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

Aneeda72 said:
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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I'm sorry to hear that your life is so difficult at this point in time and that you don't see any way to positively change your future. I do hope that you find something to at least give you some hope that a future more positive than the one you foresee is possible. I'm also hoping that if you find something like that you're able to give yourself a better future.
 

The philosopher Aristotle explains it perfectly. In his quest to discover the true meaning of life, he suggested there were two constants in life: first, the universe is constantly changing and evolving. What it is today, is never the same tomorrow, and secondly, believed that everything happening to you today, has a purpose because it turns you into the person you are becoming. Everything that happens to you has a reason..but there’s a way of thinking about this that empowers you in life.

Most people take the word “reason” to mean cause and effect. Reason though, is the meaning we give to the things that happen in our life. We have a choice… believing everything happens for a reason, empowers a person to create meaning from the tragedies and setbacks experienced in life. People come into your life for a reason and in the case of an abusive parent, it is extremely difficult to see what that reason could possibly be! The scars of childhood may last a lifetime, and I have only the greatest admiration for those who have managed to grow in spite of tragic circumstances.

Psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl (a holocaust survivor) says: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing... the last of the human freedoms..to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
 

Mr. Ed said:
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.
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Mr. Ed said:
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.
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I am trying very hard to believe all is as it should be. I've been working on my faith and gratitude . I recently was diagnosed with a disease for which there is no cure. PPMS. I try very hard to handle it with grace and most of all, humor.
 

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


I'm in agreement with most folks here.

Stuff happens
Live long enough, more happens
Doubt anyone here gets out unscathed

You learn to survive
or
You don't

'Life as it should be'?
You kiddin'?!
Try explaining that to my schizophrenic son

It's a screwed up planet
(no, I won't get all religious on you)

After a few events, one looks for the good
Dwells on the good
Lives for the good

No sense in reliving the bad, keeping it fresh


A psych my lady used put it pretty well (her folks really screwed her up)

'Mrs O'
Yer a gunny bagger
You haul all this stuff around
...and its a load
Then you stop, set it down
and pull something out
showing it to people

then

You put it back in the bag
throw it over yer shoulder
and trudge on

Get
rid
of that
bag

Here's some Zoloft'

She became a freaking zombie
Told her I'd like the depressed version back

Anyway, she worked on the gunny bag thing
Life got better

Bottom line;
You work with what you've been handed

Then you aspire to one day join a senior forum
......and live happily ever after

my onesie.jpg

This 2nd childhood thing should be fun!
 
All through life we are presented with choices, and our choice determines what happens next in our lives. It's natural to wonder how different life would have been if we had made a different choice. I do it myself.....what if I had chosen to go to boarding school.....what if I had taken that place at college instead of going to Africa.....what if I hadn't married that awful man?
However, I do believe that each of us has a purpose in life, and some have chosen to go through certain experiences.
 
Rosemarie said:
Many parents have their own problems and take it out on their children. Not making excuses, of course. School teachers very often sense when something is wrong, but parents are clever at hiding abuse.
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I could write a book on just how we as children were told to hide what was going on in the home... what would happen to us if we did.. or what would happen to our mother if we did.. after the first time when my brother and I were just 6 and 5 respectively and we didn't know the rules, and we ran to the police station, and the police took us seriously and came to the house, .. and we watched as the lies were told... and the police went away.. and then after they'd gone were learned we were never to tell again....we didn't dare.

my mother took her own life in her 30's and left us kids in the hands of the devil , the youngest only 10... I've never got over her death...

Ultimately when he died in 2008 in his 80's.. I felt only relief, absolute relief, that the world was now free.. that no-one could ever go through horror at his hands or feet.. ever again...
 
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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 totally. How can you explain/condone the atrocities the human race has suffered by saying it's as it should be? I mean, get a clue. Life is not Utopia now from my vantage point.
 
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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What a horrid ordeal. In my opinion, you survived because of the tenacious strength of your spirit, some of us do, in spite of the hell that was our childhood. Some of the strongest characters are riven with scars.🤗
 
hollydolly said:
I could write a book on just how we as children were told to hide what was going on in the home... what would happen to us if we did.. or what would happen to our mother if we did.. after the first time when my brother and I were just 6 and 5 respectively and we didn't know the rules, and we ran to the police station, and the police took us seriously and came to the house, .. and we watched as the lies were told... and the police went away.. and then after they'd gone were learned we were never to tell again....we didn't dare.

y other took her own life in her 30's and left us kids in the hands of the devil , the youngest only 10... I've never got over her death...

Ultimately when he died in 2008 in his 80's.. I felt only relief, absolute relief, that the world was now free.. that no-one could ever go through horror at his hands or feet.. ever again...
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No words...just admiration for your strength and your courage hollydolly.
 
Ok as it should be and how it was/is are two different scenarios. How do we know how life should be? It seems what should have been but wasn't takes precedent over what actually was. If this is the case then whatever life should have been is at most wishful thinking on our part for a different outcome.
Emotional logic interjects feelings, prejudice and biases that distorts our understanding of life and why things happen or don't happen. Life performs as it is meant to, even though we may not like it, it is the only thing we have to go on.

I didn't say life was fair, I don't think life is meant to be fair because life is not driven by emotions. Life and death are driven by circumstances and events based on the choices of humanity. How many times have humans altered the natural course of life through war, productivity and industry?

Mankind is the catalyst of our demise, life simply puts us together and breaks us down for future generations. There is also a matter of over population that life giveth and taketh away.

Be assured of your ability.
 
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Irwin said:
Did she ever apologize for what she did to you?
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No. To make a long story short, she explained I deserved all those beatings because I had, as a child, a smart mouth. She demanded that I forgive her so she could die “forgiven” and go to her judgement with a clear conscious. She explained I was not a Christian unless I forgave her.

Apparently, she could not work out that had I had forgiven her, or we would not still be in touch. I simply could not bring myself to say the words to her as she was so hurtful in things she said to me that day. I was around 65 or so and driven two days, with my husband, to see her. I said instead she needed to seek her forgiveness from her God to insure her salvation.

I have not seen her since that day. The day she said she wished she has put me in foster care when I was two years old so I would have learned “what real abuse was”. I learned what real abuse was from her and my father. I learned that before I was two.

She is now 95 years old. It’s been about 10 years or so since I’ve seen her. I talk to her occasionally on the phone.
 
Aneeda72 said:
No. To make a long story short, she explained I deserved all those beatings because I had, as a child, a smart mouth. She demanded that I forgive her so she could die “forgiven” and go to her judgement with a clear conscious. She explained I was not a Christian unless I forgave her.

Apparently, she could not work out that had I had forgiven her, or we would not still be in touch. I simply could not bring myself to say the words to her as she was so hurtful in things she said to me that day. I was around 65 or so and driven two days, with my husband, to see her. I said instead she needed to seek her forgiveness from her God to insure her salvation.

I have not seen her since that day. The day she said she wished she has put me in foster care when I was two years old so I would have learned “what real abuse was”. I learned what real abuse was from her and my father. I learned that before I was two.

She is now 95 years old. It’s been about 10 years or so since I’ve seen her. I talk to her occasionally on the phone.
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How do you feel about forgiveness? I felt I had to forgive my dad to have peace from him. Sometimes I don’t believe he deserved my forgiveness.
 
hollydolly said:
I could write a book on just how we as children were told to hide what was going on in the home... what would happen to us if we did.. or what would happen to our mother if we did.. after the first time when my brother and I were just 6 and 5 respectively and we didn't know the rules, and we ran to the police station, and the police took us seriously and came to the house, .. and we watched as the lies were told... and the police went away.. and then after they'd gone were learned we were never to tell again....we didn't dare.

y other took her own life in her 30's and left us kids in the hands of the devil , the youngest only 10... I've never got over her death...

Ultimately when he died in 2008 in his 80's.. I felt only relief, absolute relief, that the world was now free.. that no-one could ever go through horror at his hands or feet.. ever again...
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I am so glad you wrote this, thanks so much. I know when my mother finally dies, if she ever does, I will feel relieved and, yes, a certain level of safety, which is silly, at her passing. Then, I will feel guilty at feeling relieved. 🤦🏻‍♀️ It is so complicated for abused children who are decent people.
 

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