How does one let go of the past

when it won't let you go?
Post traumatic stress disorder is a pretty tough condition to deal with, and I cannot imagine how much more difficult it must be for soldiers, who have experienced the horror of war.
I find that I have no clue what will trigger mine. I know that smoking pot helps stop the fragmentation of my mind, which I can only describe as viewing a kaleidescope of broken chards of glass.
2011 was (with the exception of the years my Dad died, my lovely Aunt Tricia died and my beautiful cousin, Stewart died) the worst year. Even worse than working for Jack Craigo and being cheated by Chrysalis, a company I gave my loyalty to and turned down many job offers to stay with them. This included an invitation by Joe Smith to start the publishing companies for Electra/Ayslum/Nonesuch and I still feel a complete idiot for not taking that job. So much pain would have been avoided. My trust in people I looked up to, broken
In spite of all that one of my brothers has done to me; because again I was an idiot and came back to Los Angeles to help him keep his two daughters (lost all of my money and 90% of my furniture); I sent him an email asking for peace between us, but no response.
How does one let go of that hurt, when that brother has been with me all of my life and we used to have so much fun together as children, just discards me?
Franca Cavaricci (someone I met through managing the most difficult artist I encountered in over 30 years in the music business!) has helped me tremendously and made me laugh as we share our problems. She is an inspiration.
Cindy is another such woman friend. Anyone listening to us share our various illnesses and trials and tribulations, laughing hard all the way through, would probably think us fit for a sanitorium.
So many what ifs in my life. I hope that there is a parrallel world (love Stephen King and his Towers series), in which I am once again the smiling child who ran through the green fields of my mother's birth place, Liscarroll in County Cork.
May we all have a happy New Year and a much better 2011, especially for those people, who have lost their homes, their jobs, families living in a motel rooms, and the estimated 54% who survive on food stamps. May we not lose anymore people whose lives were in such despair, they could not go on living.
As we go forward into 2011:
may President Obama succeed (and be allowed to) in changing the corruption perpetrated by the previous government and that has penetrated throughout the country. May he change America back to the country I first moved to, where although I was a bit confused that an actor could become President, we had some equality.
May the 10% of the people who own 90% of the wealth in the world become more charitible and think of others. May Warren Buffet and Bill Gates with their inspiring desire to share their wealth and help the needy, turn towards this country as well as America (although I do not know whether this is true as I have only heard this). May others join them.
May people like Angelina Jolie and Bradd Pitt continue their efforts to make a difference not only in foreign countries, however, as they did in New Orleans.
May we never ever again see people crowded into a stadium in awful conditions, because an ineffective government could not do their appointed jobs and allowed such awful suffering.
May women at last have more meaningful roles in government, may there be more of the and may we leave behind the absolutely ridiculous notion that women are not equal to men. May we have women leaders like Golda Meir, and not like Maggies Thatcher. May women learn that they do not have to do things the way men have, however, use their difference to make a difference.