- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
This is some pretty heavy real event, but I relate. I know what it feels like to not be a good person for an amount of time. OCD wants you to feel guilty. It wants you to feel guilt and never let go. No matter how many people forgive you and tell you it’s okay, OCD wants you to be guilty. So to beat it, you need to relieve the guilt. You realized you did something wrong and you apologized (only need to do so once). That’s it. Now time to move forward. Moving forward involves forgiving yourself. I know it’s super hard to forgive yourself when you feel like such an immoral person, but forgiving yourself is key to moving forward. Part of learning is failing. And sometimes when we fail we do really bad shit, but we get the most important lessons from those failures. It’s okay. Any more apologizing and confessing from this point on is just a compulsion. Resist it and work on forgiving yourself and accepting yourself for who you were, are, and going to be.
- Date posted
- 4y
We are not defined by what some people may consider “wrong.” Some people are perfectly confident that wearing a mask was unnecessary, and some people felt the opposite. Who gets to decide what’s right? And don’t we all do things we think may not be 100% “right” sometimes? (For example, we all lie/leave out details of stories). Doing something someone may consider “wrong” or that you feel is “wrong” looking back at it does not make you a bad person. Stop confessing immediately, this is a compulsion. Just so you know, these are my obsessions and compulsions too so I can relate.
- Date posted
- 4y
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
- Date posted
- 4y
@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!
- Date posted
- 4y
@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
- Date posted
- 4y
@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.
- Date posted
- 4y
@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.
- Date posted
- 4y
Thanks guys for your responses. They really help. I would wear a mask like at grocery stores and stuff, but I wouldn’t wash it regularly so I don’t know how much it would help. I’m about to write letters to more people to apologize. It’s going to seem weird but I feel like I have to. My problem is that I can’t possibly apologize to everyone and it’s killing me
- Date posted
- 4y
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.
- Date posted
- 4y
Don’t confess!
- Date posted
- 4y
@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
- Date posted
- 4y
@Anonymous Stop confessing right away
- Date posted
- 4y
@Anonymous You have to stop. I know it’s hard but you have to sit with being uncomfortable. You cannot keep doing this compulsion.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w
so, i’ve talked here before about the discord community i used to be in. they were rpg servers, there were adults and minors both in the community, and while there were rules against NSFW, jokes were definitely still made and lines were crossed. i was 19 at the time, and though i’m fairly certain i never made and explicit sexual jokes or remarks, i was still there when others did. my best friend did make suggestive jokes, and i still laughed. i didn’t leave. i feel guilty and tainted and like this is the end of the line for me- i have a following and an online career, and it feels like all of that is going to go up in smoke, because i didn’t realize that being friends with young teens as an 18-19 year old could be weird, or risky. i feel like this is proof of every bad thing that i’ve worried i am. if i could be there, and be okay with all the things that were said and joked about and just ignore them, what else am i capable of? i love my life, and my family. i don’t want them to see me as a monster. my mom thinks i’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but i don’t know if i agree with her. i’ve looked at other cases of people who have been cancelled for being inappropriate around minors online, sending inappropriate photos or making jokes and their entire lives go up in smoke. Is that me? they’re labeled every horrible thing under the sun. did they just not think? I don’t know what i’ll do if people believe that about me. my worst fear feels like it’s coming to life before my eyes after lying dormant and tugging at the back of my mind for almost 4 years. I fought the urge to re-read old chats for that long, but i finally gave in, and while i still haven’t found anything i said or did that could be considered incriminating, i remember new things every time the last worry starts to settle. I tried to log back into old instagram accounts to check old chats there, and remembered i’d already deleted them in a panic, so now i’ll never know, and it feels like the fact that i felt guilty enough to delete the accounts at all is incriminating enough. I don’t think i can ever move past this. i don’t deserve to be here- i’m actually a monster, and i ruined my life before it even started.
- Date posted
- 24w
hi im experiencing a lot of anxiety and guilt right now. im 16 now but in the past i said many offensive bad things, slurs and racist jokes with my friends. it was disgusting and im not proud of this. I'd never say those stuff to an actual black people to idk make fun or shame them because im not actually racist, i could never hate another person just because their skin colour is different. but i did say disgusting stuff as "a joke" and i feel very guilty about this. I don't think i was always a bad person but for around two years i was just acting mean and pretty shitty. i wish i could turn back time, but that's not possible. i was talking about stuff I didn't have a clue about, i said n word just because "its just a word, it's not that deep!". but now i know it's really more than that. yet I can't move on. i keep thinking about it so much i want to throw up. I can't look in the mirror now i don't know what to do. lately im trying to become a better person, be nice to people close to me and just to finally feel good. but i feel like I don't deserve to change and i create scenarios that people will bring up my past when ill finally be a better person.
- Date posted
- 18w
I have recently entered a phase of extremely obsessive thoughts of every mistake I’ve ever made. Things from over a decade ago, things that happened recently, or even things currently happening like my own thoughts and feelings that I have no control over. Ever since I was little I have been a habitual liar. For the most part, I just tell little white lies or exaggerated stories. I even lie about things that don’t matter at all, like if I’ve seen a certain movie or something. But I have also lied about some serious things, like bad things happening to me, like abuse or SA. (DISCLAIMER - I’ve never accused anyone of these things to the police or anything like that). I hate that I’ve done this and I feel so disgusted with my behavior. I’ve been obsessing over this and unable to forgive myself or feel better about doing this. I feel like such a sick human being. I know most of the reasons for why I lie—attention, sympathy, to seem more interesting, to relate to someone, or to even pretend that my life is better than it is. I never ever have any bad intentions when I lie, but I know that doesn’t mean a whole lot. Sometimes I lie so naturally that I don’t even realize it, and sometimes I lie to the point that I actually believe what I’m saying. Somethings wrong with me and I don’t want to be this way anymore. I hate myself and I feel like I’m being tortured with this guilt. I feel like I don’t deserve to ever feel better because this is a result of my own actions. I have a group of girl friends that I met online that I’ve known for about 3 years. I lied about and insinuated that bad things had happened to me to them, because I wanted to relate to them and maybe because I wanted sympathy. I was actually emotionally abused by my ex, and he did kind of get physical with me one time (if I’m remembering correctly, but my OCD doubts if that even actually happened), but I have exaggerated and said that I was abused physically. I also have portrayed my life to be completely different than it is, because I hate my life and I like to pretend that things are better than they are. In a way, I feel like it’s a form of escapism. When I talk to them, I can pretend that I’m a different person. A more interesting, less pathetic, and more relatable person. I’ve lied to them so much that I can’t even begin to remember them all, and I feel so disgusted by myself, and the guilt of this is adding onto my other debilitating guilt. I can’t stop obsessing over it and I feel like I’m an awful person for this. I feel like I don’t deserve to feel better. I’m unable to function, and I can’t forgive myself no matter what. I know that if I confess to them, they’ll be disgusted by my behavior and not want to speak to me again. Especially because I lied about things that are so sensitive. And they’re perfectly within their right to feel that way and to reject me. I don’t know if I can handle the rejection and stress of confessing at this moment in time. I also just can’t even remember all of my lies. But if I keep talking to them, I’ll have to upkeep my lies, and I know I’ll never get better if I keep having to lie. None of my lies have caused them any actual harm, most of my lies are harmless, and it’s not like I’ll ever actually meet them in person, but I feel like I’ve gone against my morals, and I know that it was wrong. Even though my ex is an awful person and put me through hell, I feel bad that I’ve told these girls online that he’d abused me when he actually hasn’t (other than the one time he sorta got physical with me). He even has been going around telling people things about me and degrading me, and this has been going on for nearly 10 years. But I know it was wrong to lie about that regardless of what he’s done or what he’s actively doing to me. The girls don’t have his full name or info or anything like that, they just know his first name and that he’s my ex and that he “physically abused” me. I don’t ever lie out of malice. My dad is a pathological liar and he’s never received help, and I feel like I’ve learned his behavior. I especially feel bad because one of my online friends gave me an extremely expensive gift for my birthday last October, and I didn’t ask for it or anything or manipulate her into giving it to me, but I feel awful that she gave me a gift when I’ve lied about so many things. It’s also not something I can give back since it was an online thing, and I genuinely don’t have the money to pay her back. I feel like I’ve been living a lie and that it’s unfair to them. I am so so scared to tell the truth. I think I’d be less scared if I was only admitting it to one person, but I’d be admitting it to three. I know that they’ll think I’m terrible, disgusting, and that they’ll hate me, and then they’ll probably talk about how awful I am with each other. Which is perfectly justified. I just am so scared of it. I’m in a really bad state of mind. I can’t function and all I do all day is lay around and obsess over all my mistakes. I know the lying is out of my control to a certain extent and that I have a problem and mental illness, but I still can’t forgive myself. I feel disgusting and awful and like I’m a bad person and no matter what I do, I’m reminded of it. I feel like I’m going crazy and that I deserve to feel this way for what I’ve done. And I feel hopeless because I feel like I won’t ever feel better from this unbearable state unless I confess, but I really don’t feel like I’m ready. Every day I become more and more certain that I’m terrible.
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