How can you either make peace with yourself and other stuff in the past, or just forget it all together?

I don’t think you can forget it. You have to simply accept it and move on. I have done some jacked up stuff – to myself, mostly – that has drastically altered the course of my life. Regret used to rule me. It still rears its ugly head, but not nearly as much as before. I have no advice on how to let go other than to start making better choices and realize that getting on the right path from here on out is the best you can do.

It is obvious that this is crippling your today. Thus your quality of life is affected.

You need to realize:

1. Everyone messes up- we all make mistakes.

2. You cannot change the past.

3. Reliving and rehashing it is not helping anyone.

4. If retribution needs to be made do so and then move on.

Take the lesson learned and move forward in a positive direction.

You just need to realize everything happens for a reason. The reason may not be clear as of this moment, but it soon will. If my mom never abused me for years, I would have never had a reason to stand up for myself after HS, which resulted in her kicked me out. I then moved to Florida, met some people there, started talking to people I went to school with via the internet, but never really talked to in school, they showed me stickam.com. That’s where I met the guy I’ve been with for two years. Also if she had never abused me I wouldn’t have been able to become an independent student for college, and I wouldn’t have been able to get my grants.

Realizing that everything has lead to where I am now (which is a place that I’m completely happy) helps me come to peace with it all.

You probably need to start with facing the stuff that’s haunting you, make amends if possible, then forgive yourself.

Therapy helped me immensely. I have come to a place of peace, and I hope you will too.

A lot of people report having benefited greatly from a course of Cognitive-Behavioral psychotherapy. You can find qualified C-B therapists through your local mental-health program, or even in the Yellow Pages.

I suggest a Licensed Certified Social Worker, who will have had to have passed rigorous screening in order to engage in private practice as a psychotherapist.

Good luck.

You can never truly forgive yourwself for stuff that you may have done int eh past but life goes on!!

It appears there are associated questions/posts that provide some clarification to issues you are dealing with, so I may return to this question after reviewing them, but my short answer is: you do not forget the past….you learn from it and grow beyond it. See ya….Gary aka wtf

As others have said, it usually starts with accepting that the past can not be changed. There have been many discussions on Fluther related to this, and I will link to my responses in some of them; but please do read through them all and even the “Siblings” on the right side of the page (if you are on the desktop version)... you will find many helpful answers.

http://www.fluther.com/disc/27153/what-event-led-to-a-diagnosis-of-ptsd-for-you/#quip292337

http://www.fluther.com/disc/8949/this-is-a-multi-part-question-1-what-steps-have-you-taken/#quip54651

http://www.fluther.com/disc/9545/have-you-ever-battled-on-going-depression-and-if-so-how/#quip59588

http://www.fluther.com/disc/37261/im-so-stuck-what-do-i-do-about-helping-myself-emotionally/#quip458465

Also, feel free to contact me privately if you’d care to discuss it further. Hang in there!

I agree with @pdworkin about Cognitive Behavior therapy. If you are not ready to go to a therapist, there is an excellent book called Feeling Good by David D. Burns. There is also a workbook that you can buy to go along with it. I highly recommend it as a tool to work with.

For me, once I acknowledged my past, I could become a spectator to it instead of a victim of it. But it took me a long time to reach that point.

I don’t think I will ever forget, but being a spectator makes it easier for the rest of my life to come to the front and overshadow the other, it’s still there, it just doesn’t hold the position of power it once did.

I spent a lot of time in therapy and went to a lot of ACOC and AA meetings to reach this point, it wasn’t easy, but it sure was worth it!

Be brave and mighty forces will come to your aid, and the amazing part is all those mighty forces are already inside yourself, you just have to waken them and use them to your advantage.

What works for me is to just put it in it’s place. It’s not something you can ever get rid of, but if you choose to not allow it to bother you, except at a time at your convenience, you just practice. In my own case, I read every self-help book in the popular psychology section I could get my hands on, and found a lot of useful ideas.

I set aside private time, make myself comfortable, and just let all my thoughts wander where they will, and feel all the things that are not convenient to feel any other time. I cry, get mad, feel frustrated, and anything else that happens to be there.

When the alloted time is up (usually an hour), I shower, put on some comfortable clothes, make my favorite desert, and relax before going to bed.

I have made a pledge to myself to be happy every single day for the rest of my life, because I didn’t like the alternative.

After my first husband died, I lived with my family for a couple of years, and they helped me through the “zombie” part of my life.

I took group therapy with a psychologist for six months, after my second husband died, and have done consolutations with a counselor for a couple of weeks on two other occasions. These sessions have proven extremely valuable for me.

Everything we go through good or bad, shapes who we are today and in the future! I wouldn’t be who I am if my life would have been different. I think about this and since I am pleased to be who I am, I regret nothing!

cheers dudes…
=)

Stop obsessive ruminating.