Pure O

Hi all,

Help please on intrusive thoughts. I have Asperger's, part of which seems to be a near cinematic memory for events that happened in my teens, which were not the best part of my life.

Random events pop in to my head. In particular, I keep coming back to an event and person that I hurt 25 or so years ago and am beating myself up on it every single day of my life. There's no logic to this, I have a loving partner and a family and all the things that should make me happy but I can't get this person/event and other events out of my head. All common sense says that the past is the past and there's nothing I can do about it but I have this image fixed in my head that intrudes at random moments along with other stuff that should have faded into irrelevance years ago. The effect of all this is that it makes me sad even though I shouldn't be. I say sad rather than depressed because I know people with clinical depression and what I get is nothing like it, more a kind of prolonged feeling of regret and guilt.

The "pure o" is something that I read elsewhere that seems to fit the bill but is it? What the hell is going on in my head? Me and this person just drifted apart with no proper ending to our relationship. I think that I still have them in my head as a freeze frame and that if I saw them as they are now, it would break the spell but I don't want to contact them as that would seem a bit creepy from their angle and I wouldn't want to intrude on their life.

What, if anything, can I do about this?

Joolz, talk about that event which happened all of those years ago. You know that talking about it will help you. The past is a dangerous place to look into because we only seem to remember the bad things. Im sure that there are countless good things which happened in your past too... ..?

Hiya Chucky,

I have tried talking about it but it still comes back to haunt me. I think it's that I can't stand the open ended nature of the situation. If you get into a blinding argument and split from someone, there's a resolution. That's better than just drifting apart with no definite conclusion. Before I discovered AS and read up on its effects, it never bothered me because I think I just didn't realise that it was me that was the cause of the problem. Up until that point I'd just put everything down to other people without considering the possibility that I may have been missing or misunderstanding something. With the realisation of the fact that it was me that got it wrong, albeit innocently, I just feel riddled with guilt at the pain that I must have caused this person at the time.

Add to this the abnormal clarity of memory and it's like a piece of me has jumped back to that time. All the bad feeling that most people would have got over back then has become attached to this part of me and can't be shaken off. Believe me, I see the ridiculous nature of the situation and all logic says that I was a different person then and I should just put it down to experience which is almost certainly what the other person did years ago but it just keeps coming back and beating me up and I can't stop it. Said it before and I'll say it again, it is like being haunted. I kinda get the feeling that I'm going to carry this one to the grave.

Hmm, I understand now why you cannot forget about this, but when this type o thing happens to me, I usually just say 'sorry' to the person, and then just try to close the issue. Is there any way that you can get in contact with her again? By saying 'sorry', I can - yeh - just close the issue in my mind and then feel like I can move on and away from it.

Kevin

Chucky wrote:Hmm, I understand now why you cannot forget about this, but when this type o thing happens to me, I usually just say 'sorry' to the person, and then just try to close the issue. Is there any way that you can get in contact with her again? By saying 'sorry', I can - yeh - just close the issue in my mind and then feel like I can move on and away from it.

Kevin

Hiya,

Thanks to Google, I reckon I could make contact with a bit of effort but having screwed up once I don't want to seem like some deranged stalker. However, this may be the only solution so one way or another I'm gonna have to handle the result or learn to deal with it.

In retrospect, I can see that this person was the first one who was honest, straight-up and genuine with me and I repaid this by being a f&(^%&g idiot. Having been raised a Christian, I think one of the main advantages is that there's always someone there to forgive your mistakes. Maybe the truth of the matter is that as a born again athiest, I need to forgive myself but unfortunately, I don't find it as easy.

Cheers,

J

That is a good thing about being religious - yes - but it's never applicable in a practical sense such as this. I mean, you can always say to yourself that God forgives you, but then how do you knowe that this other person does? I highly suggest/believe that she has indeed forgiven you, but it's the not knowing that's killing you. All it would take would be to get her address, write a brief message saying what the purpose of the message is, and then leaving it at that. Do'nt go into a ong 'diatribe' - just leave it short and to the point....

...and then move on. Come on Joolz

Kevin

Yeah, maybe you're right. I do seem to be my own worst enemy, always have been. I do believe that it was forgotten a long time ago at the other end but then I've always had the ability to beat myself up over stuff.

Thanks again mate, helps to talk. How's York by the way? Hope it's going well for you.

Cheers,

jools