You sound like me in many ways. That idea that my past set my life on a certain trajectory. What I eventually learned though is that I can get out from under my past's control of my life. My past doesn't have to continue to drive my present, and it doesn't any longer.

Yes, there are things about my life currently that are what they are because of decisions my past led me toward, but I am old enough, wise enough, and in control enough now to change what is possible to change and to accept what I cannot change (and what may not really need changing anyway).

I was mentally very ill for many years, spent years in therapy, on meds, in and out of the hospital . . . . But I am really the healthiest now that I have ever been in my life, very much due to the insights about my own autonomy I gained through the help of a very good therapist who was determined that I could find that autonomy, heal, and move forward. It took a long time. It took making some serious changes in how I think about my past, how I think about myself, how I think about my ability to control what goes on in my life and my thinking and reactions to what goes on around me.

I have learned how to make the most (and more) of my life as it stands today, and I am quite content and optimistic about what lies ahead, even though I know it won't be all rainbows and sunshine -- but life just isn't. It comes with challenges. It comes with failures and regrets. But I learned to forgive myself for those failures and those decisions I made at a time in my life when I wasn't making the wisest choices. I've learned to accept that some of those choices are irreversible, but I can be okay with those and make different choices in my present and my future.

I've found some of those "mistakes" have been more fixable and more endurable than I once thought. Some of them I thought were "fatal" and would haunt me forever, but in actuality, I am realizing that they served a purpose in my life and in themselves set me on a path that has led me to where I am now -- and since I'm pretty satisfied about where I am right now, even with the challenges I deal with, I have chosen not to regret those "mistakes," but instead just embrace them as part of my journey. And my journey still has many, many years and adventures ahead.

Are you wasting your therapist's time and your time in therapy? Personally, it wasn't time wasted for me. It does take a belief and determination that getting beyond the past is possible. It wasn't always apparent to me, but it was for my therapist (thank the good Lord for that), and I just kept at it until I finally could believe in my own healing and life beyond my past.