Could your life have been different...

Oh Joyce how very sad. I really feel for everything you have been through, if you had of spoken up you wouldn't have had to suffer so long but you still would have had the same experience which you would have needed to get over. At least eventually the truth came out and he was punished, but that won't stop the memories of what happened for you. Big hugs of love, thoughts are with you as no matter how long ago it was it is something no one should have to go through as an innocent child. Ellie :D

You will always be given a situation in your life where you need to make a choice and it is always not easy to make a decision. You have your reason not to tell anybody about what your stepfather did to you but if you have told them about it, your life could've been different. In each action we take is a different come up but once we make a decision and go on with our lives, we can never to back to what we left out but we can change the life that we're in at this point by just making a choice. Regret always comes in the end because you will know what will happen until it was done. All you need to do is to accept everything that was done and take action for what is happening right now. Your stepfather deserves to be in prison because he ruined your life so fight for your right to have freedom from him. You need to make a choice with have you have right now and not to look back for whatever wrong decision you've made coz if you do, you will never move on to your life. You're still young there are so much life have to offer for you. Do whatever that makes you happy. =)

all the time, everyone's life would be different simply by making different choices, the earliest choice that would have changed my life, was not refusing to go to a different high school, my grandmother had a chance to live with a man and I would have been taking care of but I was too afraid to change high schools, If I changed my mind life would have been very different and most probably better giving me a better head start in life.

I am sorry to hear of what you have been through. I can only imagine how this has affected you. I think whatever decisions we make, it will affect us one way or another. Some good, some bad. I have a lot of regrets that I am living with today based on some poor choices, I am also affected in a negative way but some of these things I take responsibility for. I also think that if I wasn't picked on so much as a kid I would be more of a positive person with more self esteem. And that also was my fault, for not saying anything at the time to anyone!!!

Oh Joyce.......I didn't speak up until I was so much older. I used to wonder how different my life would have been had I spoke up years ago. Had my mom or dad had the ability to listen, even care as much as I thought they should have, had things been different then, how different my life would have turned out. At the time I was wondering these things, I was filled with anxiety and honestly, a bit of anger. I had to dismiss the anger and forgive my parents, (and everyone else involved), for me to have some similarity to sanity. I slowly accepted things the way 'they turned out'. Still, I can't help but wonder sometimes who I would have been and how my life would have turned out had the horrible events not taken place. I don't know if it all works out for the best, because I believe things 'could have been' so different had the circumstances been different. I think we learn to 'make the best of it'.

I'm a great one for the "what ifs". Depends on the day and the mood. Generally, I straighten up and try to make the best of today. My scenarios of what could have been are probably a lot better that what the actual would have been - so many variables. One I used to do is "what if I had married so and so?" HELLO, he didn't ask you...whit

although i havent experienced what youve been through but for now ive got no regrets in my life..problems and trials cant be avoided in married life but at the end of the day its been resolve if not then i just leave it at that and let time heals or solved them..

joyce, what a can of worms this discussion is for me. My abuse started when I was 8 and ended when I finally told the pastor of our church when I was 14. I did only so then because I feared pregnancy. My abuser was also my step father. Would my life had been different had I spoke up before then... oh my goodness yes! He told me repeatedly that if I were to tell my mother would not believe me, and he would deny it. We were children and can not be held to the responsibility of knowing what is truth when we are lied to on a daily basis like that. We are lied to, hurt physically emotionally, and made to feel worthless. How could we tell? Its almost the same with every young woman and woman of our age that I speak to about this. They didn't know they could tell. We lived with such shame and degradation that it was all we could do just to move about our daily lives. It changes who we are as adults. Now we do have options once we start healing. Mine was to torment my tormentor when he was ill and dying. I am not proud of that at all, and ask for Gods forgivness all of the time. But I wanted that man to know I was still alive and had not forgiven him. He was a deacon at the church we went to, do you know what it is to watch a man of "GOD" bow on his knees and act pious when you know at night time and your mother goes to work what is in store for you? Yes it changed me, it changed who I might have been. Now don't get me wrong I love who I am now..... But I wonder what might have been.

Things might have been different but you were to young and to frightened to make a choice. Each person has choices they have to make and they do the best they can depending on each separate situation. I do wonder how things would have turned out for me if I had married the man that I had really gotten attached to many years ago. I don't regret marring the man I have married and been with for 35 years but I have on occasion wondered what would have happened it I had married the other person. These are not regrets but just wondering. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

I think that we all wonder and that it is just human nature to say what if? However, I do believe things work out for the best in most cases. I feel bad that you were subjected to such hell for so long and I don't know if that was for the best. It does seem that you have moved past it and flourished. God Bless you.

god save you amen! this si painful