(Cross post from Sexual Assault Survivors Support) What if we could all do 'It's a Wonderful Life'?

[angstlessk]

And go back and change something ... mine would be a friend I had met...what would my life be like if I had never met her?

I was 11 she was 13...I was honored an older girl would befriend me...since I had no friends....

I was still pushing a baby carriage around...I was between being a child and a pre-teen...I was still 11

She dropped out of school to take care of her baby sister (I now wonder if it was her sister or her child?) and encouraged me to skip school...even in Catholic elementary school...I did as she wished...cause I had no other friends...not her fault...MINE...

And skipping school led to my being raped at age 11...

What if I had never met her???

Maybe I would have continued to be so naive I could have been abducted by a serial killer?

Or maybe I would have become a Cloister Nun...which is what I wanted as a 10 year old?

Who knows what would have happened had I never met my friend?

[Pretzel_Warrior]

1. So are you imagining any positive scenarios

If you had managed to get out of childhood without being raped? The two you listed seem pretty negative.

[angstlessk]

3. I do not think becoming a Cloister Nun is a negative....It is something

I investigated as a child in Catholic School..and really wanted..of course my son and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren would have never been born...so I ask again...

What would we be if we were allowed to see ourselves had we decided differently...as in "It' A Wonderful Life"

[Pretzel_Warrior]

5. My apologies. I took it as a negative. Must be

The fact that Victor Hugo was so persuasive in his contempt for convents after his sistered joined one. He wrote a long and extremely boring piece on the subject that he wedged smack in the middle of an otherwise brilliant "Les Miserables".

[LittleBlue]

2. Spiritual Catholics always come across to me as

believing things happen in life for a reason. At least that's what it felt like back in my Catholic elementary school. Life is seen as a series of trials we were meant to endure.

From a philosophical Christian point of view, you were supposed to live the life you lived.

Out of curiosity, if the alternative had been to live as a nun and you had a chance to do it over, would you have done so? I read your post but can't tell if you would have changed anything.

Thanks for sharing, btw.

[angstlessk]

4. My son, grandchildren and great granchildren would have never been born

So I wonder...could I have chosen a different path and had the same result?

[angstlessk]

6. If I could somehow have my son born..and me be a Cloister Nun...YES

I have always been introverted..and wanted to use it to good ends...if praying all day and night without speaking to anyone, ever, could change one persons life...I wanted to do it...but truly it would not be a sacrifice from me...but something I wanted to do...