is this project of visiting a personal past necessary?

Sitting here trying to finish the 3rd draft of my memoir of a time of joyous light followed by great shadow. Well probably this is really the first real draft. The first two were just excavating and finding the 'data' and then sharing it and conversations with a few people from that time so i could find more fragments. Now the pieces are laid out in a linear way and the task seems huge. Its emotional data and that makes it harder.

Sometimes - like today - i wonder why i am doing this. What is the purpose of re-visiting the past like this? Does it not make more sense to look forward to the future? What can the past possibly have for me?

Yet it has made sense to have spent this time on this project. At first i did not even know that this 'past' was lurking in my shadows. Bringing it out to the light has been its own liberation. Talking to others from that time has shown that the problem that i thought was mostly mine was much bigger and sharing with them has further freed me. Each time i've felt lighter and also more convinced that i need to finish this project.

But sitting down daily to things has been exhausting, depressing even. It's not a blank page i sit down to but a set of dense, chaotic memories. The blank page actually is less daunting but choosing images, feelings, stories from a 3-D page stuffed with them is harder for me. Mostly i keep at it because the dream called me to it and the tarot kept me there when i wanted to give up.

My daughter reminded me that writers have a social responsibility - well maybe not all writers or artists do - but i do identify with being one of those. Time and again people willing to share their stories, to visit and find the 'truth' from traumatic pasts have made it easier for others struggling with the same issues. Yet the issues continue, human behaviour seems not to change much and i wonder why bother. 

There is some literature and help out there for victims of therapeutic abuse but there is more yet that stays under. I think sometimes because people don't even realise what has happened to them or feel that yes, it happened but it can't possibly be affecting me so much. And yet research has shown that therapeutic abuse is as devastating as childhood abuse and leaves deep scars.

So is this project really necessary? I can only say maybe. But i am one of those people who do things without having a solid reason, just because they exist. I know i will finish this. But stay with me some of who read this and send me gentle strength to do so.