone through Hitler's death camps or a tortured childhood you would dismiss such a thought as nothing more than idealistic delusionalism.
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I agree, and I told my mother she should have been put in prison for what she did to me.
 
Life is only as it should be because there are no comparisons to life being any different. If there are no other choices other than the one you live and no, life is as it should be by default.
 
This thread reminds me of a pal named Nicky from Staten Island many moons ago ~ he was terribly abused as a child and became an alcoholic. He told me that he would not change a thing that ever happened to him in life even if he had the power to do so. Two weeks later he was declared insane, institutionalized, and I never saw or heard from him again.
 
fmdog44 said:
You can drive yourself nuts on this subject. I never ever think about it.

Take the line from a rock song, "I'd love to change the world but I don't know what to do." I don't either and I'm happy with that.:p
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You're lucky and in the minority if you truly are able to "never ever think about it." Most people can't help but think about it; just the way the human brain works. One of the *few* ways that you can keep from "never ever think[ing] about it" is unfortunately to use alcohol or other drugs. And most agree that that is not the best solution and doesn't usually work perfectly anyway.
 
Mr. Ed said:
Life is only as it should be because there are no comparisons to life being any different. If there are no other choices other than the one you live and no, life is as it should be by default.
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I kind of disagree with you here. There are lots of comparisons one can make by reading about the experiences that others have had. One can use their experiences to determine things to do to positively affect one's future. Although you cannot change your past, you can change your future.
 
officerripley said:
You're lucky and in the minority if you truly are able to "never ever think about it." Most people can't help but think about it; just the way the human brain works. One of the *few* ways that you can keep from "never ever think[ing] about it" is unfortunately to use alcohol or other drugs. And most agree that that is not the best solution and doesn't usually work perfectly anyway.
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I've been very lucky or unlucky some may think..that I've never indulged in Alcohol or drugs to try and numb the memories of my past
 
asp3 said:
I kind of disagree with you here. There are lots of comparisons one can make by reading about the experiences that others have had. One can use their experiences to determine things to do to positively affect one's future. Although you cannot change your past, you can change your future.
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Being able to change your future depends at what stage of life you are in, what mental and physical shape you are in, and if you have money. I can only change my future for the worst, as my husband gets crazier every day; and I get more and more frustrated. 🤦🏻‍♀️ February has been a difficult month.
 
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