Insignificances cause life and death.

[flobadob]

Have you ever had a traumatic happening to someone in your life and then thought that if you had done one thing different then things would have worked out better. Like an injury or a death? For example if you knew someone who died in a car crash. If instead, you had said to that person before they left, told them to get you some milk then they wouldn't have been in the crash, because the two minutes between you telling them and giving them the money would have meant.... What do you think?

[Prudie]

Ah so that's why you wanted the word ;-) Actually yes I've thought about this a lot, especially after seeing the film Butterfly Effect - think that's what this refers to.

[RATTER15]

Delaying that person may have also caused the accident, that's not so easy to deal with.

[boxtops]

You can spend your life doing "if only...." and it's actually quite destructive, and really just keeps things going round in your head. Since we lost the cat, I have "if only"d so many times, and it's all pointless - it happened, nothing will change what's happened, so we have to stop beating ourselves up about it. It's a natural thing to to do this but it does have to be kept in perspective, otherwise you can spend a lot of life blaming yourself for something you couldn't influence in real llife.

[wildwood]

You can put a more positive spin on it and think 'if I hadn't delayed her/him they would have been involved in that accident that they just missed'.

The 'if only' syndrome is very much a human emotion and as said above, can be quite destructive if you take it too literal.

http://www.associated...if_only_syndrome.html

[bednobs]

yes. I will always wonder if i had insisted on a caesarian when i went into labour my son might not have died.
I hope the feeling will go away soon

[starone]

This sort of question can lead to a great deal of self recrimination and doubt and consequently sadness. Which is why I cannot join it because there is so much in my life that would apply. Bednobs, I think whatever you do will not influence the outcome. You cannot blame yourself. You will never forget him, as I know by my own experience, but try to look to the future and hope that you will be successful next time.

[wildwood]

Oh bednobs, my heart goes out to you. I hope you get over this in time. Your experience is one of the worst imaginable. I don't like to talk on behalf of others, but I am sure many other ABers will also be happy to support you with any emotion you may experience. Good luck.

[bednobs]

i can't be that selfish starbuck, both of my children have died because my body let them down, and it's likely that my son suffered much pain in his very short life. The fact that i would like to be a parent (in the active sense) should not perhaps override the fact that i could well be inflicting pain on another child if i were to get pregnant again.
I usually subscribe to the "don't let the past frakk up your future" train of thought but not this time

[ladybirder]

I don't like this thread. I knew it would be a sad one.

[starone]

That is really terrible for you bednobs, and I feel very sad with you. I wish there was more I could do to comfort you. We obviously should not have looked at this thread.

[stokemaveric]

you can think that way forever and it wont change the course of the actual event..a friend of mine was killed last friday in a car crash,the route to the destination that the taxi driver took could have been reached to in various ways but he took 1 paticular route and a drunk driver [allegedly drunk] may i add at this time smashed into the taxi and the taxi driver and my friend were killed,with another guy who was in the taxi still in hospital with serious injuries...how many ifs and buts are there in that scenario??..what if they hadnt decided to go into town..what if the ''drunk'' driver had taken a different route??..what if the traffic lights further up the road were on red and delayed the journey by a split second??...questions that can never be answered..and its the fickle hand of fate that decides our demise..or indeed our survival...

[jomifl]

Another slant on this is that some things that have a profound(or otherwise) affect on the course of history can be quite small in themselves. When the man who killed archduke Ferdinand with a bomb in Sarajevo ( thus triggering the start of WW1) joined the anarchist group which provided the bomb he would have had no idea that his joining would result in the deaths of millions of people. Some tragic things are inevitable, (such as tsunami) and quite unaffected by human actions. Some events ave millions of contributory causes, others very few, Self recrimination is no help after an event.

[Safiya]

I have always believed that when your time has come it has come. I agree with ratters comment.

[karenmac60]

Years ago I went to visit a friend and I had to get a coach since she lived a long way off. I missed the one I was meant to get by seconds, so got the next one 3 hours later. I had only just got off the bus and was 2 minutes from her house when I was knocked down by a drunk driver - an event that changed my life in many ways. I've often wondered what would have happened if I had just walked a bit quicker and caught the original bus.

[stokemaveric]

thats awful karenmac..

[karenmac60]

It is and it isn't stokey - I'm a lot happier now than I was before it, so it wasn't all bad. A lot of things that changed needed changing :)

[albalass]

You can also look at it from the opposite angle. My sister was going for a job interview and was halfway to the train station when she remembered she'd left the iron on and returned home to switch it off. Because of that she missed the train she was going to catch and took a later one. The original train was the one involved in the Potter's Bar crash. She might not be here now if she hadn't left the iron on.

[joko]

unless your actions are directly responsible - such as if only i hadnt wired that plug wrongly... but stuff like delays and time and place things are pointless because you just never know what could happen...

someone breaks a leg and you feel if only you hadnt asked them to go upstairs to get you something... well in that few minutes that they werent going upstairs for you, they could have been in the kitchen instead and got scalded with hot fat... the leg will heal but the burns will be there forever ...so it swings and roundabouts in a way - by asking them to go upstair you actually saved them a life of skin grafts etc...

[Mick-Talbot]

Have you ever had this kind of traumatic event happen flobadob, or is this thread just to upset others?

[flobadob]

So perhaps it's all just fate then and what has happened was always destined to happen, regardless of anyone's actions. That causes ambivalence as in one way, you cannot blame yourself for the outcomes in life, but also the idea of predetermined eventualities is not very appealing.