Ask HN: How did you move on from past experiences? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How did you move on from past experiences?

230 pointsRed_Tarsius157 comments

I recently put an end to a drawn-out and stressful chapter of my life. It lasted many years and I'd like to get a sense of closure. Yet I can't seem to fully rekindle the same energy of my younger self. I've bought a couple of books to celebrate, but I haven't opened them yet because I don't want to taint them with past memories, if it makes sense.

How did you close the previous chapters of your life? It may sound strange but I almost feel I have to ask for permission to move on. Like it's not real unless I share it with someone else.

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There isn't a quick fix. Time is the answer.

My parents were murdered 16 years ago. I spent 10 years before I could adequately deal with this. CBT was incredibly beneficial once I found the right person, but it took a long time to find them.

The previous chapters of your life cannot be closed. They can only be learnt from.

Remember that life is short and you can waste a lot of it in a bad state.

Talk to friends, do memorable things, try to be a good person.

Do whatever works for you, and ignore negativity. Sport, learning, activism, religion? Whatever works.

Golden rule is don't harm yourself, and don't harm others.

Another golden rule I found is to stop trying to “win” , that is a too competitive state of mind. It creates so much stress and you will forget the more poetic and sensual / analog parts of life that can bring much contentment and sometimes joy.

A bit of sportslike ambition is never wrong, just don’t overdo it or take it too seriously.

I am truly sorry for what you had to go through, big hug to you and other's here sharing their stories.

I'm sure you already know this, but I'd like to say it explicitly to others that may find it helpful as well -> never forget that life is an infinite display of possibilities, as the saying goes, it ain't over 'til it's over.

You can always start from scratch, there will always be new people/places to try new things with and your past experiences do NOT necessarily define what your future will be like (this goes both ways, so be careful).

Some people make it through extremely harsh life events and, contrary to some dumb but widespread belief, don't come out of it by becoming permanently angry and resented. A big chunk of them become very sensitive and wise human beings, with a strong wish to help others going through similar grievances. Be open to accept their help and advice in times of need. It took me a while to understand this and neglecting it only made my hard times worse. We are a social animal and also remarkably similar to each other.

Best wishes to all on this new year's eve, I hope you get a chance to treat yourselves to a nice moment and company as we start our 2022 together! Cheers!

Another vote for CBT.

I had two painful periods of my life that lead to depressions. The first one I dealt with more or less on my own -- basically waiting it out. Eventually I got better and moved on but it took a while.

The second time I went to a therapist almost immediately and the duration was much shorter. More importantly, the therapist helped unpack a lot of stuff for me and gave me a lot of tools for dealing with events and their associated emotions. I think CBT would work particularly well for this crowd since a lot of it is reasoning based. The basic idea, to me at least, is that our emotional responses can be reasoned with or about. If others are like me, I think some of us might harbor mistaken notions that we are more rational than average and thus don't have any misguided tendencies or thinking. CBT was a revelation to me. I learned to better observe my own emotions and also my own "thinking traps", etc. It has helped me better "manage" myself and prevent me from letting events drag me into another depression.

Someone else mentioned forgiveness and that helped me a lot in my own recovery as well. Forgiveness can be applied to others and ourselves. It's ultimately a very enlightening practice.

Best of luck to the OP and others dealing with pain. Closing a chapter on life is very hard but it can also be liberating and a path to other great things in life.

Sorry to hear about your parents.

I agree with your point about not harming yourself. After my first parent died, I tried to pretend like it never happened. I drank heavily to ignore the pain. Drinking affected my own physical and mental health. It was tough to break out of that cycle - it took about a year.

After my second parent died, I acknowledged the pain and tried to embrace the grief. I didn’t drink or take drugs - when a memory came to me, I just let it ride. That was a much healthier grieving experience.

If you don't mind me asking, and it isn't too painful, what was the thought that initiated drinking?

I've always been curious, because while substance abuse hasn't been a feature of my life, I'm suspicious I have other outlets (that I'd like to recognize).

So what were the steps between (daily life stuff) and (I'm taking that first drink)? Resignation, sadness, boredom, lethargy, habit? Anything that I could watch out for in my own life? Any insight appreciated, and glad you feel healthier now.

Thanks for saying that.

It’s hard to put my finger on which feelings initiated the drinking. I think that, subconsciously, I wanted to end my day comfortably numb.

This is how I got there:

“I have been drinking all week, why stop today?”

“Why stop at one beer? I can handle another”

I would watch out for repeated resignations. That seems to have created my bad habit.

"Repeated resignations" is a great turn of phrase. Thanks for the response and insight!

Agree with this. Acknowledge-Forgive-Learn.

What worked for me a few years ago:

1. Drop any goals you have outside of work. One day at a time.

2. Allow for extended idle time. Allow yourself to just "be".

3. Do what feels right in this idle time, which in my case was:

  - Spend lots of time in nature. Take walks.

  - Write letters to people involved in the matter. I didn't send the letters.

  - Meditate

10 years seems to be a good estimate how long it take to deal with extreme experiences.

In my experience it also was 10 years since I could handle similar situations. I have also heard this number from others often.

I'm at 10 years now, pretty much to the week, although I would also say that it wasn't a linear progression from year 0 to now, as if you're gradually recovering from an illness. For every leap forward in my own process there were some major, major regressions, right up to 2018/2019.

I'm not sure I'd call this moving on. More like learning how to cope, and be more resilient. The closure, if any, was I have what I need with myself and I don't need to get it from the people who hurt me. So I'm happy, all things considered.

Basically sharing this to say that even if 10 years seems to average out, our path through it will likely be quite different.

I've come to the horrible realization that the trauma part of the brain runs on some sort of 10 year cycle. I'm not a doctor but it must be some sort of memory/function/process that the brain slowly modifies over the course of a decade before it decides to move it out of daily use to long term memory. There doesn't seem to be anything you can do to speed it up either.

Trauma gets locked into the body too, not just the brain.

EMDR therapy helps process trauma for some.

I too am resolving trauma from 10 years ago that I couldn't quite face

In some spiritual circles, the number is 10 as well. I'm now drawing up on 9, and oh boy.

10 years was my number as well.

Low key incredible advice. Thank you.

Sorry to hear this and hope others can also learn from your advice.

All you can do is throw yourself headlong into new experiences.

Plus, there's a hack: changing your geographic frame of reference really helps. If you can afford it and are not too attached to where you're living -- and especially if you kind of hate where you're living -- just pick up and move. Ideally to a different climate, perhaps with a different accent or a different language altogether.

At least for a while -- 6 months to a year.

You see your brain is hardwired to 'index' new memories based on sensory cues -- light, colors, smells, sounds... and especially new faces. When these stimuli change, and especially when they all change at once -- it's like our brain opens up a whole new space to operate, and to start organizing all of these new memories and experiences in.

Like turning the page and starting a whole new chapter, as it were.

Another variant: if you can afford to and work permits, temporarily relocate somewhere for awhile. Rent a minimal-cost place for a month+.

As one option, look into professional house-sitting (common in US, not sure elsewhere). Essentially, people with high end homes, who are going to be away for a period, who want someone they can trust not to wreck the place to just be there.

But essentially, just live somewhere else for a minute. For me it takes about 5 days to start living instead of visiting.

After my mother's cancer diagnosis, when treatment was in progress but surgery still scheduled some time away, and I had a job I hated, with co-workers whose morals I didn't share... I spent a few weeks in Japan and Thailand. (Mostly paid by reward points, long saved)

It was amazing how refreshing my view on my own life was, from a different vantage point.

When I got back, I quit the job, took some time off with the aid of savings, and spent time with my mom through her treatment. I'm not sure I would have realized that was the right path without the distance. (And it finally resulted in one of the best jobs of my career)

Thanks for the house-sitting recommendation, great idea. What's your job now?

Unfortunately, I've since moved on. #FirstWorldProblems, but in retrospect, +50% salary isn't automatically enough to make up for good vs bad corporate culture and quality of colleagues.

do you have any resources for how to get into professional house-sitting? sounds like it would expand horizons in a very accessible way!

I didn't even know it was a thing, until my father did it when moving for work, while looking for a permanent house to purchase.

Can't offer any details, but this [0] seems to have a range of links and the basics. I gather it's something like Airbnb, but in reverse (homeowners looking for quality person). I imagine it's mostly person and reputation based (e.g. I present as a responsible professional + here are some expensive houses I have been entrusted successfully with).

If you know any real estate agents, you can also ask them where they find temporary placements (i.e. home currently on the market, which are usually paid) as a "resume" starter. But I imagine you'd probably be looking for non-real-estate listings long term. As they usually those require you to be available on short notice to vacate for people to walk through.

And the bigger points are (1) must be flexible in "finding somewhere else" or "vacating within a few months" & (2) be able to live in a place with a light touch (no parties, destructive living, pets, etc.).

[0] https://estatesitting.com/long-term-house-sitter/

> changing your geographic frame of reference really helps.

Thanks for saying this. I was stuck and faced my problems head-on for years in therapy (and every day life). More than one therapist I saw for an extended period of time really drove home the point that the "geographical cure" doesn't work because you just bring your problems with you.

But that's an incredibly myopic view. After finally breaking up with those therapists/asshats, I went through a period of being nomadic and then settled elsewhere. Some of my problems went away immediately, some came with me, others appeared. But I was more able to separate myself from my context, process difficult emotions with distance from the triggers, receive the gifts of a new place and its culture, see how different people live/struggle elsewhere.

I don't think there's any other way I could have turned my trajectory around.

It's true that you'll always have your problems with you. It's also true that "wherever you go, there you are."

But for every set of problems S₁ ... there's a secondary set S₂ that consists basically of "thinking too damn much about S₁" along with a heaping portion of "why me, why me, why me?". The growth of which starts to take on a life of its own, and to greatly leverage the suffering that S₁ would otherwise cause on its own.

So part of the basic healing mechanism of the change-of-coordinates approach is that, while it doesn't reduce the size of S₁ directly ... it does help reduce the run-away swelling of S₂ very substantially. Which allows slow-acting but powerful natural healing factors (the passage of time, as a sibling commenter point out) to focus much better on S₁.

Until one day, you're going about your business ... and you realize you haven't thought about S₁ in a while. Not just for a couple of hours, but for a like a full day or more. That's when you start to realize that it's at least possible to move on.

Indeed. Being through a few traumatic experiences in the first months of 2020, including the sudden death of my dad. I can attest that while it has been hard to let go of some memories and feelings, changing the geographic frame is an absolute hack that works. Look for something completely different, if you live in the city move to the country, if you live in the mountains move to the beach. Allow yourself the new experiences, use your senses to explore the new. In my case, the following also helped:

1) allowed myself to invest and finish a project that had special meaning to me since before the trauma;

2) Got a new dog, learned how to train her as a service dog, and put in the work to get that completed. BONUS: I now have a trained service dog that I love, can take everywhere, and is truly man's best friend.

3) Started small projects which involved my loved ones, which helped me bond and create new memories with each one individually.

Hope this helps. The most important thing is to keep on keeping on. Never give up.

How did you learn how to train your dog?

TLDR; A Lot of internet coupled with a lot of trial and error - fun times.

But seriously, I first started researching online how people trained their dogs for obedience and to do simple tasks. Read a couple of books on the subject, signed up for an online class (COVID lockdowns and all), watched tons of Youtube videos, which were more informative and way more practical than the classes and books and practiced a lot with my Dog. She picked up really fast and within a couple of months I had her doing some serious obedience tasks. I would say she and I learned together ;) After that, I amped up the work consistency and focused on the specific task she needed to do in my case to become a service dog. Now with that said I want to plug something here, there's a group called STSK9 that has an outstanding online dog training university. I found them way down in my path and I still may register since I love what they are doing to help teach people how to train dogs and from what see on their site + social media interactions their students and dogs get the best in the biz. Link to their site https://www.stsk9.com/

That's exactly what my wife did. College was extremely stressful and filled with suffering for her. After it ended, she never felt like it really ended.

But after we moved to a different country she is a completely new person.

Actually building something helps a ton: either a project at work, or through hobbies like woodworking, writing, art, comedy, etc.

And the geographic hack is great advice. I moved to a new city following a breakup a few years back and it did wonders for my mental health.

I also recommend journaling: Getting thoughts out of your head and onto a page can provide a sense of closure.

I have mixed feelings about this. After college I basically tried that by moving from Chicago to Boulder CO. Restructuring my life around the very different area helped (in particular I lost a lot of weight), but my problems all followed me over. It wasn't some reinvention like I wanted it to be. I don't see it as the turning of a chapter more than events in a continuum sitting between a traumatic childhood and realizing I was in it too deep to get out alone.

Things didn't really start to improve until I started going to therapy about five years later. I had actually moved back to Chicago by that point.

Changing the geographic frame is the single most effective way to deal with past experiences. I’ve done it in the past from traumatic experiences and it was always a huge step forward for my mental health!

This year, my (not so little) brother committed suicide in an alcohol induced stupor. He did it in his living room while his wife and young children were home, sleeping.

Therapy has been a life saver. The only true way to get "over" trauma or hardship is to get through. There is no getting "over" horrible things that happen to you. You just have to keep on moving forward, one foot in front of the other.

In the meantime, as other have said, find a passion or a hobby that you can pour some time into. Personally, I've found exercise, reading, spending time with my children (and his children), and practicing Stoicism to be very beneficial.

We look for clean lines of demarcation between life events a lot of times, but really, we can't extricate the future from the past so easily. All of us are, in some way, impacted by these critical, good or bad events. There is no escaping this impact; No human is immune to them. I've found the words of Marcus Aurelius to be particularly helpful:

"Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not 'This is misfortune,' but 'To bear this worthily is good fortune.'"

Good luck.

I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine.

You seem to think that this experience is like a feature flag you can turn on or off.

It’s not.

It’s an intractable part of who you are now. You can’t get rid of it anymore that you can anything else in your life.

Accept that it happened. Forgive whoever was a part of this, including yourself. Move on.

Who you are is who you are from this moment forward. Don’t think you can go back to who you were previously. It’s impossible. Everything new builds off of today. The past may be tainted but not the future. Read those books. You can’t taint them because the taint is in the past and the book is in the future.

* Seek professional help.

* Build a daily routine of constructive activities (exercise, journal, meditate, cook etc)

* Focus on creating a future you would like.

* Find things to be grateful for every day.

* Don't indulge in your negative thoughts; notice them, acknowledge them, keep going.

Good luck with it, you got this.

    Build a daily routine of constructive 
    activities (exercise, journal, meditate, cook etc)

If anybody is struggling with this extremely positive practice, I have a suggestion: start with really small activities. Give yourself credit for every victory no matter how small.

When I was "between jobs" my daily routine checklist started with:

- Get out of bed

- Hydrate (at least 1L per day, 2L was a stretch goal)

- Take vitamins

- Brush teeth

There was more on the checklist, like actual exercise and training projects. But having "easy wins" really helped me build positive momentum IME.

i got myself back into the gym habit once with “5 minutes on the elliptical, then 5 pushups”. i still cant believe how well it worked.

I love this!

I'm surprised more people didn't recommend this. If you have the resources, I highly recommend some kind of professional help.

Think of it this way. As individuals we (hopefully) have a limited experience set dealing with recovery from significant trauma. A professional will see these kinds of things on a regular basis, and may be able to recommend a course of action tailored to you and your specific circumstances.

They may not be the fix, but they can be a shortcut to finding the path to feeling better.

Echo: Seek professional help.

You might be struggling just "because" and you need time to get over your experience but there might be an underlying cause that makes you unable to get past it (or at least makes it much harder). A professional can help you frame your experience and draw out anything unresolved.

If the events keep recurring in your head, and they're intrusive, there's something that isn't fleshed out. That needs to be reconciled.

Start by writing out these dreadful moments, with exacting detail. Look up dates. Talk about tones of voices. Where were you at? What was everyone wearing. Minute detail. What happened. What do you wish would have occurred differently?

You need to reconcile all of the details, so that your brain can appropriately lay them to rest and move forward.

The past authoring program may be of help.

"It would be particularly useful to complete the Past Authoring Program if you have memories that are more than about eighteen months old that still intrude upon your thoughts, or that still evoke emotion such as fear, regret, shame or confusion. If this is happening, it means that your mind has not yet been able to fully process your past experiences, and that the brain areas associated with negative emotion still regard the past events in question as unresolved threats. This is not good, because your brain reacts to unresolved threats with emergency physiological preparation, including the production of stress hormones such as cortisol that can be very toxic when chronically elevated"

https://www.selfauthoring.com/past-authoring

I thought i was crazy having done this, i didn’t it is a proper advice. I definitely suggest this to everyone with such long term haunting memories and traumas.

You don't completely get over anything, but I have a strategy that has at least mitigated some of the long term damage from past events in my life.

This will seem bizarre, but bear with me.

If I can, when an upsetting memory pops up, I try to find a reason to laugh at it, or force myself to dismissively laugh at it, and then I file that memory back into my brain and move on.

The long-term effect of this is that to some extent I can detach myself from the emotions I had in the moment and just be able to recall these events more objectively. Because I force myself to laugh at events long since passed, the more I do it, the less I associate the memory with the original emotion. Eventually I don't need the strategy and can think about an incident rationally without spiraling out of control emotionally.

Of course this may not be possible for some memories, and I don't necessarily recommend it. If a troubling memory involves being bullied, it can help, in my experience. Anything involving regret or guilt, not so much; in those cases it's better to make them right if you can and otherwise accept it.

Based on my armchair understanding of how memories are recalled and stored, I can see how this might work very well for old memories associated with negative emotion. For similar, look up "Traumatic memory reactivation propanolol".

Here is one perspective, unvarnished:

Those experiences are now part of you. Love yourself, including, without exception, hesitation, or restraint, the pain and scars. Genuinely care about them, as if they are truly important in the world, because they are (even if others won't see it). Someone wise once said to me, love them; if you try to suppress them or fight them or ignore them, you will be a slave to them.

I'm not saying, dedicate your life to them. I'm saying that if you don't love them, you will dedicate your life to them. What I suggest will be painful - I'm not offering a panacea; facing such emotions is painful without qualification. IMHO a defining aspect of aging is that you gather those wounds and scars - you become fundamentally different than someone younger - and one thing that defines our lives is what we do with them, how we carry them with us. Some pull away from life, to degrees, some turn to drugs, some lash out, people adopt myriad coping strategies, and some grow and become more faceted and maybe wise, though not without consciously making the effort, which is challenging. I think we also can learn our limitations and strengths, after running full speed, head first into walls in youth, heedless of consequences, now we can know a little more and choose when, where and how.

You are the sum total of everything that has happened to you. This can seem like a disadvantage when people around you have enjoyed a more perfect existence but, as you get older, you can find strength in the knowledge that you have endured things other people have not. This makes you a better person, whether you feel it or not.

Good luck with the rest of your life.

> This can seem like a disadvantage when people around you have enjoyed a more perfect existence ...

Those people living ideal lives don't exist; we all are flawed and wounded. We just don't know about it and many play a game of hiding it, as if we are in a competition to see who can appear more perfect. When I see someone present that way, I assume they are hiding more. Personally, I purposely avoid playing the game. Nobody is fooling anybody anyway, and maybe I can inspire someone by being more open about my problems.

The injuries and scars are human condition. I sometimes imagine they are like the parts chiseled out, as a sculpture would a block of stone. Those (non-existant) perfect people are an untounched block - there is nothing there.

This comment really resonated with me. Thank you for sharing.

Reading Viktor Frankl’s man search for meaning really helped me. I also sought professional help for a time.

My take away is that pain and suffering can have meaning and that meaning, that power of experience, can be a gift of intercession for others.

Your last sentence is telling, “it’s not real unless I share it with someone else.” Don’t wait. Time isn’t the answer. No one is promised tomorrow. Your experience is a superpower now that can be a gift to another person.

The golden rule is diagnostic, you will love others the way you love yourself.

Finally, learn how to make really good tacos. I’m Mexican so I’m biased but maybe if you’re not Mexican your people have a beautiful food too that you can learn how to make and share with others. If not, we freely have open sourced the taco for all peoples so feel free to start there. The gift of good food and caring conversation is one of the best parts of being alive.

My best to you and may you be abundantly blessed.

EMDR therapy works wonders for CPTSD. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be really good at uncovering the underlying cause of the feelings you’re experiencing. EMDR is a nice supplement to disengage from or (more often) desensitize yourself from the causes of those feelings.

My own experience comes from dealing with sexual assault and long term abandonment and attachment issues, but I’ve found the experiences I gained through those two therapy modalities useful for dealing with minor crises or life-stage transitions as well.

Personally, psychedelic mushrooms also play a role in my own recovery and ongoing therapy, but they’re not for everyone.

Best of luck to you. I hope you find peace and comfort in the near future. We all deserve to leave the past behind, to learn from it, and to look directly into the future when we are ready.

I've had so so results with EMDR for trauma (lots of childhood shit). I'm hoping psychedelics become legal for therapy, I've heard / read great things.

Honestly, if your brain is still being bothered by those experiences, I have found it means that I have not dealt with those experiences enough. There is something "unfinished" with that experience that my brain can't figure out, so it keeps circle back through it. Especially for traumatic things or big events...

I'm just an average joe with no relevant background here, but I think the purpose of memory is to help you go through similar experiences in the future more efficiently / correctly / with good outcomes.

So I think that the brain is trying to learn from those experiences. And if it wont let go, you should help it. Sit down and write out what you are thinking. Talk out loud to yourself. or to someone else you trust. Think about that event a lot. Think about what it taught you. What you want to repeat in the future. What you don't. Write about it some more.

At least on my end, that helps. Good luck.

> Honestly, if your brain is still being bothered by those experiences, I have found it means that I have not dealt with those experiences enough. There is something "unfinished" with that experience that my brain can't figure out, so it keeps circle back through it. Especially for traumatic things or big events...

I would like to second this. Human beings are really good in putting stuff away in their head and convincing themselves things are okay when they aren't.

I've been in similar situations and it was both really hard and eventually possible to move on and continue growing and developing. There is no simple answer. What is required is balancing accepting and integrating the past experience with actually moving on and doing new things. You can't have one without the other, and you can't rush things. Rather, you end up advancing one step at a time across both fronts. It often takes longer and requires more effort than you would have liked, so being ready for a long run is important.

Accepting and integrating the past means approaching it neither through rumination nor through avoidance, but with as full awareness as possible and some distance and perspective. Learning whatever there is to learn. Making peace with whatever happened (and most importantly with yourself). Your past will forever be your past, you will never be able to change it, so better get comfortable with that.

Doing new things, living a new life, that's easier said than done, but can also be fun and empowering when you're ready. As the saying goes, today is the first day of the rest of your life. Exciting! But to avoid "contaminating" your future with your past, you really need to also accept and integrate that past. If you don't, the choices you make and patterns you establish might be dominated by that past experience.

Some people can do this all by themselves. Many don't. If you're not sure, assume that you are one of those people who can benefit from getting help and support from a qualified professional. Many people who did will report that this is one of the best investments they made in their lifetime.

I had a stroke a couple years ago at the age of 29. It has forever changed me. It is a scar on my brain and body. It is a part of me. I suppose I will never get true closure from the trauma until I __acknowledge__ that it has forever become a part of me. Our lives are composed of the good and bad parts. All are physiologically and neurologically manifested. We cannot completely eliminate them as we cannot reverse entropy. But we can make a peace with them. A bit like having a new scar on your cheek and looking at yourself every day in the mirror until you don't really notice it anymore. Both therapy and time can help. Allow life to take you on new journeys and then these will fill your thoughts, becoming more a part of you than the traumas that you're trying to move on from. I guess that's my take on it, at least. Self-compassion does a wonder as well. Hope you find closure, peace, direction <3

I'm in my 50's, this experience will happen several more times in your life. It is good to learn how to recognize it and sit with it, ultimately accepting it and moving on from it.

> Yet I can't seem to fully rekindle the same energy of my younger self.

I went through this in my late 30's early 40's (in my 50's now). You never will recapture that invicible excitement of your early 20's, you only find new forms. If you read literature, this is literally the topic of thousands of poems, epics, sagas, songs, and novels. I think it is wrong that teenagers are forced to read these classics, when the the woes and laments they describe are purely for older people.

I am not a psychotherapist, obviously, but since you are asking for advice:

1. The mourning will end, but it will come again in some other form; this is unavoidable part of life. Normalizing that is part of the battle.

2. Everyone in the history of humanity has gone through what you are going through. It is part of the rite of adulthood. Honor the fact that you have finally had the experience.

3. Create new memories. New memories push old memories back into past. If you don't create new memories, you will ruminate on your last ones. Like Al Bundy always fantasizing about his highschool touchdown late into his 50's (american TV show!).

4. Meeting new people helps create new memories. Find new groups. In the past 30 years I have done the following:

- Gaming groups (local game store has walk-in night where you can sit and play new games with strangers)

- Pub trivia (I found a team)

- Hiking (local meetup)

- Pottery lessons

- French lessons (taken at my local college in the adult program, LOTS of private parties, dinners & events that were french themed)

- Teaching programming to the local hacker club(s)

- Stained-glass window making lessons

- Carpentry lessons

- Getting into deep-woods backpacking

I took a lot of classes.

But you get the gist. I have SO many memories that my brain is a blur after decades of this and I need pictures to remind myself of all of the comedy/tragedy I've been through.

Good luck!

A few suggestions for you:

1) Write, draw or both. Any form of self-expression helps to clear or release stuck memories. You can set a timer or just continue until you feel complete. Sometimes just even writing down words describing your emotions helps to move through it by naming it. The idea is to release these feelings and keep this energy moving instead of holding onto it inside you.

2) Burn ceremony. Take a symbol from this past experience and burn it. Sit with those feelings, embrace them and try to visualize them leaving as the fire consumes the object. Share any gratitude for the experience or express your anger, sadness, etc. The flame will be a willing listener. Or, like you said ask yourself for permission to move on before you light the fire.

3) Mantra. When I start focusing on the past I try to ask myself: Is there something I’m wanting in this present moment? If so, then I try to act on it. If not then a mantra can help like “In this present moment I feel ____” or a reminder to your brain can help like: “Thank you, I remember that.” The ideas is to acknowledge the thought without judgement but to have a simple process for moving forward and re-focusing on the present. That way when you’re enjoying life and you’re suddenly reminded of this past experience you have a quick way to snap back into the present instead of letting yourself get sucked back into the past.

This is challenging stuff though and if you find yourself unable to move on, then therapy might be a good option. There are a bunch of online options now and like you said sharing your story with someone else might help. Or, even posting your story anonymously on Reddit might do the trick.

Good luck!

I recently read an interesting thing about memory. Which is that remembering something - that is, bringing it to mind and playing it out - refreshes the memory, makes it new again.

And if you don't do that, you will forget.

So now when I have a bad memory, I try focusing on the feelings it creates in my body, and not naming them, or blaming anyone.

As painful as that can be in the moment, my attention moves on pretty quickly - and I've avoided perseverating at least that one time.

The saying time heals is true, it just takes time. My only advice to you is don't let the emotions drive you to do anything negative. It's okay to have emotions just don't let them take you over. Try not to ruminate and get lost in your own head. It can become like OCD. Exercise helped me a lot with ruminating and was a way I could improve myself - take all the negative energy and turn it into something positive. Reading is also good way to shut the mind off. I read a lot of books on how the mind works. If you have a therapist talk to him about what happened and how you feel. Therapy isn't always about looking for a solution to your emotions (root cause) it's a place to talk and get stuff off your chest and to help you find closure. Find someone who can just listen and offer advice when needed or when asked. Life is just random and has ups and downs and the bad things that happen can over shadow all the good. I can say this, if you want to learn from this and move on, you can. You just have to be patient and with time it will get better.

Your past never leaves you. You just learn to live with it.

You change somehow, so that changed version can live with whatever it was.

After a painful chapter in my life, I fully changed my social circle. I kept in touch with a very few people who are "good" people, and who are emotionally mature.

I avoided reunions, get-togethers, picnics, etc. Doing this, I also punished those who were in the middle- not the close ones or the ones who aided the bad things in my life.

Multiple people have talked about doing something. I would recommend that very highly.

"A deep life is a good life."

Whatever you do, or whatever you are interested to do, dive into that. Spend serious time for getting good at it. Practice deliberately. Level up. Doing this will benefit you in multiple unforseen ways. Not just with your immediate problem.

For me, it was Mathematical Physics, poetry and literature in general, reading History very carefully. It made my life good.

Meet new people. At your own pace. Get to know them. Form new connections.

Changing geographical scenario is helpful. I happened to move into a megacity at that time- the people of where matched well with my personality.

Having someone to share your trauma who knows you closely and who has seen it all unfold is really valuable.

Finally, give it time. Be patient. Don't judge yourself. Be open.

What you shouldn't do-

1. Don't doomscroll social media.

2. Don't let alcohol consumption go over a certain threshold.

You could ask me questions. I will monitor my comment and answer if you want.

Well said. A book on poetry I highly recommend is The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. A beautiful anthology of many poets and poems geared towards men in all stages of life. Everyone should learn one poem by heart is my take away from the book.

Wow, thanks for your recommendation. Only English poetry I read are Tennyson and Keats. And some Whitman.

I also read poetry in Bengali, Sanskrit (Kalidasa only), and Urdu.

I am pretty much limited to the classics except for Bengali.

I need to broaden my horizon in terms of new poetry.

It is an exploitation vs exploration problem for me. And as I have very little time for poetry, I definitely tend to exploit more.

I will definitely check out your recommendation.

I kind of went through the same stuff as you, really appreciate your answer.

Gonna be honest here - easiest way is to simply not think about it. It’s incredibly difficult but that is the simplest way.

I have a phrase that I used with my ex-wife and with others - which is - “don’t dig the groove.” Which is a reference of how your brain has grooves but also how memories and associations in the brain work. The more you think about them - the more connected and dug in they get. The best way to move on is to not think about it and let erosion fill in the grooves.

There are various ways to get around these things but I find getting yourself out of what stimulates you to be most effective. If going to certain places reminds you of something - don’t go there. If eating certain foods or looking at certain photos or answering certain questions about your life - just find ways to avoid those things. That may or may not be easy or simple depending on the associations but it is something I found to be effective. It might even mean not reading self-help or anything - tbh. Sometimes the best way to move on is to literally completely move on and act like you’re already fully moved on and done all the processing. (Fake it til you make it essentially)

I’m speaking as someone who has lived through a lot of trauma. Obsessing over it and trying to find ways to get over it never really worked. Especially because the only way for me to feel like I get over anything is that I’m now in a better position than I was before. So the path forward for me was incredibly difficult but somewhat “simple”. In the same way that being able to move a heavy object might be simply done by lifting heavy weights for many years before you’re able to move that heavy object by yourself. But there are other more effective ways but sometimes they just aren’t accessible for you and there is a satisfaction/pride in just being able to do it yourself without any assistance or gadgets.

I think one of the first keys to moving on is talking to someone who you trust to listen. I can imagine a number of scenarios that can fit into the rather generic question you've put forth. Unfortunately, not everything can be solved in the same way, so lacking details to understand what you're struggling with means there's not really much advice that can be given to help. Find a friend, a loved one or a professional and open up to them. If you're not used to that, go with a professional. While they're paid to listen, they're training to be as unbiased as possible and that can make you feel less vulnerable.

My blanket approach is to get a hair cut (I do it rarely), take a few personal days to reflect (often trying to avoid speaking aloud entirely, so I can work on my inner dialog), cry a bit (if warranted) and have a few drinks a trusted friend. Cutting my hair is a way for me to mark a fresh start, so it's mostly just ceremonial.

Then try and find something to lift you out of your funk. Change career paths. Learn a new skill. Find something exciting.

This is excellent advice. I just wanted to add, don't underestimate the haircut. I've used this strategy several times to make clear dividing lines in between various periods of my life. For me creates a strangely tangible distinction between what are ultimately arbitrary points from the outside looking in.

Mostly by changing my (social) environment.

Doing something that interests me. Haning out with new people. Basically trying to remove everything that reminds me of the previous chapter.

After some time I can go back and don't feel bad about it anymore.

It's hard to deal with personal growth. I'm about to be 30, but all the way throughout my 20s I was constantly bombarded with new life experiences. Meeting new people, experiencing different cultures (travelling), finding and then losing love.

I mean, it got to the point that it was so hectic (though not necessarily bad) that I had to abandon everything and go live with my family for a while so I can decompress. As it happened, a month after staying at my parents and Covid became a thing.

I did a few changes like moving to Norway in the meantime, but all in all I have used this period to just do normal things and not worry about what happened in the past. And I can relate to this feeling of your "younger self", but I can say from experience that this "younger self" will eventually have to become more centered and mature.

And I think that also helps to weave through life later on, because you learn to let go of pressure of what was or what could be. It's the present where all the action - or inaction - happens.

I am currently going through a drawn out stressful chapter of my life, seems like it keeps getting dragged on and on.

Not sure which of these are a good idea but I did all of these, and though the stressful chapter is not over yet, I think I am in a better place than when it all started.

- I felt like moving on is not a thing you do, but more like what happens when other (hopefully better) things fill up your life and the past haunts you less and less.

- Get busy, I joined a book club, hiking club, local sports league, many local meetups, used messaging apps to create groups and stay in touch constantly with old friends. Talk to your close friends candidly about how you feel. Meet more people, create more chances for things to happen - new friends, new experiences etc.

- I didn't want to fall into the trap of alcohol or smoking excessively, I used to indulge in both before but I consciously reduced both and started swimming and setup goals to improve my swimming etc. (very happy I did this)

- Pick up fun personal/hobby projects to keep you buys, as much as I say you should do this, I personally didn't do much of it until I started feeling better a lot later.

- Many have mentioned it here, but give it time, it will not happen overnight.

- Embrace change, I think I even changed the orientation of all furniture in the house too, eventually changed the house as well (easier for me since I was renting)

- Find people/friends who have gone through similar stuff, its always good to talk to them. I made it a point to hang out a bit with such people.

I remember it was very stressful initially, but eventually it gets better. I am in a much better place than I was then, though my ordeal is still getting drawn out and doesn't seem to end, hopefully soon. As someone else said it here, all these experiences now make you who you really are.

Perhaps, without realising it, you are experiencing grief.

We usually experience grief alongside death, but it is a feeling that can accompany many kinds loss — a breakup with a friend, or moving away from an old way of life.

Labels don’t fix everything, but there have been times in my life where recognising hidden grief has been a helpful first step to recovery.

it might sound like overkill, but i'd suggest professional medical help from a trained psychotherapist. they aren't just trained to help you with anxiety/stress/depression but they will be able to give you the tools to address this more than ordinary people in this thread. best of luck!

OP take this suggestion seriously. Therapy is not overkill, they are not gonna make you do anything you don't wanna do, you do not have to feel out of control when you try therapy. You can tell them the specific issues you want to work on.

One element is moral accounting. You have to make peace with what you did. Research on why some people come home from wars and are O.K. and others aren't point to this as the difference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury

It's traumatic to be hurt by people, but devastating to hurt others or believe you hurt others, particularly if you were driven to do it by group dynamics. (Nothing hurts more than being part of a network of wrongdoers, part of the problem is not knowing if the locus is inside or outside yourself.)

Last year I was involved in something almost indescribable, probably the best description is that I am rewiring myself to increase my ability to emotionally communicate with and charm people.

Many things went right and wrong, but after charming many members of a group I said something really hurtful to one member.

It's funny because I sometimes do a good job of telling stories and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I tell the punch line of a joke before the set-up.

This time I succeeded, I wove together several threads to tell a powerful story about my own pain and loss, another person's suffering, and the related problems in a wider community. The effect on the other person was almost like a physical impact and that person hasn't talked to me since.

I feel bad about hurting that person also feel bad because this mistake and a string of similar mistakes of lesser magnitude caused my self-interested plans to fail not just in a specific way (with that particular group), but in a generic way (would have failed with any group and any goal.)

In the process of refreshing my practice it realized I hadn't ensorcelled anyone since that day. I'd left my power behind at that incident. Even though it will be hard to open a dialogue with that person I have to apologize and make amends because I need my power back.

You can also use power for good you know...

That's the goal. If I could tell stories that make people feel good as effectively as I hurt that person I'd be the spellbinder that I want to be.

Sometimes though my hostility leaks out and gets me in trouble. I have a chart that looks something like

  0 ... resentment ... 30 ... anger ... 100 ... rage

at 100 I start to think about wanting to make people suffer and I am in danger of "losing my shit". I learned in the last few months that if I flooded myself with feelings of sadness that I could avoid "losing my shit" near and slightly beyond the 100 threshold. This could be connecting with my own feelings of grief and loss (often another interpretation of what I am angry about) or if that doesn't flow that going to the war memorial and reading the names.

I also discovered that after doing that I would talk to people about what was bothering me and get a much better response, people would really want to help me.

I didn't find this technique talked about much in the western literature but found out it was widely known hundreds of years ago in China that sadness suppresses anger and that fear promotes it. (It is fascinating to watch shows like Three Kingdoms where warriors, very tough and masculine men, regularly cry, both a few tears and uncontrollably.)

(Western literature does, of course, say that connecting with grief is healing. Also when I was taking acting lessons years ago I found that sadness was one of the strongest emotional preparations for me.)

These days though it is the other side of that scale that bothers me, enough that I am thinking how to redraw it. (maybe with a log scale) Below some point (say 30) the object of anger is not in the front of my consciousness but my resentment leaks out in insensitive, brutish and hostile actions that drive people away, such as the conversation I talked about.

What's difficult about that one is that it doesn't matter if I am 20% angry, 2% angry, even 0.02% angry. If I am resentful at all it leaks out in ways that have a negative impact on myself and others. To really reclaim my ability I need to get to 0% angry.

So now you know your own limits, and also your powers? This means the decision is up to you from now on :)

It's too easy to blame it on circumstances: there's agency in everything we do -- and responsibility about the consequences too, as you have discovered, so you can't take a cheap Schopenhauer exit ("Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills") as most people generally dislike the sour feeling of guilt.

As for sadness, if it works for you, why not? What works work me is imagining the people I talk to (and myself) as kids - like when we were 8 and no serious bad thoughts were ever entertained.

I mean, most people would not hurt kids, even emotionally? Good! That's why it works so well :) Try tee the kid under the other person face, and you will have gained another valuable tool, maybe even more valuable as it will not require you to expose yourself to sadness, and it may even help you build connection. You can even use your charm powers for that: having a good time and helping another person have a good time through conversation is highly valuable by itself!

Then maybe the anger will go away once resentment is replaced by peace with your conscience and pride in your actions. Just saying.

    It may sound strange but I almost feel I have to ask 
    for permission to move on.

Easier said than done, but I think part of it is giving yourself permission?

When my mom died, I had some lingering... negative feelings. I was angry about some medical choices she made, and of course I blamed myself for not helping more.

Eventually I gave myself permission to...

1. Feel multiple things at once. I am allowed to have some negative feelings AND simultaneously enjoy all of the wonderful and positive memories of her.

2. Continue to feel the negative things. I did not try to stomp out the negative things. They are valid! I have valid reasons to feel some amount of anger!

Over time the positive voices in my head greatly outnumbered the negative ones. I didn't have to chase down the negative ones and eliminate them.

I feel I've been trying to do this for about a decade. It's not easy and our brains tend to focus on negative memories I think as a survival mechanism. Try and create new memories that aren't traumatic. That takes time and effort and good risk assessment. I agree with others here saying change your geography if possible. Change your habits, hobbies, lifestyle, social circle even clothes, the car you drive. Everything you can change do it. Usually your solutions to your problems create more problems but I guess that's just the journey of life and the pursuit of happiness.

One of the easiest pieces of advice I can give is to check out nature/relaxation videos on YouTube. There are these amazing videos 1-10hours long of nothing but peaceful music and beautiful scenery in the background. I put a 55 inch 4k TV in front of my bed and often just lie down and meditate on these wonderful images. I also watch them before I go to bed. In 4k it can be really beautiful if you just calm your mind and appreciate being given a tour of some of the most incredible sights on the planet. I practice gratitude that such a thing is even possible. This is a practice I will keep likely for the rest of my life as it's relatively affordable and doesn't require leaving the house. It also helps create new positive memories and just reminds you that life can be beautiful.

I think it's hard to move on from negative or traumatic experiences before you can make sense of them. There is usually something to be learned so it makes sense to try to understand your past in order to avoid getting caught up in a trap again.

I've had some very negative, strange experiences over the past few years (in my professional life) but somehow I feel that the learning experience might be worth it... I think you need to take certain lessons with a grain of salt though.

Plant medicine was transformational for me to closing one chapter and opening the next.

Forming new neurological pathways was a significant way of creating new memories which allowed me to move on much easier.

Godspeed on your journey.

https://news.yale.edu/2021/07/05/psychedelic-spurs-growth-ne...

I've found there's really only one way to permanently move on, and that's by "letting go". Conceptually it's a simple technique, but challenging to put into practice. David Hawkins's "Letting Go | The Pathway of Surrender" was really useful to me when I needed to move on from a challenging period of my life. Brief passage from the book:

"Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, fearing it...It means to drop judgement and to see that it's _just_ a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. _It is resistance that keeps the feeling going._"

Beware of running away from your past experiences - they'll eventually catch up with you emotionally.

For me - Therapy. I know it isn't for everyone, but I was so miserable in one of my jobs that even after I quit, I was just a mess. I didn't need an extended therapy treatment, but I did spend a few sessions with a professional therapist, where we sorted out what was keeping me down, how to respond, and how to avoid getting pulled back into the same patterns.

Chapters in our lives are closing and opening all the time. This is a happening all on its own. We get ourselves into trouble when we try to force events, or feelings for that matter. Especially when comparing ourselves with the surfaces of others, we just lack the capacity and omniscience to really do it. So we get our mind into trouble.

It helps to reflect, to revisit the physical and psychic spaces, learn through introspection. A deeper way is through integration and shadow-work, but it depends on how deep you want to go and what you need.

This can happen alongside going into new chapters, pursuing new interests and dedications. If that's not happening, allowing some downtime and not being too hard on oneself, might be a respite. Life is not work, or something to be worked on.

Learning to listening to life, might be less stressful, and require less of what is not sustainable longer term. But if one is filled and overflowing with ambition, that'll be defining. It's a happening either way.

I moved to a new place. New town new job new house new friends. It’s hard to live in the past when everything around you is different.

Accept that it was done, that you can't fix/undo it, and that it's part of you now. Once you realize that, you learn from it, change whatever you can/want to change and move on.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, but my approach is very "what's done is done, no use crying over spilt milk", which I know people don't find helpful.

I have a suspicion that the Stoics wrote about things like this, but reading and internalizing are very different. Still, maybe it'd interest you to read it.

As far as habits go, it's going to be hard to move on, because you're used to something else. Don't feel bad about still missing your old life, that's normal. If you feel bad, you feel bad, you're entitled to your feeling. Don't beat yourself up over how you feel, just accept it and try to do better/take better care of yourself tomorrow. It's all good and you're going to be happy again very soon.

Just sharing my experience - you may be dealing with something slightly different.

I burned out in a job, and went straight into a new one that was less demanding.

I didn’t try to do much at all for a while. It was more than a 18 months later when I had the itch to do more again.

My takeaway from this has been - be thankful and enjoy the process - don’t try to force things.

The past hounds you more the more recent of a memory it is. The best way move past it is to start making new memories. Have new experiences and it will eventually become a distant memory that you can observe more objectively rather than emotionally. A chapter doesn’t really end until you start a new one.

I don’t have any one big trauma that I had to get past in life, but many painful experiences like the death of a loved one, painful breakup, etc. have taught me to move forward by moving forward. When I feel it’s time to turn a page, I usually spend a lot of time journaling so that my future self will be able to do this even better. I follow a new whim without trying to fit it into the confines of my current life. Learn something new, try a new job, move to a new country. I try to do something big enough to alter my sense of personal identity.

For me it took a lot of time. There's no prescribed amount and no clear fix. The memories fade but will never disappear. Concretely speaking, what helped a lot was journaling and some therapy along the way. Most importantly though was being more vulnerable with my friends and family.

A lot depends on your specific circumstances but for me, I had to forgive myself and at the same time try to really reflect and learn from what happened. I reflect less and less on what happened over time because eventually I moved past it. It took me around two years to move past a chapter lasting about six years.

Regarding the energy of your younger self, that's a natural thing to happen with age. What I recommend for that is maximizing the amount of new experiences you have and dwell less on the nostalgia of who you used to be. Good luck!

I had some devastating experiences on my early 20s losing people i loved and cared so much. The trauma was so intense that i don’t remember almost anything from these terrible years. Eventually i moved on, but the trauma was never healed. I had another recent devastating experience that made everything come out again x10000 times worse. The goal is not just to move on, just for the sake of it. The goal is to accept what happened, stop blaming yourself and then move on.

My advice is to talk it with someone, and if you still struggle, seek for professional help. Better now than in 10 years.

Write down everything that happened and you keep thinking. Be specific, all your thoughts, feelings, facts, wishes, anything.

In addition, change your life as much as you wish and you can, change jobs, house, car, meet new friends, try new hobbies.

Happy new year and take care.

In my observation, the natural response for most people is dial or compensation. No human being can prevent inherent coping mechanisms, so something of the earlier mentioned responses will always be involved, but I'd advice (to try) to aim for a different path: Don't withhold anything. Observe how it makes you feel. Why do you think, does it make you feel in a certain way? Why is something important to you? Relive the good and the bad and think about it a lot. Don't try to replace experiences with others, rather accept what has happened and that it is a part of you know. I don't think anyone can run away from this and most of us suppress previous experiences - but you can't grow from that. Best of luck to you! :)

I used to have many, many strong opinions about the effectiveness of various therapeutic techniques. After living a little, I’m left with only two: that most therapeutic approaches are effective for a limited set of situations and individuals. And that most therapists/advice givers fail to acknowledge this notion. Let alone describe the set of circumstances to which various techniques are suited.

I have a friend who found meditation highly helpful. Cognitively they are someone whose mind amplifies the emotional components of their experience, desirable or not. Tools that allow them to manage this have been helpful to their happiness.

On the other hand, my mind occupies the opposite end of the spectrum, requiring exceptional levels stimulation and novelty to experience any emotion. Practices such as meditation have been borderline damaging to my mental state. But piling on more stimulation - new hobby, new obsession, uncomfortable but fascinating experience - these serve to distract and make life vibrant. Rinse repeat forever.

In your circumstance I would not attempt to achieve closure. Instead I’d try accept that what happened to me in the past will taint what’s happening now. I’d read the books, journal the ways the celebration of them was damaged. Revisit them a few years later to compare the experience. Attempts to force closure have always failed for me. Wallowing in the emotion as means to explore it even more deeply seems to bring more rapid resolution.

Would this work for someone who has much stronger baseline emotions of grief or melancholy? I have no idea because I’m not that person and my opinions about their experience are worthless.

Ultimately in your shoes I would first focus on experimentation designed to test various hypotheses about your own mental tendencies. Where are you flexible versus resistant to change? Which parts of you are resilient and which vulnerable? Seems to me that this would be the fastest way to learn which tools you need to adopt to achieve your goals.

At least that’s how it looks from here. Trapped, as always, inside this particular brain. Good luck.

Don’t listen to the people who say time is the answer. The time is now and we never know if we’re going to get tomorrow.

What I’ve come to peace with in my life is that suffering gives us an opportunity to intercede for others. It is a gift. If you haven’t read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning I would highly recommend it.

Your last sentence is telling. “It’s not real unless I share it with someone else”. You don’t yet know the life you might change for the better by simply sharing you story. With this past you have the power to connect with others and intercede in their life. This is the greatest gift one can give another.

Be kind with yourself and any others involved. The golden rule is diagnostic. You will love others the way you love yourself.

My best to you and may you be abundantly blessed.

I can't really give you much advice, because I'm just getting out of that period (now over 5 years) myself. But I do have one piece of advice: never let yourself, or anyone else, define you by your worst moments in life. Instead, define yourself by how you've learned from them and how that reflects in your current actions. Unlike most of the stuff you'll need to do to recover, this can be done instantly.

Also, to people who suggested moving somewhere else: while I do agree that it can provide a bit of a spark, that's all it'll do. You won't become a different person just by changing places. You need to act on it. I made the mistake of assuming that moving would change more than it did until it was too late.

I’be been using this subconscious healing approach:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29701855

I’ve used it almost every day at times, but need it much less these days, having processed resolved so much of what used to affect me.

I find it’s effective because it’s systematic; the feelings you have in your body when you think of the issue points you to the subconscious charge that needs to be identified and processed. And as long as those feelings are there, there is more work that can be done.

It can take a long time to work through everything (I’m still working on things after nearly 10 years - i.e. early life family stuff), but it’s so so worth the effort and patience.

Use your external and internal senses. I believe that you already know much better than we do what you need - including the possible answer “to take a lot longer to further understand my feelings”.

If you feel like you’ve lost something, ask yourself what. And if you feel that you need to be free of the past, ask yourself why. And if you don’t understand why you are seeking permission, ask yourself what you make of that.

Perhaps I may suggest that you think about if you feel confident about your needs and what they are while also balancing them with the needs of others. When you write your new chapter of life, begin with the same question you would have if it were a book: “what’s the story gonna be, here?”

It can take years to rebound from a very stressful period. I'm sure this is what I experienced years ago when I quit a very stressful and generally bad job. Just years of not feeling particularly interested in anything, being alienated, etc.

I just did this. It has only been a few months and I keep beating myself up about not being productive enough since quitting or things I should have done to stay and make things better.

At the end of the day, those that are close to me tell me it was the right choice and I do feel like it was to get out of a hostile job that up until the last few years I truly loved. The loss of some of my closest coworkers has been hard — but connecting more with my family has been lovely and made me realize how much I was missing in the pursuit of “work.”

Don't feel bad about leaving a bad workplace, you really don't owe them to fix their broken practices.

I'm glad that you found a silver lining in your terrible experience by connecting more with your family. Unhealthy workplaces really tend to distort our priorities in life.

Life doesn’t exist in clear boundaries. You don’t move on from anything, you are a new you. It took me 12 years to recover from a close loved one taking her life and I got every piece of awful advice you can possibly get. Every piece well meaning, but not from people who understood

If it feels like trauma to you, it changes you. Eventually you will realize that it gave you skills that you will cherish for nobody else has them, but also habits that are no longer useful and you need to retrain

That feeling of wanting to ask for permission is your body and mind’s way of saying ‘maybe you should just sit down and listen before we choose what to do next’

It will take time but you will be stronger for it

Immerse yourself in something that has a low cognitive load (or at least a smooth ramp up). Watches, pens, guns, calculators, retro computers, model trains, civil war history . . . you get the idea. Geeking on a single topic is therapeutic.

Kambo and ayahuasca are great (in my experience) for letting go of past traumas and old/stuck ways of thinking. They'll meet you halfway; as with any therapy you do need to be willing to do the work and resolve the issues.

I found myself having to come to terms with the fact that I’m a different person than my “younger self” because of those experiences. I am very very different now. I’ve given myself permission to move on with life. I still cherish the memories of my past self, but I’m not that anymore and it’s just time to step into life on these new terms. Maybe I’ll change back at some point? But I certainly don’t have to. I’ve found just such… power? In being able to move on in life. I try to not disregard the importance of the past, but from my perspective right now, the present is the most important and relevant part of our life.

A few things that helped in my case:

- Set up a notebook and write your thoughts down on a regular basis. Read your past notes and learn to be kind to yourself.

- Find a new endeavor that gets you “in the flow”, that you truly enjoy doing

- Find a trustworthy person you can talk to once in a while

- Train your brain to generate positive thoughts by writing down 3 things you should be greatful for, every day. It will be mechanical at the beginning but will become more natural over time.

- Proactively remove things that make you unhappy. Find the worse offender today and remove it. Then move on to the next offender, etc.

Like others said: there is no quick fix. But you can do it. Best of luck to you.

Purposeful disassociation! In concentration practice / meditation you develop a skill of observing sensations, thoughts, and feelings, observing them and then reorienting your focus elsewhere.

As part of this practice you can get really good about stepping outside of negative feelings. Observing them as a third party and developing the ability to acknowledge them without engagement, and the ability to refocus on something else is very freeing. Eventually you have a reflexive reaction to distractions and negative thoughts that allows them to be but to slide off you and refocus.

Time heals all wounds. Part of it is also to just “fake it till you make it”. Throw yourself headlong into things, and even if you feel like you are dwelling on the past just act as if you aren’t.

I would be lying if I said that every traumatic event in my life has been left in the past. Some things still linger and creep up on me from time to time. You learn to live with it and accept it. Don’t beat yourself up for being human. Take whatever time you need to grieve but try to not let is consume your life and identity.

It really is a skill to learn as you age and mature, and it takes practice.

The tragic formula based on my own personal experiences is generally: 3x = path to healing where x is the number of years spent invested in/suffering from a given experience. I realize it sounds weird to put it this way and no doubt other people have a different constant that they could apply to their lives, but for myself, it really is simply that time is required. And you will, for better or worse, never be able to part from your past experiences. The way you are able to emotionally and mentally approach exploring them will, however, change with time.

In addition to all the other great advice and heart felt sharing here I would add:

Do some research into the composition of the human mind and heart. Basically train to be a clinical psychiatrist. I know it sounds like a lot, but I don't mean to aim to be a professional, but more of a survey of the subjects would help. Mostly help inasmuch as knowing how your and most everyone elses minds, hearts, and souls work and how they can heal.

There's lot of models. From Jungian to whatever they all point to the same mystery. Dive into that.

The unexamined life, and all that...

> How did you close the previous chapters of your life?

I actively initiated a new. Not to sound like some propped-up self help book, but I found, from personal experience, that the "I" in one self absolutely needs to make a decision to move on. You create with your thoughts and when you decide to embark on a new chapter - you will move on.

I've always identified stagnation/standstill as a state similar to death. Humans live by moving; both physically and mentally/psychologocially.

It's no silver bullet, but focusing on the present and moving forwards is the goal, and a tool that can help a lot of people with that is mindful meditation. The thing you want to try to avoid is dwelling on the past and getting stuck in analysing what could've gone differently. Try to forge new memories and a new life to distance yourself from that negative experience. I wish you all the best and hope you can find the way that works for you.

I have been through tough times. Here is what I found that worked - assess your strengths and keep a tab on skills you want to acquire - hobbies, softskills like empathy etc is more important than technical/work skills - music mostly classical ones - friends - chat up - cooking - reading something/anything even many times over. Bottom like - you do anything that gets you in a flow. Time is a great healer.

Anybody deal with severe depression and/or gambling addiction? I need help. I lost about 1/3 of my net worth this year, and I’m spiraling badly.

No depression but former gambler here... Gambling is a quick reward (produced by) and for the brain, even when you loose. It is not always about money. This video is the closest thing I found to properly explained what was going on :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNWz8rcQtSI&feature=related (non-gamblers may look at this video and not understand at all)

you are probably smart, know the odds are against you, but like any other drug, want/need that quick fix. I am no brain scientist, but I would guess that the drug induced gambling manage to mask your depression temporarily... but the down after a loss makes you go even lower.

I managed to quit gambling when I realized that what I had to loose (in life) was greater than any chance of winning. So think about the things that are already making you a winner, find some other drug inducing activity less nefarious (but also less rewarding) (exercice, coding whatever) and do not hesitate to see a psychologist and perhaps meds if needed.

I would tell you you can message me privately, but did not figured how to do that on HN yet...

Thank you very much for the reply. I don't know how to PM yet on HN either :)

Find a professional to help. Well-meaning people on HN can give you support and compassion, which you need and deserve, but not advice. You wouldn't ask amateurs about fixing a broken bone; this is much more important.

A well-meaning perspective, informed by reading professionals: Damaging habits are driven by healthy, legitimate needs; the habits are just bad coping strategies, usually chosen without realizing what the need was. Become concious of the need, have compassion and love for it, and find healthy ways to cope instead of gambling. The need isn't going anywhere but if you take good care of it, it will be fine. Think of it like a child: If the child is tired and hungry and acting out, you can feed it candy bars, you can yell at it, or you can care for it, give it a healthy meal in a safe place, give it love and peace to sleep. You would be aghast at someone who treated the child with candy bars and abuse; that's what bad coping strategies are.

Best of luck - we are rooting for you!

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply.

When you're in the hole, the hardest thing to realize is that you're there, so you've already made a huge step forward.

I know it sounds cliche, but have you sought professional help? Therapy and/or a combination of the right medication can go a long way make at least some of the immediate symptoms manageable overnight...

Thanks for the "step forward" comment. I want to get better. I haven't put serious effort into professional help, so that's on my NY resolution list for next week. I have a mental health program available to me from my employer, so I want to try that out and see what it might bring for me.

Many countries have national programs to help. Are you in the US? Check out https://www.ncpgambling.org/

Hey :) You can seek a psychiatrist specialized in addictions issues. They will help you quit the spiral.

Good luck, once helped, you can do it !

Ouch.

Addiction is a form of cyclic preferences... you love/crave/indulge X then you hate/feel-the-repercussions-of X then you love/crave it again, over and over.

Often the X is not quite what you think it is. It's not the alcohol, but the joy of going out and having a wild night and losing control and escaping from the voices that haunt you. Or you might be addicted in a sense to food, eating it because you want to feel something during a dull or pained existence.

Hard drug addicts report that they started using the hard drugs to feel special, but then they had to take them to feel normal... The fallacy is, the body, including your brain, does not have high-water marks—fixed notches in its chemical feedback loops saying “that is okay, but if it goes over this level then that will be too much.” No, the body adjusts what it thinks is normal based on what it normally sees. Every moment you spend above the high-water mark, the body adjusts the high-water mark upwards.

Good addiction recovery protocols, even 12-step, do not rely on self-control. You should also not rely on self-control. It's like being tired while driving, the faculty that monitors the problem is being impaired by the problem. “I’ve got this!” you say as you nod off. You need to build a wall that would actually be harder to climb over. “Don't even buy the sweets—when you crave chocolate you should be faced with the dilemma, I could go all the way to the store, or I could eat a banana right now.” It sounds like nothing, going to the store is such a little thing... but that is often enough. Delete accounts. Delete credit card numbers from your phone and browser. Lock cards up in a physical box and put the key on the other side of the house.

But most importantly, understand your pain. Seasons change in life. Every change of seasons requires grieving the outgoing one before you can celebrate the incoming one. Have you properly grieved? Have you given yourself space? Can you talk to yourself like you would to a ten-year-old? No “I’m so awful, I’m so stupid”—you wouldn't say that to a kid who made mistakes!—but just “hey, that sucks, we are gonna fix this together, I have your back.” Understand that you are probably gambling to feel things... find happier things to feel. “I love getting out with fresh air... Whenever I feel those urges, maybe I can get out into the fresh air first.”

Be especially suspicious of people and places that can pull you back in. One of the biggest things that 12-step programs do is give you friends who are outside of that scene that you were in. People who understand and aren't judgy, but who somehow still you don't want to disappoint. It's not too late to build up community around yourself, or at least to find it. Old friends, neighbors, coworkers... even like some folks playing D&D weekly! Some weekly routine that is just for you and speaks to your deeper connection to community. Be very suspicious if there are others in your life who “can't believe you're spending time with them instead of me!”—if that happens you are in codependency and you need that external community in those boundaries more than you can possibly imagine right now.

Sorry. This is like my second long rant on HN, I probably need to take a break...

Thank you for taking time out of your day to reply to me.

I used self-examination to understand the value in my past experiences. Once I found the meaning in the experience, I was able to forgive myself and others and move on. I even became thankful for having that experience. The key is to ask yourself questions you are afraid to ask.

I learned this habit by reading the Platonic dialogues. I read them carefully and in doing so, I began to apply the Socratic method to myself.

I used to jump into new and expensive hobbies to turn a page. Didn’t really fix anything. Regular therapy has helped me a ton, and it’s been cheaper too.

What’s been helpful for me was to consciously catch myself spiraling into thoughts of my past experience. Making it a habit to replace it with what I’m looking forward to and why I’m better off not being in that toxic situation. It’s very draining for a few days but then slowly you notice the difference. And you start feeling more energy and most of all less negative. It’s like exercise.

> Yet I can't seem to fully rekindle the same energy of my younger self.

IMO, don't try to do this. Move forward and focus on what you're interested in without self-critique (as much as possible). Looking backwards and comparing your present state with previous states will only distract you from making the most of the only time you can actually do anything in (the present).

I still think about mistakes from 25 years ago. The only difference is I accept it finally and thinking about the past does not evoke much emotion anymore. All due to time.

To find closure, find something new that will occupy the energy from thinking about the past. Happy for you that you have closure and my 2022 bring much peace and blessings to you and your family.

Reflect.

My other half is a nurse, her training included assignments on self reflection. There's a lot of good books for learning to process emotions.

Taking the time to reflect and then write it down (or talk) will help. Start by writing what happened and how you felt. This process is the start of letting go.

If you can afford it and the corona restrictions allow it, travel for some time with little luggage and on a low budget.

Such experiences can put your biology completely out of balance. Check your main vital elements level: iron, vitamin-B complex (defficiency is associated with cognitive stress, fatigue, depression), vitamin D, etc. You may need supplementation. Especially magnesium has helped me a LOT in similar situation.

1. Write your feelings 2. Travel Alone 3. See the life around people where you travel 4. Do things you loved to do but could not do 5. Eat less, Sleep on time, Travel to get new positive vibes 6. Be kind to others, Give smiles and kindness wherever possible 7. Volunteer for service and connect with people

For me, I had a lot of life changes, dramatically for the better, and it was hard. I recommend the book Transitions, Making Sense of Life's Changes. It helped me understand and think about change in a new way and to embrace the in-between when something ends before something else begins.

The past is no longer occurring. Every moment you are aware of has also passed, no longer occurring. move on

You need to use your experience to learn and grow. I had to deal with addictions and my successes are my strengths. Don't be too hard on yourself or others, you will need many people in your life. Be kind to others and yourself and enjoy the moments. Good luck and happy new year!

Prayerfully:

* Dispassionately consider life in general and the circumstances that led to the chapter.

* Forgive those who did wrong. Pray specifically for the wrongdoers. This seems strange but is powerful.

* Confess and repent of non-positive inputs you offered.

* Note the Nietzschean effects of being more diamond-like for all the heat and pressure.

You dissolve the memory of it, also known as forgetting. It's not real, it was a mental form created by your mind. It cease to exist if you stop to feed it.

If you are overwhelmed by your mind, try to use it less and instead use your emotion, use your body (walk, exercise, ...).

I don't believe life has chapters. We live now. The past only exists if rooted on present's memory. I don't think we can choose what to remember, but we sure can decide what to nourish. Good luck, enjoy the journey.

With time.

Apart from working through it, past it, and moving on with my life, it was important to acknowledge that the scars exist and parts of those scars will take much longer to fade.

I'm entering the third year after a tough time.

Change of scene. Move to a different place where you're not continuously bombarded with memories. The further the better. You can always come back when you feel that you have found your balance again.

> ... It may sound strange but I almost feel I have to ask for permission to move on. Like it's not real unless I share it with someone else.

Why not do that? Share it with someone else.

Meditation. Amazing how quickly even a few deep breaths can make you aware that there really only is “now” and that past and future are illusions.

Trauma is always there, time and new experiences help. Also old memories and such are better dead, kill connections, toss out reminders, etc.

I found “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert a useful book to help me move on with challenges in my life. He has videos on youtube too.

I did a one week ayahuasca retreat that changed my life. Highly recommend if one feels stuck or has things to get through.

Years of therapy also helped me.

Byron Katie's work. It can feel tedious but it's the fastest way I know to deal with pain

Share it with your closest friends, family.

Real friends and family that loves you > "professionals"

A disinterested third party (save for the financial transaction and hopefully a sense of helping), whose training prepares them to handle all the trauma they hear about, can be just the thing to crawl out of a pit. Not everyone has friends or family who can or want to handle baggage (ideally they would be so healthy, and it’s okay if they aren’t). It may take time to find a professional counselor who fits, and a reticent person might need a catalyst (books and The Blindboy Podcast in my case) to find a counselor to be vulnerable with.

Share it with someone you trust. Trauma is disconnective, connection with others heals.

Lots of good advice already. Time is necessary. I’ll also add exercise and meditation. And not light stuff - real heavy hard exercise and deep long focused meditation. I’d also suggest getting out and meeting new people, but it’s not quite appropriate given the pandemic. Best of luck to you!

Writing helps a lot. Just write everything out without a filter.

If possible please make an appointment with therapist.

Pain and simple: become busy doing something else.

Read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl

Having a bad memory, honestly. I just forget.

I sympathize 1000%.

The last 20 years have been very hard on me as a software developer and environmentally/politically conscious person. I've watched just about everything not work out the way I had hoped for. I believe that we've hit an inflection point where enough people have realized that the emperor has no clothes that we have a real chance to start over and correct our course.

I don't know how to help with your specific situation, but I can share mine. I went to college from 1995-1999 and it was similar to movies like PCU, Hackers, Dazed and Confused. I got to watch the internet go mainstream, which I wouldn't trade for anything. Anyone could make money then doing web development, and I was working on a shareware game business. It was just such an alive time, vivid in my memory. The future was so bright we had to wear shades.

Then the DMCA. The Dot Bomb. Bush v. Gore. 9/11. The PATRIOT Act. Middle East wars. Who Killed the Electric Car. The death of research. Outsourcing. Privatization. 100,000 US factories closed. The student loan crisis/bankruptcy exception. The housing bubble. Underemployment. Wealth inequality. Clinton-Trump. COVID-19. Billionaires..

In the hangover of the early 2000s, I felt guilty for partying it up in the 90s and ended up moving furniture for 3 years to support my floundering shareware business. Which shook my faith in humanity and almost broke me. Then a good friend passed which gave me PTSD. I was in financial ruin by the 2010s. Worked a bunch of dead end jobs under continuous burnout and depression to survive. Almost found myself homeless a few times. I continued self-flagellating all the way until the 2020 pandemic, when finally the whole world seemed to break too.

Now a lot of people landed on either side of these issues and hundreds more. Half the people reading this won't share my context or conclusions. But as a whole, I feel that the last 20 years have been a textbook example of what not to do. They're the dying gasp of 20th century thinking. For a long time, I felt that they ruined my life.

But all trauma all the time is no way to live one's life.

I've been going through a healing and growth process due to some health issues, a spiritual awakening and a dark night of the soul.

Now I see:

Faith, hope and love. Service to others. The divinity of all living things. Communication. Boundaries. Mindfulness. Meditation. A forgiving and supportive inner monologue. Showing up for yourself so that you can show up for others.

I have my sights set on solarpunk, decommodification, basically lengthening my runway outside of the status quo because I no longer believe that tech as we conceive it now serves the human condition. Somewhat ironically, we've become slaves to idiology and dogma under this secular system.

My current approach looks like listening for anxiety when I'm troubled by a choice, and leaning into the choice that expands possibility. So many of our choices each day are in conflict with what we feel is our life's purpose. But I've found that when I make the choice aligned with my heart, reality reforms around me to support it. Now I look back and see that much of my suffering was due to my own attachments, that I held on too tightly and dwelled on the negative, and didn't see the miracle of life unfolding. I didn't know that we had the power to manifest our dreams.

When in doubt, it's good to turn attention from doing to listening for a calling. That's where I found my faith again.

It's been a hard two decades, I still get overwhelmed and exhausted sometimes, but I truly feel optimism for the future in spite of everything looming over us and the planet. Hope something in this helps you give yourself the permission we all deserve, to start over again and be here now in this moment together.

I see two different problems - closure of the recent experiences and whether you should get back to "same energy of my younger self". You're likely older and wiser now, such people do different things to when they were younger, embrace it.

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