Cope with guilt

Hello everyone,

First of all want to thanks everyone for the patience to read this.

I'm 26 years old, live in Portugal.

Every single day of my life i can't shake the feeling of guilt, it's unbearable, appalling, chocking me to death, consuming my every cycle of thought on my mind.

I just want to live miserable happy life after what I've done...

!!!Please I beg of you, keep in mind when you read this thread that what I SAW, I've never intended to act on a real child, and being HONEST WITH ALL MY HEART.

Please read the following knowing that:

-I've never touched a child in a sexual way.
-I've never looked or been interest in children in real life.
-Always been attracted to girls of my age or 3 years younger.
-Always dated girls my age or 2 years younger.

My mom is bipolar and my dad has a passive-aggressive behavior, she and my dad fought everyday since I was a kid, divorce came up at 16. During my 15's I was alone, in school everyone would mock me, I didn't had a single friend, my mod since she's bipolar never gave me any love at all, my dad used to beat me for the bad grades and when he was in bad mood. My dad and mom never educated me in what was right or wrong, my mom's motto was "Go do whatever you want", in a tone like get the hell out of here and don't bother me, and then after she would light up a smoke.

I didn't wanted to live at all, I've built a shell that was my room, no rules, no education, no friends, just me and my computer.

Regular pornography was the only comfort I had. It felt good while watching it, the feeling of solitude and despair would disappear for a good moment, it helped me sleep at night, but I never thought it would grow...

I used several ways to find regular pornography, http, emule and edonkey at the time, I always was a computer savvy kid, and one time found a picture of a 11 year old girl naked in the midst of hot adult woman, as I was already aroused by the previous I watched the kid like if was something normal...

Not having any rules in my life I started becoming addicted to child pornography at the age of 15. It started just looking at young girls, but my mind was always in a rush for something more extreme to satisfy the lust and keep going lower in ages, and I didn't cared for the consequences, I got low as 1 year old BUT, as I saw the image of a toddler i felt disgust for myself for the first time, what I was doing was very very wrong.

Time forward I've met my first girlfriend, I was 17 she 15, I felt madly in love with her. I keep my addiction of watching regular porn and child pornography until I was 19, 20 not sure, but no more that that, but still in the relationship with her.

While dating her I've started to socialize like a "normal" (who's normal) human being, making friends, meeting her friends, going out, made 5 best friends who still are today. Life started to look normal.

But here's the catch...

The more I became normal, the more guiltier I've felt about my dark dark past. It started to haunt me everyday, the images of the children I've watched, the movies of sexual acts, every single one of it burned in my memory.

It was then at 21 that I've developed a very strong OCD type of though that haunts me to this day.
Guilt build up so much that I've confessed every single detail of my impure past, from the child pornography to the normal pornography or the sexual fantasies about other girls. The stayed with me.

She and I broke up after 6 years of relationship, I was 24. I don't know if it was the past of mine that triggered it, or hurting her about the fantasies with other girls. At the same time my mom kicked me out of the house, because she wanted to put her boyfriend in our home.

I was devastated, like I wasn't in years, no girlfriend, no future, no job, out of my house traded with some stranger.

I sank deep and resorted to porn again...

This time I really didn't felt attracted to children, but got as low as 14 years old, oh and I've enforced a rule on myself that day, WATCH THEM ONLY IN BIKINIS NO NAKED, while watching girls my age as well, lower ages appeared on the webpage I was looking for on a site called motherless.com, all ranges of ages appear in the same page. I was just a single day, a single incident.

I've recovered from the broke up, came back to the mothers house like before, and decided that wouldn't watch any more porn at all.

For a year I recovered I'm not recently 26, got into college, to Economy degree, very very excited, very confident and porn free, I realized this stupid computer imagery destroyed my life, wasted many of my life's precious years.

Now my problem is... can I walk away with this? Should I confess to the authorities my crimes?

In Portugal, up to 21 years old we have a special statute that only enforces a corrective measure, no jail time.

Child pornography is only considered when the child has 14 or less.

I feel guilty of my single incident at 24, watching those 14 year olds.

I can't approach girls my age because of guilt, of feeling like a monster, afraid they don't accept my past. I love to look at girls my age, fully mature, beautiful looking or having a great personality to deal with, but the gilt makes me not worthy.

I also feel not worthy of nothing good in my life. Any form of happiness I suppress due to guilt.

I feel like I have to be processed by the corrupt legal system controlled by evil persons with bad intentions to the humanity.

I know that if computers didn't exist...I would be a happy person..

My advice to you mate is that you should just get on with your life and forget about the past. You can not change what has already happened, but you can influence what is yet to come. What you did before happened, you can't change it, but you can make sure you don't do it again. So just get on with your life and forget about the things you can't change.

You've done what you've done, you cant change the past but you can influence your present and future by making yourself a better person.
When I do something wrong, then I immediately look for something nice to do toother people so it pretty much works as "erasing the bad with a good action". You could try this. You can be a better person and one action does not define you as a person. We have many sides of our life, we shouldnt condemn ourselves for a bad thing we did when we also have a good, positive side.
I suck at explaining this but I hope you got it.

We have all done some stupid things in the past, but we try to forget and then move on.
You must do the same.
Good luck.