What if?

I'm not very prone to the What If scenario. What if I'd taken different decisions in my life? What if I'd never met X? What if I'd won the lottery? I don't think like that. But it must be really hard not to ask that question if your life has been torn apart by some quite hideous tragedy.

However determined you are to accept what life has thrown at you and come to terms with it, if something appalling has happened right out of the blue, surely you're bound to dwell on the circumstances and whether they could have gone differently.

If your loved one has been killed in a shocking air crash, aren't you bound to speculate? Suppose she'd taken a different flight? Suppose the flight had been cancelled? Suppose she'd been ill in bed? Suppose she'd been going somewhere else?

I reflect on this because of the recent inquest into the 7/7 bombings in London, and how many of the bereaved relatives are still traumatised by what happened. They must still be thinking frequently about that dreadful day and the tiny twists of fate that led to a horrific death rather than a lucky escape.

How could they possibly shrug it off and say, what happened happened, there's no point in brooding on it, you can't turn the clock back? The fact is there's a huge hole in their life where that person used to be and they desperately wish that hole had never opened up.

And they must also ponder that other version of What If - Why Me? Why did this calamity hit me and not some other person? Why was I singled out when other people are happily carrying on their lives, feeling safe and secure, confident of what the future holds?

Most of us take for granted the route our life has taken and assume we're travelling safely, but for those struck by tragedy suddenly the route is like a dangerous road on a cliff-edge. One careless manoeuvre and you could go straight off the edge into oblivion. All at once life isn't a springboard but a roulette wheel.

Future perfect

Could I really be afraid of the future? I decided to take the problem to my esteemed therapist Dr Melissa Flinch, at her luxurious consulting rooms in leafy South Belfast.

She offered me a herbal tea and an oatmeal cookie as I reclined in the well-padded armchair among a dense thicket of overgrown pot plants.

Nick: I'm afraid that I'm afraid of the future.

Melissa: Don't be silly. You can't be afraid of something so unbounded, so intangible. It's like being afraid of the weather, or speech, or a blank sheet of paper. You can only be afraid of something specific. Like spiders. Or flying.

Nick: But I'm afraid I'll be overtaken by some awful disaster in five years' time.

Melissa: Then you're just afraid of disaster. That's natural enough. But you're not afraid of some wonderful pleasure in five years' time, are you?

Nick: No, of course not.

Melissa: In fact, you must think pleasure is a lot more likely than catastrophe?

Nick: I suppose so.

Melissa: Well then, you're just a sunny optimist with occasional fits of pessimism. You allow for the very realistic possibility that you can't have pleasure 100 per cent of the time. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes they go very wrong. That's life, baby.

Nick: I guess you're right.

Melissa: Of course really you're just afraid of yourself. You're afraid of your inability to cope with any disaster that comes along. You're afraid of your own inadequacy, your own helplessness, your own confusion.

Nick: I'd never thought of it like that.

Melissa: Well, that's what I'm here for. I've seen a thousand tortured souls like yours. I know what's going on in your murky unconscious. I can unravel the tangled strands, lead you out of the psychic morass, restore clarity of thought.

Nick: What would I do without you?

Melissa: I shudder to think. That'll be £100 plus VAT. Mastercard as usual?

Nick: Cheap at the price.

I skipped happily down the front steps, the heavy burden lifted from my shoulders. All at once a rosy future beckoned.
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A new British survey says almost one person in five has consulted a counsellor or psychotherapist. Some 95% of those polled believe it is a good idea to seek counselling or psychotherapy for a problem before it gets out of hand, while 88% thought people might be happier as a result of doing so. Some 88% believe counselling and psychotherapy should be available to all on the NHS. This is a huge change in attitudes from six years ago.