I can’t let go of the past. Who I am. What I’ve done. The thoughts I’ve had. The things I’ve seen, and felt. It is me. It’s how I make sense of the world. If I could just wipe the slate clean – go off and be a happy, functional person. But there are reasons why I am where I am. A person can’t exist without a past – an explanation of why they are how they are. Maybe if I got amnesia – or could change my memory somehow. Convince myself that I’m not here because I’m screwed up beyond all belief, but because some tragedy befell me that was in no way my fault. That I’m a positive, happy, confident, upbeat person, with all of the normal life experiences one takes for granted. Go off and be happy.
But even if I could do that, it wouldn’t be me. It would be someone else, using my body. I am my sickness. I’ve been screwed up too long, and now I identify with my neurosis. This is me. And I hate it. And I want it to stop. But I can’t let go. I can’t just forget. It’s not something I can overcome.
So fuck it.
12 comments
Let it go.
Past is past. You can’t do anything about it. It will eat you. I don’t want to learn about doing. But I want to say there is nothing unforgivable if you want to. And if you don’t want to forgive then it doesn’t matter whether it is too horrible or something trifle. It will ruin you. If you can undo or improve something in your wrong doing then do. If can’t. Then there no reason to hold on those thoughts let them go.
Peace out. 🙂
Imo: Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. The past is important because we learn from it, that’s how we move on.
I just feel like some things you can’t move on from – that they define you. I can recognise some of what’s happened in my past and understand it, but I don’t know where to go from there. The lesson I learn from it is that I am pathetic, and will always be pathetic. No matter how hard I try to suppress that, it’s always there in my mind.
I agree with Darvin. It can seem like you can’t live with your past, but if you can learn from it it can seem less like a part of you, because you reach a point where you know you’ve changed. It doesn’t have to define who you are now or who you could be.
See .. 🙂 some more good advice. 🙂
It doesn’t matter who you was. It’s all about who you are.
Move on. 🙂
@thehusk: I get it. This makes total sense. I have stood in your shoes multiple times in my life, the most recent being in December. I have no idea how I got past it. I have lived my entire life waking up each morning and rolling the life dice. What will come up today? Will I be upbeat gleefully checking items off my to do list, or so anxious that I can’t even talk or think and wonder how much trouble I will be in if I call in sick to work, better still (this one is my absolute favorite), will the dice land on bland. Gotta love bland, bland food, bland life, bland job, bland ideas, everything is pointless. Bland is awful. Some might call it depression, but no it is just bland. The dice hits depression and I’m not getting out of bed. Take all these option and shake them up in a martini mixer and I’m shopping for a gun. Nope I get it. I can’t erase who I am, I can’t let go of all the shitty things I have done to people in my life. Bridges I have burned, opportunities I have wasted. I spend about three years just flying the middle finger at the world, then about 7 years judging everyone and all around me from my own personal mental ivory tower.
Then last year I just started walking forward and accepting that all these thing, this giant ball of shitstorm that essentially represents who I am as a human in this world, was never going to go away. I could either add to the shit or walk forward. Here is the thing about walking forward that I love, at least on days I’m not shopping for a gun. The giant ball of shitstorm is actually a giant ball of string. I see it next to me and it towers over me. Hit is staticky and absolutely terrifying to behold, but I take this very thin string, I can barely see it, it is thinner than a human hair. I take the string, tie it to my wrist and begin walking. The string naggs at my wrist but the more I walk, the more I get used to it and the ball slowly, gently begins to unravel. The more I walk, the more distance I have between me and that giant ball of static terror, the more I begin to forgive myself, and hopefully, begin living a full life. Not the life that others live, who the hell would want that vanilla hell, nope it is my own full life and the string allows me to communicate with the ball of static, like a string on the end of a can. Occasionally I put the can to my ear and check in..static you still there? Yup still there. When I turn it is way on the horizon, it is me and I am it.
That is why I tell people to be kind and gentle to themselves and begin walking. The ball won’t unravel quickly, and I don’t want to break the thread or I’m back to square one. So thehusk, it is okay to feel this way. Just start walking forward and don’t stop.
How do you do it? I freakin’ love your posts! Absolutely brilliant!
Up cycle + pez dispenser.
Thanks for that Hazy.
I think in my case, it’s less a giant shitstorm, more a giant ball of actual shit that represents me. It doesn’t seem to unravel so much as ooze around and contaminate the ground around me.
I can’t see how a full life can work for me. The shit just sticks to everything. Still, while I’m here, and my fear of death trumps my other fears, I may as well walk forwards, even if it’s not towards anything much. I just need to let go of the idea that I’ll be happy at some point. It fucks up my thinking and stops me in my tracks, which just makes it all worse.
@thehusk: youtube.com/watch?v=VlJBDeI3fjc
It’s a beautiful song, I just wanted to share a beautiful song with you. I can’t take the pain from you, but I can share a little beauty.
Well you’re certainly not alone in this kind of thinking. There is no easy answer and it’s a process that we all go through with coming to terms with things we’ve done, or were done to us in the past.
I think the happiness that we refer to is a state of blissful ignorance that we might have experienced as children. But then as we grew older we began to realize the world wasn’t a very nice place and people were mean, life could be cruel and unjust.
Happiness/contentment is a state we create ourselves-through the people we choose to have in our lives and the actions we take to make it better. I don’t really know of anyone who’s had an unblemished past-everyone has made their share of mistakes and blunders.
I include myself-I’ve done some things (esp in my teen years) that I really regret. Just as an example, I hung out with the bad crowd, which got me into some serious trouble-because of their actions (I was simply taken along for the ride)-of course I learned my lesson and never kept friends like that again, but it was a terrible experience I could’ve avoided had I listened to my conscience at the time and some of the good friends had actually warned me about but I didn’t take them seriously.
Sometimes you make mistakes that other people don’t let you forget-no matter how much time has passed and even though you were very young and stupid at the time. But the way I cope with it is to simply accept my faults/mistakes and move forward. Also to know my own weaknesses-and not put myself in situations where I could get into trouble.
My present notion of attaining happiness is to hopefully find an attractive compatible woman and build a good life together with her-that’s my clean slate and to leave the past in the past. You can’t let it rule you and become a neurotic obsession. You have all the mental tools available to change your perspective if you want.
Think of the times/years you’ve wasted on such things-think of the time you have left on this earth and make the most of it. Our lives our finite and I’ve seen the decades fly by-I’m in my 40s now so I plan to make the most of the time I have left, before I hit old age. Good luck.