I'm Being Followed By A Dark, Cloaked/hooded Entity

The first time I recall seeing him was when I was around 8 years old. My bed had recently been moved to face the window in my room. It was nighttime but quite well lit outside and I saw this cloaked, black figure with a hood covering most of his face. What I could see of his face was white and maybe translucent and there seemed to be some blood dripping down it. I'm not sure if I would say he was solid but I did see him very clearly.

The next time I saw him was when I was around 12 or 13. I was sitting in my basement (different home) with a friend, facing her. I blinked and in my mind's eye I saw the basement from her perspective somehow and saw him standing behind me in a doorway.

I went to a little wiccan shop and scared the daylights out of the owner. She basically ran away as soon as I entered the store. Her husband told me that she sensed some dark energy about me. I took this as me having darkness in my aura.

The order of events gets a little foggy from here, and there were plenty of paranormal experiences in this time frame that may or may not have to do with this particular entity so I'll leave those out for now but I should point out that after the basement incident I made the very poor decision to use a ouija board in that basement. I wanted to contact my uncle but I believe I invited in other spirits and perhaps allowed this entity to gain a stronger hold on me.

Shortly after that I started hearing him in my head. It sounds crazy, and maybe it is, but he was communicating with me very clearly and non-threateningly. He told me his name (which I have since forgotten) and quite a bit about who he supposedly was. I don't remember all of the details but he claimed to be someone from one of my past lives that was very similar to this one in which I committed suicide at the age of 17. He implied that he was trying to help me.

Things started to get scary for awhile and I assumed it was this spirit and that he was trying to trick me somehow so I decided to do a binding ceremony. Considering the fact that I was in my early teens and had no idea what I was dealing with (still don't but I'd like to think I'm a little more cautious now) I don't think it went as planned.

He stopped talking in my head. I haven't exactly seen him since. But I have felt him, although I wasn't sure if it was him or not at the time. My husband has caught glimpses of him in every house we have lived in (5 different locations) and thought that it was something haunting him. I have saged my homes. I have cleansed this home of negative energies. But there is something here.

The reason I'm writing about this now is because last night I had a conversation with someone who barely knows me. She is my step brother's girlfriend and we haven't spoken much but my mom brought up the shop incident and asked what it was that the owner had said to me. When I answered that my energy bothered her she said that she didn't think it was mine. She said that when she first met me she also had to leave quickly because she saw a cloaked figure standing behind me and that he didn't want anyone else near me. She's very scared of him and didn't even want to say anything to me about it. She didn't want to admit that he was there last night, too, but he was. What threw me off was that she described him to a T without ever knowing my story.

So, here I am at 26 years old, this entity has been following me around for around 18 years. I thought he was gone. I have gone back and forth between feeling like he is malevolent and feeling like he is a misunderstood guiding spirit... But either way I feel like he is hindering me from reaching my full potential.

Does anyone have any advice or experience with something similar? Especially considering I believe I have bound him to me? I'm not sure I should release him from his binding because he could be malevolent and I don't want to release that into the world, but I would also like to be free of him.