2 steps forward, 1 step back

That's how my life feels right now, like I take 2 huge steps forward and then take a step back again. It's so frustrating. I'm being told that I cannot keep looking to the past and letting the past control me, but the problem I have is that I think the past has actually become me, that I am what happened to me and if that is the case then if you take the past away there will be nothing left of me. 

I've said it so many times before but I don't know how to be me anymore, I don't know who I am. I find a glimpse of someone, someone with a bit of self esteem, someone who's happy and confident in herself, and as quickly as I find her she seems to retreat inside me and vanish again. 

So how do I grab this girl and keep her before she vanishes again? How do I even consider letting go of everything I am when I have no idea what will become of me then? If I do find the strength to let go, what will be left, if anything? I have so many questions and yet there really are no answers, the only way I will ever know is to simply take the plunge. I'm getting close, I know I am, closer than I've ever got to finding some sense of normality with the chaos and destruction that's been my mind. The problem is that the closer I get, the more steps forward I take, the harder it pulls me back like a bungee rope. The only hope I have right now, is that even bungee jumpers eventually come to rest on the ground, the bouncing back doesn't last forever, eventually they lose momentum and the rope stops dragging them away from their final destination. All I can do is hope that my rope to the past will eventually lose its momentum too and that one day, I will find the courage to step out of the bungee harness and walk away from the past. One day I will figure out who I am, and that I will be able to be more than just what happened to me. 

2 steps forward and 1 step back, are still steps in the right direction and they mean that I'm still moving forwards, albeit slowly....