What is even the point of trying to change when you can never go back to who you were before?

[u/Inner_Meat5041]

I used to be a pretty bright and sensitive kid, I had a good home life and a sunny disposition. Then I hit high school, puberty happens, insecurity crept in, ect. It wasn't long before I found myself in a lot of nasty online spaces and at first it felt cathartic, but I didn't have the foresight to see I was heading into a perpetuating cycle of negativity. Before long it became a chicken/egg thing where my feelings of being unlikeable, made me unlikeable, which then made me actually off putting to people, which reinforced my feelings, and so on and so forth. It didn't even matter that I was well liked by other kids in my cohort or my family life was fine, I didn't have the experience or maturity to see things outside that framework. I fell into cynicism, defeatism, misanthropy, porn addiction, the works.

Next thing I know, I'm pushing 30 with over a decade in this negative feedback loop. It's only recently I've been somewhat seeing things differently or trying to challenge myself to push back on those thoughts. Sometimes it feels like I'm making progress and then others I slip back into that mindset.

Because of those lapses a very real fear is growing in me that I may never never be able to get back to who I was. Like, I can't go back and undo all the damage I did to myself, the way I betrayed myself. I can't get those years and opportunities back, I can't unsee or unhear or unlearn what has been my "truth" for so long and pretend it never shaped my thoughts. Even if things change now, I still lost my entire youth to this, and even if I can start to heal that wound might never go away.

So where does that leave me? Have I damaged my potential to be good, and do good? To become happy and fulfilled? What if I spend years of effort to over come years of damage to just be a diminished version of what I could have been? Will I always just he a maimed and marred person? Not all suffering makes you wiser or more resilient, a lot of times it's just loss. This fear is gripping me so fully that it makes me want to just stop all together. It makes these first steps feel so meagre and almost embarrassing.

Is it truly worth all the time, and effort, and struggle, if you cannot recover who you were?

[u/watsonyrmind]

I mean you were a child so no matter who you are now or what you did the last 15+ years, you would never be able to be that child again. It really has nothing to do with who you were and everything to do with who you want to be. What kind of person do you want to be in 5 years? What are you willing to do to become that person?

And sure, the best time to start trying to become that person was before you got into a bunch of crap that made your life worse, but you can't undo that. The second best time is right now, before you regret even more.

[u/Inner_Meat5041 → u/watsonyrmind]

I think my fear isn't about not knowing what I want to do, but if I'm even still capable of becoming that. That even if I managed to turn things around to a degree I have permanently compromised my ability to be that person.

[u/watsonyrmind → u/Inner_Meat5041]

Being some approximation of who you want to be will be exponentially better than not trying. That's kinda the bottom line. Not even trying because you may not be perfect is just an excuse not to try.

[u/fetishiste]

I think you're fixating on this question because it's yet another way of not starting.

You know what you don't do when you spill some milk? Pour the rest down the drain. When you get a flat tyre you don't slash your other three tyres.

When you waste time, you don't decide to give up because everything is ruined forever.

I think you're afraid of the wrong thing. "What if I'm never exactly as amazing as I could have been?' is a basically pointless question, but you're staring down the barrel of "What if I convince myself never to try at all and waste more and more years yearning after a hypothetical instead of becoming more of my better self tomorrow?"

[u/Instigated-]

You’re looking in the wrong direction. It’s not about to going back to who you used to be, it’s about finding a way to a better version of your future self.

People are amazingly adaptable. People can overcome trauma, abuse, war, PTSD, as well as radically change their beliefs and behaviours.

There are addicts, white supremacists, terrorists, and rapists who have done a complete 180 degree change.

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54526345 Christian Picciolini: The neo-Nazi who became an anti-Nazi

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/03/shaka-senghor-letters-sons

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/07/kkk-leader-don-black-child-abandons-white-nationalism-memoir

The only question is if you want to spend the rest of your life regretting your past and using it as an excuse, or do you want to spend your remaining life being the kind of person you can be proud of?

If you need help with past harm, that is what therapy, self development, and nurturing practices are for.

[u/mirrorherb]

Even if things change now, I still lost my entire youth to this, and even if I can start to heal that wound might never go away.

well, you can guarantee losing the rest of your life to it too, or you can try to make that not happen

Have I damaged my potential to be good, and do good?

"being good" isn't a thing and "doing good" is a choice. nothing is stopping you from the latter

What if I spend years of effort to over come years of damage to just be a diminished version of what I could have been?

what if you spend years of effort to overcome the damage and you end up happy?

Will I always just he a maimed and marred person?

you gotta snap outta this. you are not "mained and marred." there are people out there who are survivors of the Children of God child sex abuse cult who come out on the other side and live happy and fulfilling lives. i'm not saying this to point out that other people have been through worse than you at all, i'm jut saying that other people have overcome more profound damage than online radicalization, so there is plenty of hope. you seem to view this as a permanent mark on your soul, but there's no such thing as permanent marks or souls. it'll take work to deprogram yourself, but it's pretty rarely going to make you less happy to have done that

[u/GnarlyWatts]

I'm confused, why would you want to stay this way? And also, you don't have to fall back on habits. You should work on forming healthy ones.

You can always do better than the day before, that should be the mantra.

[u/DustyButtocks]

Why waste your future by ruminating over the past?

[u/Ok-Huckleberry-6326]

I'm going to give you a different angle. There are several schools of thought that say that a person is actually every age that they ever were. Meaning, you might be 30 but you're also 9. There are parts of yourself that will always stay with you and are integral parts of your self now and going forward, but whatever it was that traumatized you still needs to be integrated into your whole self. It's seeing, recognizing, and integrating. In our emotional landscape there isn't really any time, so guilt, shame, resentment etc. are as immediate as they ever were during that time in your life in linear time, unless you integrate them and don't ruminate.
The point is not to look for evidence in your life that you can't change because this 'evidence' doesn't actually serve you in any way. You were not equipped to filter the negativity that influenced your thoughts at the time.
Let me ask you this - what do you live for? What gets you up in the morning?
Would you engage with these things whether you were single or coupled up?

[u/ChaosRainbow23]

You have to break some eggs to make an omelette, homie.

You have to get out there.

Being an incel is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[u/notmepleaseokay]

Even if you had a loving partner and an active sex life, there is no way you can go back to being a kid before puberty.

The more you keep desiring for an impossible thing to return, the more time keeps slipping by where you could actually enjoy being who you are now.

[u/Inner_Meat5041 → u/notmepleaseokay]

Obviously I cannot literally return to some kind of childlike innocence. It's more that those qualities I remember having in those days feel closer to my truest self than who I am now. But it feels like all of it is lost to me. It's like I've buried it so deep or it's been cut off all togerher, and I fear the damage done has left me too far gone.

[u/notmepleaseokay → u/Inner_Meat5041]

You're still reminiscing on feelings through the lens of a child that had yet to experience 1) hormones and 2) life.

Also, what you remembering is probably very unlikely how you actually were when you were that age. Because the way that memories work is that they become more distorted the more times that you remember them. It sounds like you like to reflect back on that time pretty often, so the reality of what it was is probably drastically different than how you remember it.