- Date posted
- 2y
I feel horrible (real event ocd)
long post ahead and trigger warning: a few years ago I started talking to/ dating this person and right at the beginning I did something horribly disrespectful and invasive to them. At the time I thought nothing of it. We ended up falling in love and had a committed relationship. Everything was amazing. As the months went on, I had learned more about their previous hardships they’ve faced in their life and with that the realization of the weight of my actions along with the shame and guilt and regret that came with it started to tear me apart. I owned up to my actions and confessed to my partner. They were rightfully very upset, but we worked through it! I did everything I could to show them the value they had and how much I truly loved and cared for them. We dated for almost 2 years after that. One day they became distant, and a week or so after that they had told me essentially that the incident from years ago came back up and, they didn’t truly heal from my actions, and that they had just pushed them to the side and tried to take care of it themselves but were suffering in silence the whole time. They vocalized that they loved me, but also how much weight my actions carried and how they didn’t know if they could trust me ever again and that they felt uncomfortable to be near me. Ultimately it started with a break then full breakup and ended it on a “it’s not forever” note and that we’d stay in contact, but as the months have gone on they have completely stopped communicating with me. I had made a couple attempts to reach out every few weeks to no word. Now I’m in distress because I feel crippling shame over my careless shitty behavior I had all those years ago. It came back even worse than before. I keep worrying about whether I’ve become this vile irredeemable person, and I think about what they said about the weight of my actions and I just can’t forgive myself. I want to be judged harshly because I feel I deserve it. But I also have to deal with the moral scrupulosity of whether or not I confessed or apologized too much or too little over the whole situation. And I had loved this person so much and planned our futures together and now that’s gone. It just feels like I’ve ruined my entire being. My life goal was to be a good father and husband and now the person I planned that with has left me and is disgusted by me. At least that’s how it feels. I’ve done what I can to give myself self respect and give them their space. And maybe one day they will reach out and we will clear things up. It’s possible. But maybe they won’t. And that’s also possible and completely understandable. My moods flip on a dime to either ‘fine’ or just crippled with shame and regret to the point of feeling suicidal. I’m just so tired of feeling like shit all the time over something i did all those years ago that in that moment I didn’t give a second thought over their repercussions. Now I’ve hurt myself and the person I’ve loved most and I’m just scared if either will be able to heal or if it’s even worth me healing because I feel like my whole life now is just pointless and aimless. It’s terrible. I started therapy again and have talked to my therapist about this. It just comes and goes in waves of anger shame. Ugh. If you read all that thanks. I know I’m probably not supposed to do this for real event ocd and I hope this wasn’t just a huge compulsion.