As for the freedom that comes from owning up to one's faults, Steve, an old friend of mine, says:
… The pivotal experience came inexplicably and unexpectedly: I was suddenly aware what an enormous avalanche of wrongs I had left behind me. Before, this reality had been masked by pride adn by my wanting to look good in front of others. But now, memories of everything I had ever done wrong poured out of me like a river of bile. All I wanted was to be free, to have nothing dark and ugly and hidden within me; I wanted to make good, wherever I could, the wrongs I had done. I had no excuses for myself - youth, circumstances or bad peers. I was responsibile for what I had done. On one page after another I poured it all out in clear detail. I felt as though an angel of repentance was slashing at my heart with his sword, such was the pain. I wrote dozens of letters to people and organizations I had cheated, stolen from, and lied to. Finally I felt truly free.
Source: Johann Christoph Arnold - Why Forgive?, pp.168-169