Wrote this on the forums I'm on. This whole thing is pretty personal so in a way, I guess its just like a journal entry.

So, you're in a good place. Things are looking up, hope is an ever present feeling, and overall, you're just in a pleasant mood.

Now, its quiet. You're chilling by yourself, alone with your thoughts. Then, something comes up. A trigger that sets off a domino effect in your head, playing a marathon of memories from your past that you thought you forgot. That you thought you buried. You find yourself proven wrong on both accounts and the memories come back to remind you just how low you were before you rose up.

All that time, a terrible and worrisome thought prods at you: "Will history repeat itself?". You feel like you've learned from your mistakes and that from learning from them, you've becone a better person. You look back at your old self and see an entirely different person, thinking "How could that have been me? I never could have been in that deep of a hole. That wasn't the real me."

The reality is, it was you. A flawed, fucked up version of you and while you may feel new and improved now, those marathon of memories remind you just how easily you fell...and how you could fall again.

About a year ago, I was in a bad place. Don't want to go into specifics because the people involved may or may not be connected to people on this site in some way, shape, or form. I guess in the end though, the people who know, know and the people who don't, don't. Either way, word gets around I suppose.

Point is, I did something that went against my morals. It was nothing illegal but it was a very personal matter and the ramifications of my actions fucked me up in ways I couldn't have imagined. For so long I wore a mask, acting happy, hopeful and full of life when I was truly descending in the opposite direction, somedays wishing I could meet my end.

It took the support of close friends of mine, one of whom who's now my bf, to help me cope. They helped me move past my guilt over what happened and look back on things in a different light so I can focus on the now.

In a way, I'm thankful for the memories. They help me see how far I've come to be how I am now and give me certain revelations about the events that transpired. On the other hand though, I hate my memories cause they also bring back the guilt and make me feel vunerable to failing again. Memories do a good job at making you but also breaking you.

I questioned the reason for this love/hate relationship with my memories. My bf told me it was my desire for closure. The closure I never recieved. The closure you get from books and movies after a certain conflict so you can feel you got a "proper ending".

But life doesn't work that way unfortunately. I don't want my memories to be the driving force of my actions forever. I realize I can be a good person on my own, without good or bad memories to act as a reminder on how I should be. I learned my lesson, now I just want to bury the past in the past and live my life...but the memories that flooded in just an hour ago, that spawned the creation of this topic prove thats not happening anytime soon.

For now, I've created a system for dealing when these things happen. I take deep breaths and I think: I think about the friends I have by my side, the man I love who I'll get to talk to once he wakes up, and the future I plan for myself and the people I care about. I'll gladly do this as many times as needed till the past is buried and just seen as a nightmare.

This is...the most open I've been without going past my comfort zone. I guess I just reached a point where I am happy with how I am now and wish to open up about certain things as a way to move past troubling things. Who knows, maybe these are the steps to closure, maybe not. I guess I'm also curious how you all deal with memories, good or bad.

(Note: I typed this on mobile. Checked as best I can but if there are any typos still, I apologize)