Depressed, struggling with guilt, thinking of suicide *TW*

I've struggled with depression (alongside anxiety) for many years (and have had a Dx for several years) and one particular thing that is part of my experiance of depression is intense guilt. Sometimes my guilt is about things which i realise, upon reflection are very minor. However i also struggle with guilt over something far more serious.

TW for sexual abuse from here on:






The things I feel guilty about are from when I was about 16 (perhaps a bit younger, perhaps a bit older, i have trouble remembering exactly when). i'm 21 now (so it's been about 5 years). Anyway, one night, late at night when I knew my sister would be asleep and likely my parents as well, I walked down to my sisters room. My sister is 4 years younger than me, so she would have been 12 at most. I have trouble remembering exactly what I was thinking, but i knew that I intended to try to touch her sexually. I don't know whether my feelings were about curiousity and maliciousness, but either way, I walked over to her bed, and tried to pull back the blackets gently, without waking her. I quickly realized that because of the way she slept I wouldn't be able to do it without waking her, so I just walked away.

Some time later, but probably only a few months later at most, I tried to do the same thing again. I walked down to her room late at night when she was asleep, and again I walked over to her bed with the same intent. I tried to pull the blankets off of her without waking her. This time she sort of struggled against me pulling the blankets away from her, but while still asleep. I kept trying to pull the blankets off her this time but I also didn't want to wake her. At some point, she woke up. I stepped away from the bed as she sat up. She said "oh it was you" and explained that she was having a nightmare where the grim reaper was trying to get her. She innocently assumed I was just shaking her awake or something because she never accused me of anything or got angry. I don't really know. I went back to bed because it was early in the morning and I assume she went back to sleep too.

I don't remember what I thought at the time. It's not until about 2 years later that I can remember really thinking about what I was trying to do. It sort of hit me all at once, at night, as I was trying to get to sleep. I felt so angry at myself. I thought or even hoped that I would be physically smitted by god and damned to hell. I realized what I had done was evil and unforgivable. I realized the fact that I hadn't felt any guilt until then was even more a sign of evil. I realized that even the guilt I felt at that moment couldn't be trusted to be more than self pity. I felt like I wouldn't last that night. I felt, and I know this is ridiculous, that my fear of punishment would kill me.

The next day I told the school councellor (who was also a qualified psychologist). I actually wrote it all down. I thought she was going to have to tell the police and that I would go to jail. However, to my surprise she just talked to me about the meaning of what I'd done and that she didn't think I was evil or deviant or a danger. She said that unless I did something like that again she had no intention of telling police and she thought i wasn't at risk of doing it again.

I still don't understand why she was forgiving. I still think I deserve to die. I still feel like I don't feel guilt like normal people feel it and like my remorse is not genuine. I have never told my sister, based on the psychs advice that telling her wouldn't solve anything and would actually, ironically, show signs of self indulgent. I think I sort of understand what she's saying.

I don't know what to do. I still think i should kill myself but I don't think I could go through with it. I've never actually completed an unsucessful suicide attempt. Every time I backed out at the last minute, so i've never even "attempted suicide" really. I want to end it. I don't deserve happiness or anything. I deserve death but I'm always too afraid or something.

I always want to believe "i don't deserve to die" but I know that's #######4. I deserve to die. I'm just a coward and an evil person who refuses to accept that they don't deserve to live.

Hey Cathy7673, I read your post, can relate to feeling so much guilt all the time. Though, unlike you, I don't remember anything that might make me feel guilty for a reason. I could think of some things but not one specific thing.

You say you wanted to try to touch your sister in a sexual way and tried this a couple of times. The way you describe it, it sounds to me like you were probably very curious, and not neccecarily attracted to your sister? And your age probably made you very hormonal whilst not having a fully developed brain at the time (brain isn't comepletely done developping the parts that regulate thinking about consequences etc. until 20-25 years). These are things that probably contributed to you having done this. I'm trying to say that you're not just evil or bad. And alot of people probably do this or struggle with these feelings at some point. It's good that you didn't go through with it. You didn't want to harm her I suppose. If you didn't want to harm her I don't think I coul call you evil or bad. Maybe just, curious, young, hormonal and thoughtless.

The point at which you got hit by the realisation of what you had been trying to do is probably the point at which you had matured enough to deal with these types of thoughts and feelings. You realising it was bad and feeling guilty about it means you are a good person.

I think you having trouble dealing with this guilt because of the way you are thinking about it now. You can't see past how wrong you think it is to have done. And you won't allow yourself to reason about it to an extent that would make it possible for you to forgive yourself. This is maybe resulting in you feeling guilty for basically anything, the pervasive guilt you feel is latching on to anything you could blame yourself for.

You are really thinking about what you have done, you know right from wrong and feel remorse. You have not intent of ever doing something like that again. I think there is no need to feel like you have to be punished or commit suicide over this. You might want to try and be more forgiving to yourself. What is it that makes it impossible for you to forigive yourself?

Yokker wrote:Hey Cathy7673, I read your post, can relate to feeling so much guilt all the time. Though, unlike you, I don't remember anything that might make me feel guilty for a reason. I could think of some things but not one specific thing.

You say you wanted to try to touch your sister in a sexual way and tried this a couple of times. The way you describe it, it sounds to me like you were probably very curious, and not neccecarily attracted to your sister? And your age probably made you very hormonal whilst not having a fully developed brain at the time (brain isn't comepletely done developping the parts that regulate thinking about consequences etc. until 20-25 years). These are things that probably contributed to you having done this. I'm trying to say that you're not just evil or bad. And alot of people probably do this or struggle with these feelings at some point. It's good that you didn't go through with it. You didn't want to harm her I suppose. If you didn't want to harm her I don't think I coul call you evil or bad. Maybe just, curious, young, hormonal and thoughtless.

The point at which you got hit by the realisation of what you had been trying to do is probably the point at which you had matured enough to deal with these types of thoughts and feelings. You realising it was bad and feeling guilty about it means you are a good person.

I think you having trouble dealing with this guilt because of the way you are thinking about it now. You can't see past how wrong you think it is to have done. And you won't allow yourself to reason about it to an extent that would make it possible for you to forgive yourself. This is maybe resulting in you feeling guilty for basically anything, the pervasive guilt you feel is latching on to anything you could blame yourself for.

You are really thinking about what you have done, you know right from wrong and feel remorse. You have not intent of ever doing something like that again. I think there is no need to feel like you have to be punished or commit suicide over this. You might want to try and be more forgiving to yourself. What is it that makes it impossible for you to forigive yourself?

I feel like the "hormonal" explanation is just a cop-out. Hormones are not a magic hand that would have been capable of pushing me towards doing that. I was the person who tried to touch their sister sexually while their sister was asleep. That is evil, and that person deserves to be punished and death would be a most fitting punishment. I may have been younger, but I was still old enough I think to be held responsible for that. What I was trying to do was evil in and of itself. I feel it was evil enough that I shouldn't just be allowed to live and move on from it. Whether it was malevolence or curiosity that motivated it makes no difference. For many years I wanted to believe it did, but it doesn't.

You ask why it's impossible for me to forgive myself? Because it is unforgivable. Why should I forgive myself? The hormone reason? That's a cop-out, hormones don't make you do something like that. The "I was just young" reason? I was old enough that I should have known better.

Yokker, you asked me what makes it impossible for me to forgive myself. Put it like this. I want you to imagine that someone told you the story I just told you, except that story was a confession, where that person was admitting they had tried to touch you in your sleep. You were 12 at the time they tried to do this, and they were around 16. The person telling the story is an older sibling.

Would you really forgive them? Be honest. If you wouldn't, well, that is enough. I don't know if I'd forgive if I was in that situation. I have never told my sister, because I'm not sure if it would really be helpful, but I'm pretty sure she would NEVER forgive me.

I would forgive you 100%. I'm saying that because I have forgiven (much) worse without ever receiving an apology.

You simply have got to believe that what you did was not SO evil as you are thinking it is. You make it sound like it's the worst thing that anyone can do. You know full and well that there are so much more horrible things going on every day, horrible torture without any remorse. Thas is evil, and that is unforgiveable.

Hormones are not a 100% explanation, neither is your age. But those two combined with maybe some other factors make it explainable beyond just saying you are evil. Really saying you are evil is just juvenile.

There are so many boys/girls like you out there, who have done something like you have done or worse. And when they grew up they realised it was wrong and stopped and/or repented. These people are now in alot of cases probably good, healthy, sane, nice, productive people.

If you are honest with yourelf, and not just plain cruel, you could realise some things about yourself and why you did this. You could for example realise you were maybe impulsive? Thoughtless? Maybe your conscience was underdeveloped at the time? Maybe you were troubled in other ways?
regardless, when you realise these things, they become things you can change about yourself. We as persons can change so that our past does not define us. Life is not just One strike you're out.
There is a reason you are not being put to death for this or put in jail. The reason is that what you did is just not so bad as you think it is.

I understand why you can be so hard on yourself, when you realised what you had done you were shocked at the fact that you would want to do something sexual with your sister without her consent. Which could be incestuous and abusive. You now feel as if you are an incestuous abuser?
Now ask yourself if you want to do this, do you want to abusive your sister sexually? If the answer is no then who are you now? Depressed brother who made a bad mistake and has changed since?

It's just hard to believe what I did is worth forgiving. Also I'm a girl. Cathy is my own name, not my sisters name. I know you probably assumed because of the scenario that I must have been a boy and her brother but I'm not. I know that shouldn't change your view of the situation, but it might and I know it might change other peoples points of view.

It's hard to believe because you've been so fixated on how horrible you feel it was. But allow yourself to believe what I've written.

I did think you were a boy, the fact that you're a girl doesn't change anything fundamental really.

To add to my previous post, think about it like this. You have not harmed anyone in any way. You may have intented to do something that would have hurt someone but you didn't. The fact that you didn't actually matters. You have to deal with the difficult implications of what you wanted to do, and is sounds like you allready have to some extent. You realised what you did/wanted to do was wrong and feel remorse. You can deal with this in a more mature way of you allow yourself to believe that there is more to this tna just being evil. And if what I say has any value because of what I dealt with believe me when I say this. You are not evil and you may start to learn how to deal with this and forgive yourself.