Um, no. I have a lot of trouble leaving the past in the past.

Someone told me, and I believe it, that with PTSD, the memories are stored in a different part of the brain. So it's not so much me not letting go of the past, it's the past not letting go of me. I re-live it. Every little hurtful thing said to me, or every *major* hurtful thing done to me, by a trusted elder. I was raised to "respect" my elders, and this meant they were like that little boy on the Twilight Zone. You'd better NOT think a bad thought about them. Instead, you'd better like and approve of everything they say and do, and keep telling them how good they are.

And now, I have trouble disqualifying what they said, way back when. Since I can remember everything so clearly, what might as well have happened yesterday was maybe 20 or 30 years ago, but the feelings are still fresh. I still remember being fair game for insult humor, especially about my weight, and "if you don't like it, go on a diet." What brought that back was that I am now considering weight loss surgery, and I can just hear some family members telling me it's cheating. I will never win their approval, no matter what I do. This is why I had to move 3,000 miles away from them. If I still lived where they live, I'd still be going through all their crap.

But the memories have followed.