Vin it is so a human way to think.  I still do this, in fact have been the last couple of days but I always try to tell myself 'The fact is I didn't and the reality is I am here now and must accept and face the situation', it isn't always easy but I think if I keep telling myself this each time eventually I will accept it and let go of the 'if onlys'.
I also try to think, if it had been laid out in front of me 'look if you don't stop, change etc this is what is going to happen to you' of course I would have sat up, listened, acted but of course the problem is that the inbalances are slow in developing and the changes creep up on us and because they don't actually stop us functioning and 'living' we just get used to the various feelings that are really signs and messages.  For me it was a very slow decent into feeling tired most of the time, poor sleeping, constipation, sinuses feeling blocked on and off and whole host of other things, it wasn't like I woke up one day and felt awful, so I just carried on even though deep down I knew I should try and find out why I felt the way I did.  Unfortunately the body had enough before I listened and hit me with IC.  I have berated myself so many many times but I try to tell myself that the body has screamed so loud this time that I will never ever forget this lesson.
So may be you could try to stem the thoughts and emotions by acknowledging that yes it would have been better if, but you are human and there were reasons why you didn't, but that you are listening now and doing something very positive to help yourself, you are working with Matia to heal your body.
I hope that helps but remember you are human, and please don't be too hard on yourself.
X

Vin- When I look back I am almost 100% sure I would not be sick had I not taken the Pill. There were definitely angry moments wheer I said,"WHY!!??? " However life is such a series of amazing chain reactions- good and bad- and sometimes similataneously so. If I hadn't taken the pill, I wouldn't have messed up my body, probably wouldn't have had infertility. That may seem like a good thing but I wouldn't have the lovely children I have today if my "plans' had worked out. I'd have had different ones- maybe nice ones but I love the ones I have! They were meant to be my companions for a while! Also- my experience with the failure of conventional Infertility treatments and my subsequent success with herbs is really what propelled me further into a natural medicine viewpoint which in turn affected so many of my choices, natural childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. Finally it led me here to this site and this wonderful healer.
 
Now I am starting to see a tiny teeny spark of that  magical glimmer of gratefulness for IC that people talk about. This illness and the ensuing mental trauma it has wrought pushed me to do a lot of self healing that I am so so glad to be doing. I was just listening to a recording of a song I did about 15 years ago for a CD and I started to cry because one of the lines was, "All my life seems I've waited for the time to start- being the person inside of me"
 
I didn't realize it- because I thought I was "fine" but I think I am really finding out who I am and growing into a better person, wife and mother. I have been in treatment for 9 months- it took me 6 just to accept that this was happenign to me I think. The past 3 months I have been steadily improving mentally (with a few PMS meltdowns!) and I feel like I could seriously handle just about anythign that heads my way in my future- also allowing myself the reality that sometimes things are hard and I can't expect perfection.
 
Someone told me recently that the defintion of perfectinism was "especting more from yourself or others than the situation requires" That simple idea helped me so much!
 
last week, I was really sick with the Flu or bad cold something, the baby was sick, I had a  Theatre rehearsal for the first time since becoming ill, my kids had a dentist appointment with multiple cavites.  I was expecting myself to be able to truck along with no change to my schedule, no extra help and thinking- through it all, I should be happy and smiling and "strong" SO, what happened- I had a meltdown on Thursday. For me-It all comes to a head whenI don't just admit it is tough or even allow myself to feel the stress and let it go without resisting it so darn much. I am still learning that I need to be gentle and easy on myself the best I can (with 3 kids!) 
 
This is long and rambling- hope it makes some sense.
 
thinking of you!!!
 

Deir, glad to hear you are making progress.

Hi, I'm new here, but i also had to deal with 'what if's'. I had a laparoscopy (i had been feeling alot of pain on my lower left side, so they decided to do a lap&dye to see what was going on) and a week later i 'got' IC. I now know that the pain was caused by PCOS. And that this pain emerged because of a multivitamin/mineral supplement that i had been taken to boost my fertility. It really 'boosted' my ovaries. I feel so so stupid that I didn't realize this pain started around the time i started taking the supplement, about six months before the laparoscopy.
When I got IC i gave up on the fertility boosting supplement and my ovaries settled down. I now only feel the pain around ovulation time.
But how I wish that I didn't have that laparoscopy! and how I wish that i didn't take that supplement and just had trusted a little bit more that my body would return to a cycle in it's own time after stopping the pill.
These are the things i keep in mind when faced with these feelings:
A therapist told me 'If you can't change the situation, change the way you view it'. I can't change the choices i made back then. So instead of feelings of regret i think of the lessons I learned, for example not to be too quick with medical interventions like operations. A good lesson for the rest of my life.
And another good illustration, if you are driving in a car, and keep looking in your rear view mirror, you won't be able to see the things ahead of you. You will have a crash.
So it is with health, if you keep looking back, it could cause a 'crash' and you won't be able to focus on all the great things ahead.
x

Hi my fellow newby!! I am so sorry to hear that you have IC first of all. I also am sad to hear that a medical procedure could cause it. What is that treatement and how did it cause the IC?

I recently listened to this and really helped me. I have a lot of regrets in life and i realized how letting go of them is crucial to opening up and healing process. Hope you all enjoy too.
 
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kathryn_schulz_don_t_regret_regret.html

Regrets make no sense, because it probably wasn't just ONE thing that got you to where you are. Most likely, it would be impossible to change everything that led to this disease. I know a lot of people think birth control caused their IC, but I was never on birth control and still got IC. Sooo, if I HAD taken birth control, I probably would have blamed it on that ... never knowing that it was actually something else that caused it.
Also, many people's gut problems started in childhood, with stressful situations that you had no control over. Dr. B has said that most of her patients had problems with their mothers, or stress as children. This changes your gut and sets you up for problems. The birth control may have put you over the edge, but if it hadnt ... something else probably would have. A drug a doctor gave you, a stressful situation, too much candy, anything could have put you over the edge.
I know how hard it is to just let go, but its essential to your healing. We all know stress is not conducive to healing, and thinking about these things will only stress you out more. TRY TRY TRY to think about how lucky we are that we HAVE to change our diets, and therefore will probably be less likely to get cancer and other degenerative disease that others will get later on in life. You never know, you could be preventing yourself from what would have been a future of cancer or other disease.

Hey Deir, I didn't mean to imply that no one's IC was caused by birth control. I just meant that "you never know" ... there are just too many factors involved. If IC was easy to figure out ... the silly MD's would have figured it out already (no offense to MD's - there are some good ones). I was just like you Deir, I had a pretty healthy diet. My blood work always came back extremly good. Everyone always thought I was obsesssivly healthy. Haaa, jokes on me, LOL. Anyway, I hope your doing better Deir, I know you were struggling for a while.
Best Wishes,
Mel