If you could undo all your SI, mental illness, traumatic past etc. would you?
 

I was watching The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive and a question Stephen Fry kept asking people was "If there was a button that could magically remove your manic depression and enable you to live a normal life, would you push it?"

I was interested as to what the results would be if I extended that to all mental illness, addictions, self harm, abuse and in general the reasons that brought you here.

If you could magically remove everything that has afflicted you and prevented you from having a normal life (whatever that is), would you?

Have our experiences both past and present shaped who we are to such an extent that we wouldn't undo them?

Well, I'd have to go right back. Because my traumatic past started right with being born.

And, to be completely honest, although my sensitivity and pain and vulnerability can hurt like hell, I wouldn't have it any other way, because I wouldn't have the awareness and compassion and understanding that I do if things had been any other way. It's my intelligence and empathy that shines through the pain, and enables me to make the most of therapy and my own reflective abilities, to understand myself and others.

Yes. The person I'd turn out to be would have to better than I am right now. She'd also be normal and happy. Like all her friends.

I think now I'd be a totally different person to who I am, so no I wouldn't change it. Because well, who know's how I might have ended up and I'd rather have a few flaws than face the totally unknown

Yes I've been through a lot of **** and they weren't exactly good times, but I'm a strong person now and I'm sure being able to be strong is going to be a useful attribute in the future.

I don't think I would. Yes... i have a lot of pain. And it is a huge obstical at tomes. But I honesly feel that because I have seen such darkness and felt such deispair that I have a deeper appreciation for the beauty and happiness.

Its a great documentary. All those who said they wouldnt press the button experienced incredibly productive and creative periods of mania alongside the depression. I guess that without the manic episodes they all would have chosen yes to the button.

there's no such thing as a normal life, and at least now i know what can handle, and i know if something's too much i can ask for help

Baring in mind i'm now past alot of what's happened, no, i wouldn't take it all away; my life would have had a different course admittedly, but the route it has taken makes me happy; without the things that led me to being here, i wouldn't have - for example - met my husband. You can take away all the trauma that's happened, but that doesn't necessarily say someone can't still go on to encouter trauma etc as they go on in life.

I have had a horrendous past but I wouldnt change it for anything. I spent 8 years straight in IP hospitals, units etc and during that time I have met some right nasty, vicious and cruel people but I have also met the most wonderful, kind and compassionate people.

Believe it or not I had the best (and worst) days of my life in hospital. I got to do things that I would never have been able to do otherwise and I would never have been able to be who I am if it wasnt for hospital and therapy. Im not afraid to be who I am anymore apart from around my parents who would send me to hell.

I would also not have the self awareness that I have now

I've often doubted myself, wondered why and how, and wished it had never happened. As, I'm sure, have a lot of people here. But when I think about it, as Stellata said further up, it's made me who I am, I feel more for people and how they're feeling, and I care what happens to them, and I can help them and empathise because I've been there. Sometimes I look at my scars and I think "wtf I can't be doing with these I should never have started" and I've also been told over and over again that I'm not the same girl, and I agree. I'm not the same girl. They mean to say that my cuts and scars have changed who I am, but that's not the case. My cuts and scars showed me who I can be, they changed me more than anything else, and now I look back and I think that it was always going to happen. I often hate it, I try to get in touch with who I used to be before my depression and SI, but that doesn't matter now. I am who I am and it changed me for the better. It made me see the world without the rose tinted spectacles, see what it's really like, and want to do something about it. I am who I am, and I never want to change that now.

Yes, absolutely. If I could get someone to carry out a lobotomy I would. If i wasn't pregnant I would be more tempted to take drastic chemical action to blot things out and change my personality. For the moment, that has to wait.

I....don't know really. Part of me says Hell Yes, rewind and record over please, but at the same time, a big part of me can be attributed to the things that have happened to me so....meh.

No hesitation *pushes button before it disappears*

I personally would in some like to re-write what's happened. But even if that button appeared, I wouldn't push it. Because I wouldn't be as close as to one of my sisters, I wouldn't have met some of the most awesome people from here or even met them in person. I wouldn't for so many reasons. Although I hate it, I just don't think I would be who I am now if none of this had happened. It's taught me so much and has made me a much stronger person.

my response to this question often varies... The way I feel at the moment, yes. I'd change it as quick as possible, because I'm just so desperate to be able to live a normal life, and everything I've been through is totally consuming me at the moment. However, I do believe I have a greater understanding of what pain feels like, and am able to have more of an understanding of others. I also know that when I do feel happy I value it far more than if I hadn't been through all the rubbish...

SNAP! i said yes, but i'm still unsure :/
i don't think i'd be the same person without all that's gone on, but at the same time i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

xx

No. without the direction my life took this around I would never have met my fiance or some of my closest friends in Tas. I had the potential to be a first class snippy bitch and the things I went through stopped me from becoming that. I also couldn't do the job I do as well as I do without that first hand experience. Yes you don't need pain and suffering to be able to kind and compassionate but I work with at risk kids who wouldn't trust their own mother and they can see scars and often they work it out for themselves that i've been through **** and they talk to me.

So no, i wouldn't change it. What i would change would be myu ability (or lack thereof) to cope.

Christ I would go back at the drop of a pin to be quite honest and I wouldn't feel guilty about it because this is not who I am, this is a hinderence to who I am.

I don't know. I look at the person I am now and I don't recognise it. I think going through everything that I have has made me much less judgemental. I was a complete snob, in every sense of the word and judged everyone and everything. Mental illness and all this has ended that, or at least curbed it. At the same time I look at the positive parts of who I am told I used to be and yearn for it. I no longer recognise that person as me and that is sad. If I pushed that button and could be the person and have the life that everyone used to expect of me then I would. I would love to be 'normal', to not be tainted by the mental and physical scars of my past and present. At the same time I am ashamed of the judgemental bitch that I was.

It's hard to know what would be left without what I have been through. What parts of me are because of mental illness? What parts are my personality? Or are the two inextractably linked? Without my life I would be someone completely different, a combination of my parents and I don't want that. If you asked if I would push a magic button that would make me born someone else or not at all, then yes I would, in an instant because I will never be happy like this. But a button to just remove my past and mental illness....I don't know, not because I don't detest them, but because I don't know what would be left.

Sorry for the long confused rambling x