Guilt over past

I just keep remembering more and more awful things I’ve done. Why are there so many?! I was just mean and rude for no reason and I wish more than anything that I could take it all back. I feel like no one on earth has messed up as much as I have. Why have I done the things I’ve done? I know that I’ve done good things too, but I can’t remember them because my brain will always throw my worst actions in my face. I was such a rude middle schooler and I had multiple circumstances in high school that I could have gone about much better. I was even rude to someone in front of my entire class over something I believe is a misunderstanding now given the people I was surrounding myself with. I’ve made people cry before, how can I live with myself knowing that I’ve hurt other people’s feelings for absolutely no reason at all? All I want is to start over and I hate that there’s nothing that I can do other than drown in my well deserved guilt and be better moving forward, I want more than that. I want to undo it all, I want to be kind from the beginning. Why did it take me so many years of malice to become good? Everyone else had it figured out sooner. I’m such a bad person and I feel like an enormous coward.

molo

Date posted: 12h

you can start over! you have every day to start over. i know it really doesn’t feel like it, it sounds like you and i share the same ocd type, it’s called scrupulosity! it truly is so exhausting and it leaves you feeling like you’re irredeemable. i’m actually going through a spiral currently myself. nowadays, i often contradict my past beliefs, and i tend to feel like i can’t allow myself to be changed and i HAVE to be the same person i was then and it makes me hate myself. i promise, it is JUST your ocd. what matters is that you have learned from your mistakes. does anyone bring the past up? usually no! and if they do, you don’t owe them anything. it only matters that you have people who will genuinely listen to you instead of judging you based on the past. i also am very neurodivergent and i’m very bad at explaining things, and it makes me even more vulnerable in situations where i have to stand up for myself. focus on the now, if something comes up, it’ll be okay! you can’t change the past, but you have the chance today, tomorrow and the rest of your life to improve and do your part to make the world a better place. and you’ll mess up again! because you’re human. we all are!

ih8mybrain

Date posted: 12h

@molo This means more than you’ll ever know, thank you so much. I think you explained it beautifully. I really hope that you are able to take your own advice as well and I’m sorry you’re also amidst a bad spiral. Guilt is truly one of the worst, but most important emotions, we are able to feel. It’s very difficult to accept the things we cannot change. I don’t want to accept that I was a horrible person, but I was, and I have suffered with tremendous guilt because of that. I can change my character but I can’t alter the past. Now that I have become a better person, I feel incomplete because the one thing I desperately want to change, the past, is simultaneously the only thing I can’t. Guilt is the price of change. Although OCD has destroyed my life in unfathomable ways, it has made me kind. Thank you so much again!

molo

Date posted: 12h

@ih8mybrain i’m so glad that helped!! also remember that our brains don’t work the same way “regular” peoples do! it can make ocd feel really isolating, but you’re never alone with it!! there’s tons of us weirdos 🤣

ih8mybrain

Date posted: 11h

@molo You’re absolutely right😭 It always makes you feel better to know you’re not alone!

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