As time goes on

so I've been thinking alot lately, processing really is a better word... so much clutter in my mind, what memories to keep and which to throw away. at 18 i thought i had gotten over my childhood and was on a good path into womanhood, unfortunatly i was in a realtionship that would keep me really excepting that title for years, i was with a man i loved, and feared, and thought i couldn't live without (materially not emotionally) at 22 i got the courage to leave and opened a whole box of unresolved issues. so at 23 i was living with a new man, one who would give me the tools to stand on my own, to be strong, and to fight all the dark i had faced and survived in my life (even though it would still take me a decade to learn to use those tools) i really began to remember my past (because for the longest time there was nothing under the age of 11) they were photographs in my mind, and some of them i really didn't want to see. i was a mess, i had already fluctuated in serious weight over years, everywhere from a cute and tiny 112 pounds to the upside of 180 a few days after giving birth to my youngest child. i had gotten and beaten and maintained a few drug habits, gotten away from drinking all together, learned to break the cycles of child abuse with my own children, but wasn't raising them (shit the first one to live with me wouldn't be for 8 more years) i always tried to make the best choices with my children, even if it meant not getting what i wanted. i was in intensive thearpy, although those not so pleasent antipsychotics still wouldn't be back in my life for several years either. i found religions (did you catch the plural there?) i just took what i thought applied, and left the rest to the fanatics. and again i faced the past, and again i failed. i thought i made progress, and i did on a small scale, but basically every time i became uncomfortable i ran, i changed, i hid, i moved, i gained or lost weight, i cut my hair or colored it.....funny thing though, no matter where i went, there i was..... fast forward to 2006, my oldest son moves in with me (my first child to escape) i divorce an amazing man of 5 years cause of his fear, and my intimacy issues (most of my life i was a severe sex addict) i got into a relationship with a man 13 years younger than myself.. and again went into denial about my past, thinking i had dealt with my past... boy would i be surprised