Dwelling On The Past.

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If someone you know is a bit upset and you don't know why, do you then go back through every detail of your memory to try to fathom out if you have done something wrong?
Is this a natural thing to do? Most of the time I later find out that it has nothing to do with me... But when there are hidden things, I tend to assume I have done something wrong... And at times the mistakes I can make... I maybe wright to assume I have been in the wrong...

Oh gosh... It takes ages of memory searching over days and weeks when something is on my mind and no one tells me.
I had one event back to when I was a child. The dog was poorly and at the end of her life. I think I accidently stepped on her paw or something just before she was put down, and my Dad had said that I had caused the dog to be put down or caused the dog to be poorly? I don't remember. I know my Dad was deeply upset and so were we. But foe many many years I assumed it was me who was the cause of the dog needing to be put down... And it is only really later in life that my Mum said (As I brought the situation up) that it wasn't me at all. The dog had a few health issues that had become worse as she got older (Can't remember what they were except for one) and the vet put her down to prevent her suffering.
But anyway. The number of times in my younger years it had been on my mind, and I was not able to talk about it.
It is the hidden things... The unknowns. On my exterior I come across as cool and calm... As if I am uneffected by lifes stresses... If God did not give me peace I don't know how I would cope!

I was wondering if the going over the past is something everyone does, or is it more something that those on the specteum are more likely to do?
What I mean by going over the past... Not just once, but again and gain and again over days, months and even years! It reaches such an extent that I can almost wear my memory out where my ability to recall what happened has been examined from soo many different angles that I may have almost worn out the origional memory of the event.

Can we change the past?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. We can choose to live in the past, but that in itself is unhealthy. It is easy to view the past with rose colored glasses. Remembering the good times is ok as long as we realize that it was not all good times back then.

Trust me, if it was all possible to change the bullying I went through with technology, I would have developed it by now.

I dwell on the past all the time unfortunately. I always think about what I could have done in my life that I didn’t do due to my anxiety, depression and social awkwardness.

I’m trying to do things now, but I’m already 50 years old and have missed out on so much. I hope I can fit some living in the rest of the life I have left.

The only way to change the past is to try your best in the present, so you needn't regret it in the future.
There's plenty of past events that I revisit and wonder how they could have been better. Even an incident when I was 9 when I said something which hurt one of my classmate's feelings. Also, less regretful, but still other past events that haunt me.

dracblau, I hear you. I used to spend a lot of time sleeping to deal with that. It seemed to solve the problems at the time, but wish I'd had the self-esteem to withstand knowingly looking like a fool every now and then outside the matrix. I believe trying is succeeding, onerous as it feels.

It seems strange to me that the past, which is something that doesn't exist anymore (I mean only the present moment as in existence at any time) can still cause so much torment for humans.

I remember being around five years old and a girl who lived 2 doors along when I lived in the village had decided to play with my toys in my toybox. She was kind of hogging my toybox so I could not have access to it. I was frustrated and angry as somehow personal items feel more personal to me then other peoples items do to them? I don't know... But I felt I had to stop her. I had already said not to and she had ignored me. I grabbed a rollerskate and wacked it on her head. I was told off and my Dad said "You could have killed her".

I used to get lots of sudden almoat unconteollable rages where I would do destructive things out of a build up of frustration accompanied by anger and tears...

But that moment... I was soo shocked that I could have killed her (She was 3 years old) that something changed inside me. From that moment on the rages stopped but I started having what I now know to be partial shutdowns which sometimes lead to almost total shutdowns. (I have an awareness of being concious and if someone walks past I can feel them pass as the wind moves etc, but I cant see and I can hardly move or hear... Fortunately the full shutdown does not last too long. (Long enough as I don't like them as I am usually in panic mode if I get a full shutdown! Partial shutdowns I don't panic unless I can feel them deepening into a shutdown.)).

But if you asked me if I could change my shutdowns into those pressurized rages since that date. No. It kind of just happened from the shock of the moment which caused the change.
And do I get the sudden rages since then? No. But on rare occasions I can get the pressure of them as a build up of oressure and emotions in my head where they build up and I feel like I am going to explode and then just when I think my head will explode it just stops. Is a sudden stop and I am at peace. Why at peace. I don't know. It is not that I was at peace before the event and then I had the pressure of emotions so I went back. Before the event... Well. The pressure starts small and slowly builds up. (I may only get this once a year or twice a year at the most. Sometimes this does not happen for a few years and it is always at night when all is dark outside when the build up climaxes. I may have had a frustrating day, but the climax happens when I am alone and I am unable to express the build up of emotions... It is strange!)

The past is a really peculiar thing because once gone it isn't ever forgotten. Bad memories linger at the back of your mind, causing slow but devastating damage to some from the inside out. I dwell on the past an awful lot. Even though I know dwelling on it won't make it better somehow my mind always seems fixated on what has happened, to the extent that it's now an obsession of mine, one I am desperately trying to lose.

Past can also be positive. It depends which parts we explore.

I am often irritated by my past remarks and actions, but I learnt from them.

It can be frustrating when I can't stop thinking about specific past events, but owning up and accepting what I've said and done is half of the said conflict resolved.

Learning from them has been more of a struggle of this inner war, but I have to remind myself, that I have accepted and learnt from these past negatives, which in turn seems to have shaped me into a better judge of character.

It is a pervasive and exhausting battle of mental gymnastics.

A mantra of sorts runs through my mind in such times of hardship:

"Yes I did/said that. No I can't change it and what happened because of it. What did I learn from it? How can I move forward from it, and become a better person from it? etc. Etc.

Such self-discipline has even helped me rebuild bridges between people I never thought I'd ever seek forgiveness and a strong friendship from again.

I've wasted too much time dwelling on what could've been if things went different. Which in turn, becomes an ironic dwell in itself. Dwelling on how I've wasted time dwelling on the past.