Hi everybody! How are you doing? How do you handle real event themes when you know you’ve done some wrong things in the past? Yeah I was younger, and yeah I changed. But the “what if anyone finds out about it?” is always there. So exhausting… I can’t really go on like this.
This is genuinely the hardest part of Real Event because other people's reactions to your event are the one thing you can't control. One thing that's helped me is to put a scenario like that into context and stop catastrophizing because if you're anything like me you immediately assume everyone would think the worst of you LOL One of my compulsions has always been searching up similar events to mine online or even just stumbling upon others opinions about the topic randomly. I would always absorb their negative views despite the fact that they're complete strangers to me and are speaking behind a screen. Some important things to remember in this regard is that people in real life almost never respond as negatively as one might when hiding online, and even if people close to you do find out they would most likely act much more compassionate than you imagine. They like you because they enjoy the person you are now; showing growth from a past event shouldn't be something that pushes them away.
@mjr-rust Hi there. I agree with you, I guess that not being able to control what others might feel about us or how others will react is what makes us the most nervous about this whole topic. I know that the people who love me are understanding and would probably never judge me, but whenever I spiral, I picture this problem in a bigger scale. It’s like, I somehow start to think that society or in general anyone will think that I’m a terrible person for whatever past mistake I ever made. This also has a lot to do with modern cancel culture, if you know what I mean. There’s no realistic point in ruminating about these things because it’s nothing we can be certain of, but I can’t help it.
I also struggle with this, especially right now. I really just wish I didn’t think about my past mistakes & real event at all because it makes me feel so bad about myself. I’m trying really hard. I just want to be present in my life right now & forget the past mistakes & be able to look back at that time in my life with joy for the good things that were going on for me & not dwelling on the bad. You are not alone. Best wishes to you & I hope you feel better soon. 🩷
@Sunshine79 Hi there. Thank you for your kind words. It’s so exhausting to not be at peace with your own self.
This is my exact situation, I am so fixated on the fact that “what if anyone finds out” and it’s been ruining my life because I can’t change what I did when I was younger when I really didn’t know. The only thing that helped for a bit was searching up things about Real event OCD and it’s this woman called Christie Hodges and she talks about people who go through real event OCD from childhood experiences
@mxi-k Hi there, thank you so much for your recommendation, I’ll check it. And yeah, we can’t change what’s been done in the past and the only thing left is to forgive ourselves and move on, obviously learning from our mistakes. But it seems like that’s too hard for us :(
I know exactly how you feel. I often mentally review the past and feel upset about my actions that have really occurred. I try to give myself grace and compassion as much as possible and think of the context of the situation. You got this, hang in there.
@halloweenlover Hi there. Ugh, yeah, I hate it when mental reviewing. Sometimes I will also experience false memory because of the excessive overthinking.
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