Whenever I did bring up something of that nature, my mother would tell me: "just forget about it". That's the 'essential' part of healing - forgetting, or rather, letting go of the emotions that come with those memories.
The thing is ... one doesn't just forget stuff that used to be the definition of their entire life at one point.
I've had a few exs approach me privately on social media lately, and the tagline for the conversations were more or less this:
Him:
I regret ending us. You were one of the best things that happened to me, and I could never really get to that level of comfort with anyone since.
To be honest, I no longer see any point in beating each other up at this point, after "us" had happened so many years before. We made mistakes, we had other priorities at the time, and the state of mind that we were in has brought us to where we are today, whether we like it or not.
We've moved on for so long, there's no point in digging everything up and settling scores - we'll continue living with the good memories and the bad, and cherishing that experience.
I suppose all this is easier to see objectively now that I'm in a much better state of mind than I was several years ago, and that I'm so much happier with my life now compared to the past.
While writing this, I realized that I have my claws dug into the ground, refusing to walk away from that roller coaster I called a relationship - torture and exhilaration. It was good and/or painful while it lasted, but we have walked away from it and shelved it for so long that there's no point in constantly wading through that lake of murky memories.
I've been desperately holding on to the memories and emotions to either validate my past and current psychological struggles, or to make sure I'm dating the right guy now. It sounds trivial, I know, but I was so convinced that he was the one at that time that I overlooked all the red flags. Or more accurately, I chose to "accept" them as the "for worse" part of a relationship - you win some, you lose some.
I would constantly bring up scenarios in the past relationship when they were relevant, with a clear intent to further push his name into the dirt and make him the demon that destroyed my sense of self, as well as our relationship.
For example, when catching up with people I haven't talked to in a while, I would mention how I gained a significant amount of weight because of their relationship, intending to tarnish his name even before they knew him. I would usually be met with a response along the lines of "weight gain is your own fault". While I disagree, and think that the circumstances and emotional fatigue at the time contributed to my weight gain, it does push me out of the bubble to see what I'm doing is in fact just toxic to myself.
I should, just as I have done with my other past relationships, walk away completely, allowing memories to come back if they do and analyze past situations objectively from an almost third-person perspective, as I do with old relationships now, but to also no longer immerse and force myself to hold on to grudges and memories.
There's no need for me to constantly hold on to everything that he did to us, just because I think that he is the one who ruined us... and me. I have so much more now, and the growth curve seems so much better than it did even just a year ago.
But like I said: one does not just forget. Our memories and experiences make us who we are today. I don't delete memories on purpose because they are all that I am, and it's nice to look back once in a while to see how we've grown, and how much more we can grow from here on out.
The memories and words and experiences will stay with me forever... I just strive to no longer look at them through rose-tinted glasses anymore.
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