I feel like a horrible person. I was not a good person during the pandemic, did not follow the rules and lied a lot. I feel so so guilty about it now, I can't believe how immoral I was. and now I can't stop confessing. I confessed to some of the people I could've hurt, and they don't care/are telling me to stop feeling guilty. I keep thinking about more details I feel like I need to share, I probably seem really crazy to them because the rational part of me knows they don't care, like this was months ago at this point. I just can't stop, my entire days are consumed by this. My mom has even taken my phone so that I stop texting them because I probably seem insane. I just feel like I don't deserve friends or help or sympathy because of the immoral things I have done. I just want to be happy again, and enjoy life. I feel like I have learned a lot of lessons from this, but I still can't seem to move on.

Yeah I know I need to just accept what I did and just do better. Since posting this I’ve apologized and confessed to two more people that I put at risk. But there’s so many other people at risk abd I’ll never be able to apologize and confess to all of them. Also I’m starting to look insane I think

@Anonymous You don’t “need to do better” necessarily. Who is to say you even did anything wrong. Hell, I barely ever wore my mask and didn’t get the vaccine and did not maintain 6 feet distance. Sure, some people will say you did wrong, but some would people say you didn’t. That’s what you need to accept. And no more confessing!

@Anonymous I’m going to try to stop. There’s other people I put at risk that I’m so tempted to confess and apologize to but I need to resist. They never even got sick ever but still

@Anonymous Morality is confusing and it is impossible to say if you’ve definitively did something right or wrong. For me personally, I try to decide if I did something wrong by considering how it negatively impacts people. So yes, you put people at risk during a pandemic and it is a “bad” thing that you should stop doing but you should stop confessing too. Try to find some forgiveness AND compassion for yourself. It’s hard, but you need to. You can’t change what happened and you already apologized so many times. Don’t give OCD that guilt it wants. Let go. Sometimes we feel so much guilt because we don’t want to feel hated, I know I do. That fear of being judged and hated by others for what we did can be so overwhelming that we choose to feel guilt instead. It’s also hard to grapple with being a “bad” person. We live in a society that puts a lot of weight on morals and being a “good” person, so when we feel like a “bad” person it wrecks us. It hurts. That’s drives that guilt too. Fun fact: I go to a party university. A HUGE one. Do you know how many people didn’t wear masks, partied, went to the club, etc. A LOT. Being someone who worked at a Covid testing center, has health anxiety, and has people in her life who are very immunocompromised, it definitely made me frustrated with those people. I knew a girl who tested positive, knew she was positive, and still went to places and parties unmasked. It infuriated me actually. As much as it made me angry with those people, I wouldn’t say they are “bad” people. They’re PEOPLE who made what I personally consider a bad choice, but they are not bad themselves. It really helped me to learn to separate my actions from myself. You are not your thoughts OR actions. You are a whole being that’s wayyyyy more complex than any of that. That ability to separate actions from the self makes it easier to forgive. You did something that you now consider bad, but you yourself are not a bad person. That person deserves some self compassion.

@stop. I like this response. I also appreciate you saying how you feel that behavior was “bad” and acknowledge that other people may not consider that bad. I personally don’t think masks help and that’s just my opinion so I don’t consider not wearing one “bad.” It’s really all perspective.

Don’t write those letters. It’s a compulsion. That need to apologize and confess is a compulsion in this case. You have to fight against it. I know it seems hard, but you need to break the cycle.

Don’t confess!

@Anonymous Guys I’m going insane. I just sent follow ups to people with more details that feel bad about. I’m about to ruin any chance of getting job references from these people abd I don’t even care

@Anonymous Stop confessing right away

@Anonymous You have to stop. I know it’s hard but you have to sit with being uncomfortable. You cannot keep doing this compulsion.