Touching on being the old you. Unfortunately, I've never had the pleasure, so I don't know the differences. But, I'll ask whether change is such a bad thing.
Pretty sure I've mentioned elsewhere, I had my face kicked in when I was 17. Jumped upon by football fans, my eye sockets, nose and jaw, kicked, stamped, and beaten. I was left for dead in the gutter of a back street within Liverpool city centre.
The number of surgeries, I have lost count. Likewise, it took a while for doctors to make the connection between the aesthetic and me having heart attacks.
17 years old, I lost months in hospital. Several heart attacks. Huge scaffolding thing attached to my skull. Jaw wired shut. And for a long time thereafter, more surgeries.
For a long-long time, I yearned just to be able to touch my own pillow.
Anyway, initially support and counselling was offered. Ironically at a time when I was physically too messed up to make use of it.
I think for the following year, my body was a different colour each day, purples, greens, yellows, etc. Each surgery was as invasive as the initial injuries. And each brought battles to.keep me alive.
The subsequent therapy persisted in going back to that evening, and examining how I felt. *I feel with my hands, and wasn't feeling anyone then!
I appreciate that there are different methods of therapy, and some practices have evolved. However, much.of it is about re-examining past events, scrutinizing your perception, and often introducing coping mechanisms.
There are a lot of **** awful, woefully inadequate, under qualified, disinterested, judgemental **** wanks in the industry. That I can say legitimately from my own experiences with them, and my own subsequent qualifications. My mother was also a highly regarded practitioner for both the public and private sectors.
Gaining good support can be as painful as the processes themselves. Great myths exist about certain charities too. As part of my qualifications, I accumulated time with possibly the biggest most recognisable support charity in U.K.. The literature is still filed away downstairs. It specifics that when taking a call from a client who expresses a desire to kill themselves, you must immediately end the call. The reasoning is to protect the call handler. There are complexities surrounding that issue. However, what does this signal to the client.
Back to me again. As mentioned, the pursuit was always to relive the day, and what lead to the assault. I.reckon that even seeking assistance today, within the first 20 minutes, whoever leading the meeting would want me to go back to these events.
I don't have a lot of memory of the event. Much of the following year or years, are a blur. My trauma is largely from how I treated by the NHS, Police, and solicitors afterwards. These issues were subsequently processed by ombudsmen, thus are now emotionally spent.
Me, I just accepted what had happened. Learned coping skills about the disabilities, which never did manifest as the doctors predicted. Then worked on becoming the spectacular awesome superhuman that I am today.
Different people do react to different situations, differently. However, how differently. I would argue that it is not as differently as you might expect. Humans are creatures of easily recordable patterns. As such, you have been advised that you will not be your old self. I'll assume that it is most likely true.
It is unclear to me, what you wish to recapture. I won't expect you divulge here, and this is not the place to examine the issues. However, broadly speaking, you are not the same person as you were as a teenager. Most rational people become traumatised by watching whole episodes of Eastenders. Life changed constantly, as do we.
We can learn new things. We can evolve our personalities. We can make our own little people. Theoretically, we could discover something that could change the whole world.
So, once again, I'll ask whether change is such a bad thing?
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