In my personal opinion, I believe that there is no going back. Like Ms. Summers, I believe those things we have experienced change us. I believe those changes can be positive or negative.
Thinking about it from the point of view of a depressed person, some of my depression is a result of things that changed who I was when I was a child and as a young adult. Those experiences effected their changes emotionally, and chemically in my brain.
My experiences stuck with me and I was the exact opposite of what I envisioned for myself. My reality did not fit with what I dreamed. In my dreams the person I wanted to be was someone who was full of confidence, and had a positive outlook on life.
My experience with major depression and an anxiety disorder has also left its mark on me as well. Three years of being in a deep, dark depression would leave its mark on anyone. An almost successful suicide attempt, some time in a mental institution, and therapy since May have also changed me.
I am still not the person I envisioned in my dreams. I have resigned myself to the fact I never will be. Nor do I want to turn around and get a “re-do” on any part of my life. Why would I even want to? Unless I could go all the way back to the beginning, before certain life experiences changed me, there would be no point. If I made a u-turn to go back and do over any portion of my life, I would still end up making the same mistakes because the core issues that caused me to mess things up would still be there. I do not even want to be the person I was before my depression. That person was not healthy or happy.
I suppose one could make an argument that if you could make a u-turn in your life you could go back and make right the things you did wrong. I would not want to do that either. How sincere would my apology or acts of contrition actually be, if I had not truly suffered from the consequences of my past bad actions?
The long and short of it, is that I believe u-turns are impossible. What we can hope to achieve instead is a better understanding for what led us to make poor decisions, and cause us to get off track in life. Then we can take that information and make better decisions in the future.