2004, early summer, when I was 16: “You’ve ADHD and ASD, you should ask your parents to go to a psychiatrist, and everything will be better afterwards.”

I’d tell me in high school to get treatment for depression instead of white knuckling my way through life and ending up with treatment resistant depression at 28 because I went without for so long.

Two options.

If I’d go back, I would jump to around middle school and try to convince myself that dad doesn’t hold the true knowledge to everything, especially politics. It took me one Trump-term and a pandemic to realise that my dad has some opinions I really don’t enjoy.

Alternatively, I wouldn’t go back for fear of messing something up that causes me to not meet my spouse. I can handle a bit of mockery by my spouse for my dad’s beliefs, but I really wouldn’t wanna have past-me not eventually meet her in the first place.

I would go back to the day of my wedding and tell myself to trust my gut, that it wasn’t just cold feet. That the embarrassment and financial loss of calling it off was nothing compared to what I lost that day without even realizing it.

I would lose my kids, but maybe I’d still be myself and they would be somewhere with a mother who isn’t a mother-shaped empty shell.

I am much happier in my 50s than I ever was before- in fact, I was despondent for the vast majority of my adulthood. So I’d go back to pretty much any age before I turned 45, give myself the biggest hug, and say “It’s going to be okay, you’re going to make it, and you really are good enough.”